I can't feel my hands. Winter screams inside of me, piling snow and ice down my arms as fast as a deranged blizzard piles up snowdrifts and it hungrily sucks at my warmth. My chest heaves with each breath, unable to keep up with my pounding heart.

The Parasite in me bites at my skin, my arms, my bones with frost, whittling down my strength. I refuse to let go. I can't let go. If I do, this building is done for—I am done for.

Citizen pushes to the front of the heroes and sweeps his gaze around the room, eyes landing on me last. They are smoldering coals full of steel and something else I don't care to tease out. When he speaks, his voice is calm—the calm before the storm. "Do you really think you can blank this building? It is a lot larger than the first one."

A sneer peels my lips back and I glare at him with all my strength. "I'm an eleven thanks to that. Don't try me." Desperation and wild, dangerous spite mixed with tears seep into my voice, shaking the ends of my words and carving them into sharp, stinging barbs.

A ripple of surprise runs through the heroes, hardening their expressions and bristling their postures. Citizen, however, does not react. He narrows his eyes, the corners of his mouth tilting down.

Before he can speak, David emerges. His eyes widen with a look that twists a knife deep into my gut. He sees now. He sees that I tricked him. That I lied to him for months. That I was never really his friend. Not all the way. He sees that now, and it seeps into him like poison, closing off his expression.

"You were...never Denizen, were you." It isn't a question. It is a statement, a realization, and it turns my lungs into acid.

Everything unhinged and deranged and bitter swells into the winter inside of me, filling my throat with sour laughter, reckless desperation, and hopeless fear. "No," I spit, the scratchy tingle of tears prickling the backs of my eyes. "It was a lie. Just like everything else."

David recoils as if I just spat in his face, a wall closing over his eyes and his eyebrows slicing downward across his face. He clenches and unclenches his hands, voice rough and burdened as he speaks. "Even your memory loss?"

Fire burns in my mouth, setting the static in my head ablaze. "No." I wish. Then...maybe all of this wouldn't have happened. Maybe I wouldn't be here. Maybe I wouldn't be about to die. "That...that is the only truth."

He falls silent, shoulders stiff. "I...can't believe it. All this time..." His eyes narrow into slits and he snaps his gaze up, fixing me with fierce defiance. He jerks his hand downwards. "No. That can't be the only truth. We were friends—"

The knife drives deeper into my cut, severing the last string of self-control. The static explodes, fire clashing with ice and stabbing me with shattering pain. It tears through my mouth, bursting out nearly at the volume of a scream. "SHUT UP!"

My power leaks through my fingers and the wall shudders and groans. David's eyes widen and he jerks forwards, mouth opening in a shout. I almost don't care. So what if this building falls? I'll be dead anyway. But he would die with me. Do I want that? I—I don't—

"ELIAS, STOP!"

The words sting like a whip and I jerk my hands away from the wall. The full blast of the winter wind streaks through the air instead of the wall and the furniture around me collapses into rubble. My legs can barely hold me up so I fall back against the wall, flicking my gaze to Citizen. He...shouldn't know that.

Ice rages inside of me, biting and stabbing and clawing, and I shake with the effort of keeping it from spraying everywhere. I swallow back tears, my voice as shaky as my limbs. "What did you just call me?"

Citizen spreads his hands towards me, all semblance of calm and control gone. His eyebrows tilt almost pleadingly. "Elias," he repeats. "Your real name."

An extra violent shiver wracks my body and I angle away. "W-what?" How does he—know that? That wasn't in my file!

His face cracks and he reaches up and pulls off his mask, revealing his face—his real face—for the first time. It is almost like looking into a mirror. "Elias." He swallows, eyes turning glossy. "You're my brother."

My strength vanishes and my legs fold beneath me. "No." Brother? But— how? Him? He is my brother? The one who I played video games with? The one I remember chasing and laughing with? The one that is not supposed to care about me?

Citizen takes a step forward, hand outstretched. "I...suspected for a long time but I didn't know for sure until I saw you playing with David. You— haven't changed in the way you play games."

It can't be him. It'd—he can't be my brother. He can't be the boy dominating most of my memories. He can't be the one I always think back on and wish I could live with again. He can't be my brother.

But his face is exactly like mine. His hair is like mine. His voice is almost like the one I remember.

Somehow, he is my brother.

Citizen swallows again, the tilt of his mouth turning earnest. "I've been looking for you for so long. Ever since you disappeared. I never thought you'd—I'd—we'd find ourselves on opposite sides."

He's been...looking for me? But why? Didn't he hate me? Didn't I hate him? I—I thought— A whispered memory sinks into my thoughts, shaking me to the core: how much of it is truth? How much is lies? Maybe...it's more than I thought. Maybe all of that auto-played message is a lie. Maybe I've been tricked all this time.

Or maybe I was right. Maybe Citizen is not my brother and he's just lying to keep me from killing everyone, including myself. A stone settles into my stomach. That makes sense. He is a hero—one of the top heroes of this city—and I, the top villain. Of course he doesn't want me to kill everyone. Of course he would lie to stop me.

But...isn't this what Deception wanted? Not to trust the heroes; not to trust my brother? Didn't she want me to believe I was her exception? That I was something special? Didn't she want me to believe the heroes were the villains and she and I were the heroes?

Who are the real heroes and villains here? I am not a hero, but maybe...I am not too much of a villain. Perhaps it is the same with Citizen: not completely a hero, but not a villain, either.

So how much of it is truth? How much is lies? Who do I believe?

"Elias...I don't think you wanted this." Citizen takes a deep breath and pulls out the slate of ENglass I gave him. "You had contact with Deception and she...she has mind control powers. You know that—you looked her file up."

Her face fills my vision, eyes a deadly purple velvet and mouth upturned into a sly smile. "You would never doubt me, would you, Blank Slate?"

"Never," I hear my younger self saying. "You know that."

She laughs and pats my cheek, eyes flashing a brighter purple. "I know. I just wanted to hear you say it."

The purple lingers even as the memory fades behind the blizzard of static and ice inside of me. She would never do that to me lingers on my tongue, but I swallow it back. She would do that to me. She would control me. How could she not? I was so vulnerable, so naïve back then. I lower my head, gritting my teeth.

"Elias...she made you into a villain. It's not...all your fault."

No, it is. I chose her. I chose to be a villain when she was away. But...maybe that was because I knew nothing else.

"But it's not too late! If you turn yourself in now, I will make sure they won't hurt you and you will have a fair trial. Parasite, I will make sure that you will make the rehabilitation program! I promise you, Elias, you will get another chance at life. I promise."

How much of it is truth? How much is lies? Can I trust him? Can I give all this up just on his word? Slowly, I raise my head and search his face for any hint of lies, but there is only earnestness, pleading, almost desperation. His offer is...tantalizing, a flicker of hope amidst this dark, winter storm, and I almost, almost want to believe it.

It would be so easy to give up now. It would be so easy to throw in the towel and let them do with me how they wish. And similarly, it would be so easy to let go of my power and let it unravel this building. Both prospects weigh on me like I am a scale and they are entire worlds tipping me from side to side with each passing second.

I want to believe. I don't want to believe. I want truth, but I am afraid of lies. I am a villain, but I have hero's blood in my veins. There are two sides and I stand on the line. A coin lands in my mind, completely white like a blank slate. Two sides. One choice. No turning back. Do I dare flip it?

No. The answer slams into me, filling my chest with unshakeable certainty. A coin always has two sides, but I want the third option.

I didn't and don't want to kill anyone—that rule must be true if breaking it led me here. But I don't want to die—Citizen's word for my safety isn't enough. So my third option—the only one I have left—is escape, and there's only one way I can think of.

I close my eyes and breathe in. One heartbeat. I place my hands on the floor. Two heartbeats. I brace myself. Three heartbeats. I let go of my power and it avalanches through my hands, rushing into the floor like nature into a vacuum.

The floor groans. Creaks. Then, it vanishes.

Screams and shouts explode around me, mixing with the roar of rubble crashing into the floor below. For a split second, my eyes meet Citizen's as we fall. Then he is gone and my back collides with something hard and sharp and my head cracks into what feels like a rock. Fire crackles through my back and shoulder. All my air whooshes out of me with a cry.

Winter banishes the fire in my shoulder, flashing through my fingers. Everything groans and once again I am falling. Frost-bitten static swirls around me, flashing snippets of memories through the chaos, spiraling me downwards to all-consuming darkness.

I don't know if I ever landed.