Rebecca can’t focus. The grunts in the next booth, the dull thud of her own boots—everything drags her mind elsewhere. The simulated combat feels hollow, a pointless routine. The metal fibers in her limbs follow her commands with mechanical precision, but her thoughts scatter, leaving openings. The AI combat robot exploits them. She loses every round.

  The conversation with Vanessa replays, not for what Vanessa said, but because of her own words: “Only one of us will leave this place alive.”

  For the first time, training offers no solace. No relief. It does nothing against the gnawing uncertainty that plagues her mind.

  Midway through the session, she leaves. The locker room offers relative privacy. Her fingers move on instinct, reaching for her phone. She stares at it, as though she’s holding a living being that should not be awakened. Notifications flood the screen—Reese’s fervent fans. She brushes them away. Opens the music app, then closes it. Opens the AI chat. Live’s version. Useless. She can’t trust it. Social media goes ignored. Instead, she opens the search engine.

  And then—nothing. She doesn’t even know what she’s looking for.

  But more notifications flood the screen, just as distracting as the failed training session. On impulse—a self-destructive one—she clicks on one of the posts and scrolls through the comments, eyes half-closed.

  To her surprise, his fans, the hardcore ones, are organizing on her behalf. They claim it’s for Reese. His happiness is all they want. Their obedience mirrors that of the devout.

  She knew he had a way with words, that his influence was a force to be reckoned with. They got him a brand-new guitar, for god’s sake. But this—how does he even do it?

  A single comment snags her attention, buried beneath layers of adulation and reluctant approval. A simple yet profoundly unsettling statement: "We all know Reese is going to win. This show is scripted. Every year is the same."

  Rebecca reads that single comment a thousand times, somehow expecting it to expand, to offer an explanation for why this person is saying something like that. The casual certainty of it, the underlying implication of a preordained outcome, triggers a sudden rush of curiosity in her.

  Finally, her conversation with Vanessa, Reese’s fans and his potential betrayal, Lena’s absence—everything vanishes as she dives into researching past seasons of Live. Her fingers move fast across the keyboard, scouring online archives for articles, interviews, and fan forums. She pieces together fragments of buried events and anomalies, scanning countless pages.

  As she digs deeper, disturbing patterns emerge—the recurrence of certain narrative tropes, the eerie predictability of outcomes. The more she reads, the more the illusion of chaos unravels. She stumbles upon rumors of rigged competitions, stories of contestants mysteriously eliminated for reasons never fully disclosed.

  The information is scattered, often contradictory. Disinformation weaves through genuine glimpses of a manipulated reality.

  After an hour of intense reading, Rebecca sets her phone aside on the bench. Her eyes ache, and her head is a jumble of thoughts. She rubs her eyelids, pieces of text flashing behind them.

  It can’t be true, she finally concludes. One thing she—and everyone else—knows about the show is that contestants have free will. As a contestant herself, she’s aware that no one has tried to influence her actions or decisions. And yet, there’s something disturbingly believable about everything she read.

  But what would that mean for her?

  On one side, it spares her the complexity of the decisions she faces every day. The comfort she finds in thinking that her success or failure doesn’t depend solely on her abilities is unsettlingly strong. On the other—would it mean her connection with Reese is something the show forged?

  This debate consumes her for the rest of the day.

  Forty-one pairs of eyes, each reflecting a spectrum of exhaustion, hope, and horror, are fixed on the large holographic screen that evening. The screen, dominating the front wall, blazes with vibrant advertisements, seconds away from the start of the episode. Then, the hosts appear—greeting and energizing the audience, building anticipation for the upcoming battle, mere moments away from revealing the two numbers of the chosen contestants.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  Rebecca sits beside Reese on a worn, metallic bench, a familiar tremor of anxiety coursing through her. It’s hard for her to shake the thought that her number could send Reese to the arena, subjecting him to another round of pain and, in the worst-case scenario, death. As she tries to push this thought away, her gaze drifts across the room to Lena. Her usually sharp eyes are unfocused, her hands absently twisting a loose thread on her uniform jumpsuit. She seems utterly lost in her own turbulent thoughts, oblivious to Rebecca’s presence.

  Rebecca opens her mouth to speak, intending to mention that Lena doesn’t seem like herself, but the words catch in her throat as another thought intervenes. She hesitates, unsure if she should share her unsettling discoveries about the show’s possible manipulation, fearing she might sound irrational—or simply delusional. Before she can gather her thoughts, Reese’s hand envelops hers, his warm touch soothing her racing heartbeats with incredible ease.

  His thumb strokes the back of her hand as he turns to look at her. “There’s something important I want you to remember,” he whispers, his voice barely audible, meant only for her ears. He gives her hand a gentle squeeze, his gaze steady and intense. “In case... in case both our names are called someday,” he continues.

  Rebecca’s eyes widen in surprise; she hadn’t considered that possibility before, and now it seems inevitable.

  He leans closer, his breath whispering against her ear. “My rapid healing,” he says.

  The sudden eruption of noise, as the hosts announce they already know who today’s fighters are, makes it difficult for her to hear him.

  “It doesn’t apply to all of my organs.”

  Rebecca turns pale with horror. She recalls him mentioning this once before, when they first entered the show, but he never specified which organs weren’t enhanced. Why is he bringing it up now? What is he trying to convey?

  “My brain and my heart... they don’t heal as quickly. I believe they don’t heal at all,” he continues. “If it comes to it, you can… you should aim for those. You can defeat me if you’re precise. I won’t try to fight back. Just remember that.”

  The holographic screen wavers, shifting from the hosts’ faces to an austere black background, revealing the numbers of today’s contestants. The room falls silent, the numbers blurring together in Rebecca’s eyes. All she knows is that, for today, she and Reese are safe—neither 13 nor 42 are displayed. Her gaze remains fixed on the screen, yet her attention is drawn to Reese’s hand in hers.

  The wooden bird nestled in her pocket feels like a small, insignificant trinket that won’t be of any help in the situation Reese just described.

  The two selected contestants—20 and 44—rise. The latter, barely older than Lena, weeps uncontrollably as she walks toward the steel door leading to the arena.

  “There, there, Contestant 44,” the male host says soothingly. “It will be over soon, you’ll see.”

  The female host chimes in with a playful grin. “Well, I hope not too soon, if you know what I mean.”

  The arena gleams with a cold, metallic luster, its surroundings reflecting the harsh lights like a mirror. Rebecca’s gaze is glued to the combatants, yet her mind drifts far away. Lost in thoughts.

  The fight progresses as a frenzied blur of motion and clashing fists—Contestant 44 clearly outmatched from the start. Judging by the audience’s ecstatic clamor, they’re utterly consumed by it. Thrilled.

  Rebecca can’t keep up with it.

  She turns to Reese, his sharp jaw and pointy nose catching the light just enough to hold her gaze. His eyes are fixed intently on the fight, as if the outcome holds his very life in the balance. His thumb strokes the back of her hand with a gentle, absent-minded touch.

  “I can’t,” she whispers, looking him straight in the eyes.

  Reese turns to her, a questioning furrow creasing his brow.

  “I couldn’t hurt you, Reese. Even if... even if they picked us both.”

  She locks her eyes onto his face, searching for any hint of dismissal or impatience. Instead, she finds a profound tenderness. He reaches out, his fingers brushing against her chin with a touch as light as a feather yet as meaningful as any grand declaration.

  For a moment, she believes he’s going to kiss her—right there, in front of everybody. In front of Vanessa. She wouldn’t want that. Not after their conversation that morning.

  But he doesn’t.

  “I know you don’t want to,” he murmurs. He leans closer, lowering his voice. “Not my first choice either. But if it comes to that, before I figure something else out, you’ll have to, Becca. No hesitation. No second thoughts. You will do it, got it?”

  He raises his eyebrows, waiting—an answer, a gesture of understanding, of agreement. Anything.

  He presses a finger against his temple, then to the point on his chest where his heart beats. “Either of these, and it’s over. That’s how you win. That’s how you take me down. And that’s what I want,” he states, his conviction fierce, almost impossible to refute.

  “There’s something I’d like to tell you,” she whispers, her eyes locked on his lips for some reason. “But not here. In your room.”

  He shoots her a crooked smile.

  “My room?” he asks, playful, teasing. “You planning on staying another night, aren’t you?”

  “I just want to talk, Reese.”

  Beneath the playful banter, genuine curiosity shines in his eyes. He knows—without her having to say it—that what she has to tell him is important.