I’m not sure where I am again. I’m tired, unable to move my hands and feet. It’s just a plain, blue sky above my head and the rough, cold ground below me. I turn my eyes and see destroyed buildings all around me, but I still can’t keep the fleeting images of my memory inside my head. It’s like the longer I look at my surroundings, the more the images leak away from my mind.

I feel cold and alone; the other Jay hasn’t said a thing for so long that I totally forgot about him. Did he exist in the first place? Was I trapped in the body of a platinum-skinned asshole for all these years or was everything in my head this long?

I’m not so sure anymore. Right now, all I want to do is rest. Close my eyes and sleep until my power returns.

A moment passes, and I’m on my feet, on the roof of the same cursed building from all these visions. Only this time I’m perfectly aware that I’m in a dream and not another vision from the cube. I look around me totally apathetic; I feel fear, but I don’t show it. I feel anger, but my heart beats slowly like I’m sleeping.

Surely, there’s someone here that can help me get away from this painless dream. I want to tear my head apart to feel something, to feel alive, but all I get is an empty, white dream.

I hear the hinges of an old door squeak behind me; it’s the same fucking thing every time.

“I don’t understand! What it’s going on? What do you want from me?” I shout at the wind, but the only thing coming out from my mouth is a sigh.

I’m ready to get on my knees and tear my skin apart with my teeth just to feel something.

But then I see the person coming out of the squeaking door.

“Lenora?” My jaw falls after I see her walking out of the building. “Lenora, is that you?” I scream.

She turns and looks at me with the same expression on her face like the last time I saw her. When was the last time I saw her?

Jasih...her voice echoes inside my head.

“I’m sorry, Lenora. I should have known better,” I say. Only that I didn’t open my mouth.

Her face slowly cracks into a faucet of pure sadness and agony. Her mouth hangs open, a perfect example of regret.

I feel a sudden pain in my chest; it’s the other Jasih.

Lenora! Come back! Don’t let her go. LENORA!

But she doesn’t even turn to look at me now; instead, she walks to the edge of the roof. Without even hesitating, she climbs on the ridge and turns to look at me.

“Goodbye,” she says out loud, and then the cube appears out of nowhere and pushes her over the edge.

A small explosion of light blinds me, but I follow her close behind. I jump behind her in what it seems like an eternity and see her fall towards the ground fast. We’re now both falling. I close my eyes just before we hit the ground, but I don’t feel a thing. Not pain, not anything. Instead, I open my eyes again only to see her damaged body lying next to a little, black cube emitting a red light.

I look around me and try to understand. I’m not sure that everything in my mind still clicks, but everything looks so damn familiar. I...I think I’ve been here before.

I feel a light shining deep into my head, and then everything comes to the surface. All my decisions, everything that I thought from the day I learned about the cube, the Nusae, seemingly everything that actually took me to this exact moment.

Lenora died so that I wouldn’t have to get trapped in the cube, and then the cube brought me back to life as the key to unlocking it. I got back to my ship all by myself and got into the cryo-pod trying to hide from everyone that would want to use the cube to destroy another civilization. And still, even though I know that I was there, it still feels that I wasn’t the one that did all these things.

It’s because you didn’t. Lenora was my wife, and you were just a parasite unable to have thoughts back then. The Cube gave you the life it took from her!

After hearing that last word, I wake up, dripping wet from that endless dream. I look around me and see that I’m sleeping inside a tent on the edge of the camp. Someone is still awake, but I don’t have the strength to get up and see for myself. I try to calm down, but I can’t. It’s like my heart decided it’s time to abandon me and is trying to jump its way out of my chest.

It takes me a moment to recollect my thoughts again. Everything is clear to me now. Back in the glorious Esuh days, I had a wife named Lenora. In the last days of our empire, Lenora and I found out about the Nusae plan to use the cube to destroy us. The emperor himself didn’t know anything about the danger looming over our species, but back then we, the best couple of First Kinds, decided we were enough to retrieve it and save our species.

Only that we were too late. When we found out that the Cube was on Primordial Earth, the chosen Nusae had activated it and chose to kill the Esuh as revenge for all the years of war that we inflicted upon them. We managed to find him, but the Nusae culprit disappeared into thin air after the cube stopped working. It was too fucking late.

An hour after the incident, the cube came back to life and started chasing us. We run, split, did everything we could to get out of its way, but it had decided that one of us would be its next victim.

And we knew what that would mean for the chose one; certain death.

So, Lenora came up with a plan to save us both. At least that’s what she said at that time. She lead us at the top of a building. She gave me a kiss, and before I could do anything, she jumped from the roof. I jumped behind her, only for the cube to choose her in mid-air and save me from dying. The cube needs a key and a lock both, so she became the lock and I the key. She knew that the cube was after her from the start, so she decided to take the jump to protect me. But, what she didn’t expect was that the cube would choose her even after death, and make me the chosen one.

The memories are still coming in fast. I don’t remember the details of our exchange that night, but remembering everything else is a great relief and a curse. Now I know the truth, and killing Phadh would only keep this vicious circle from never stopping.

Suddenly, I want to see Eladia. I want to tell her everything about my dream. I use every ounce of my strength to sit on the ground. Light is coming from outside. I see two shadows standing above the humming generator.

It’s Eladia and Cross, sitting close to each other, talking like two lovers in hiding.

I feel my blood boil from anger and all I want is to gut both of them alive. I feel something breaking inside me, and I forget everything about the dream and my decision to save the Phadh.

Right now, all humans must die.