I didn't even get the chance to process it.
The pain.
The shock.
The empty weight where my right arm had been.
I was still on my knees, breath tearing in and out of my chest, staring at the place where fire had once lived—where power had answered my will—now reduced to something gray and lifeless against the deck.
I hadn't screamed yet.
Hadn't cursed.
Hadn't broken.
I was still trying to understand what I'd lost—
[SYSTEM INTERFACE — EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED]
The world froze.
Sound dropped out first—then color—then time itself seemed to hesitate, as if reality was waiting for permission to continue. A familiar screen burned itself across my vision, sharper and colder than anything I'd seen before.
[TRUST SKILL x30 — TERMINATION PHASE]
Deferred Payment Required.
Power Utilized Beyond Baseline Threshold.
Cost: Permanent Memory Deletion — One Individual.
My breath hitched. The text didn't fade; it expanded, filling my vision with its merciless logic.
CONDITIONS:
— Subject must be an individual with whom the user has formed continuous emotional data for a minimum duration of 30 days.
— Individuals lacking sufficient shared memory density are ineligible.
— Selection is mandatory. Cost is absolute.
WARNING:
All memories related to the selected individual will be erased. Emotional, sensory, experiential, and associative data will be deleted.
This includes:
— Voice recognition
— Facial familiarity
— Emotional bonds
— Shared experiences
— Residual attachment
The words burned as I read them.
NOTE:
User cannot select an individual with whom emotional distance has already been established. Trust cannot be paid with absence. Trust must be paid with trust.
My hands trembled. Names surfaced at the edge of the interface—some clear, some blurred, others locked behind faint warning symbols.
So many unavailable. So many forbidden.
SELECTION REQUIRED.
Failure to comply will result in forced termination and uncontrolled system reclamation.
A countdown appeared beneath it. Silent. Merciless.
I swallowed hard, my jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
"…You really are a monster," I whispered.
The system didn't respond. It didn't need to. I stared at the screen, at the invisible weight of every bond I'd ever formed—every thing, every promise, every moment that had made me me.
Then I exhaled slowly. I straightened my back and spoke into the frozen world.
"…Fine," I said quietly. "I choose my father."
[SELECTION ACCEPTED: THE FATHER]
[INITIATING MEMORY DISSOLUTION...]
The deck of the ship didn't just vanish; it melted into a dark, greasy smudge. I felt my soul being pulled backward through a cold, narrow tunnel until—
Snap.
I was standing in a kitchen. It smelled of sour dishwater and old cigarettes. I looked down at my hands; they were translucent, shimmering like blue mist.
I was a ghost in my own head.
Then, the door kicked open. A man staggered in, the stench of cheap whiskey hitting me even in spirit form. I saw him—the monster. I saw the bottle in his hand and the malice in his eyes. My chest tightened. My spirit-lungs burned.
Across the room, I saw my mother. Her face was pale, her hands trembling as she pushed a six-year-old version of me toward the kitchen corner.
"Go, Ash," she whispered. "Don't look."
"Where's the money?" the man roared. "I know you have it!"
"It's for his shoes," my mother said, her voice small but iron-firm. "I don't work for your drinks anymore."
The first blow landed with a sound I had forgotten—the sound of a breaking world.
"Mom! Run!" I screamed, lunging forward. My spirit-hands swung through the air, trying to grab the man's throat, trying to push her out of the way.
But I was nothing. I was a whisper in a hurricane.
I watched, forced to witness every second as he beat her. I watched until her body went still. I watched until the light left her eyes.
"Run away! Please, Mom, just run!" I was sobbing, my ghost-knees hitting the floor.
The man didn't even look back. He grabbed her purse, took the crumpled bills, and walked out to find another bottle. The silence that followed was worse than the screaming.
I crawled over to her, trying to cradle her head. My hands passed right through her skin like smoke through a tree.
"I'm here, Mom. I'm here."
Little Ash—the six-year-old me—crawled out from the corner. His face was a mask of terror. My mother moved one last time. She looked at that terrified little boy and forced a trembling, bloody smirk.
"Bruh..." she croaked. A final, desperate attempt to make her son brave. "It's... just a prank... look at your... face... bruh..."
She went cold under my spirit-hands.
The scene shifted. I was a ghost at a funeral with no flowers. I saw the man—my father—standing there, free. The system had failed. The neighbors looked away. There were "unknown reasons," "lack of evidence," "just a tragic accident."
Then, the years of "Gray" began.
I saw myself growing up in that house of shadows. I saw the man come home every night and use me as a punching bag to vent his rage. I saw him break my ribs, my spirit, my pride. And through every blow, the little me didn't cry. He didn't scream.
He just looked at the wall and whispered, "Bruh."
It was a shield. It was a way to stay connected to the only person who ever loved him.
Bruh. Another hit.
Bruh. Another bruise.
He grew up into a hollow shell, a boy who had deleted his own emotions just to survive. By eighteen, the man stood over me, demanding "repayment" for the money he'd wasted on me. I looked at him with dead eyes. I didn't fight back. I didn't run.
I just joined the Fire Department.
I watched, my older self standing in front of fires, hoping—praying—that a roof would collapse on me. I wanted to die. But I wanted to die as a protector. I wanted to meet her again and be able to say:
"I died saving someone, Mom. I didn't die a loser like him. Bruh... look at me now."
[DELETION COMPLETE]
The spirit world shattered.
I was back on the deck, my knees slamming into the Ripple's back. The sun was too bright. The air was too clean. I clutched my head, my eyes wide and bloodshot, fixed on the sky in a look of pure, agonizing horror. My jaw hung open, trembling, my face twisting into a desperate, broken grin.
The system light flickered out. The world rushed back in—the smell of salt, the creak of the ship—but it felt fake. It felt like I was standing on a stage made of cardboard.
I stayed on my knees. My breath wasn't coming in gasps; it came in jagged, high-pitched wheezes, like a tea kettle screaming.
"Haha..."
The sound crawled out of my throat. It was dry. It was wrong.
"Haha... BRUH!"
I screamed the word at the empty sky.
"Hey, Mom! Did you see? It worked! The System... it's so efficient, isn't it? It's so clean!"
I started clawing at my own chest, right over my heart, as if I could dig out the missing memories with my fingernails. My eyes were wide, the pupils shrinking to pinpricks, darting around at shadows that weren't there.
"Wait... wait, wait, wait." I stopped, my hands trembling in front of my face. "Mom? What was that person name? The guy... the guy with the bottle? The guy who broke your ribs?"
I squeezed my head between my palms, pressing until my skull groaned.
"I can't see it! Mom, I can't see that person face! It's just... a white blur! A big, white, empty nothing!"
I looked at my hands and started laughing again, a hysterical, wet sound.
"This is great, right? This is what I wanted! I paid for power with a monster! But..."
My voice dropped to a terrifying, flat whisper.
"If I don't remember the monster... then who was I hiding from for twenty years? Who was I running from in the fire? If he didn't exist... then why am I so broken, Mom? WHY AM I STILL BLEEDING IF THE KNIFE IS GONE?!"
I slammed my fist into the deck, over and over.
Ripple let out a sharp cry, but it never reached me. Spruce stood frozen, horror draining the color from his face.
"Bruh... answer me! Bruh! Is this the prank? Is this the big joke? I traded my past for a future, but now I'm standing in a room with no floor! I'm a firefighter with no fire! I'm a son with no father!"
"Did I ever even have a father, Mom?"
"..Bruhh."
I tilted my head back, my neck tendons straining like wires. My face was a mask of pure horror—the smile was stretched too wide, showing too many teeth, while my eyes were drowning in tears.
"I'm free," I whispered, the word sounding like a curse. "I'm so free it's killing me. I can be anything now, right? I can be the loud one. I can be the dumb one. Because there's no one left to tell me to be quiet. There's no one left to hit me."
I leaned forward until my face was inches from the wood, staring at my own distorted reflection in a puddle of my tears.
"I forgot the killer's name, Mom. I forgot the face of the person who took you."
I whispered it like a secret, my eyes bugging out.
"Does that mean he won? Does it mean he got away with it because I was too greedy for a skill? Am I the monster now, bruh? Am I the one who finished what he started by erasing you both?"
I didn't move. I just sat there, a one-armed, broken boy trapped inside a dead man's body, whispering a dead woman's last joke to a world that wasn't listening.
"Bruh," I breathed out.
"Bruh... bruh... bruh..."