The room Wraith takes me to is larger than Edison's apartment in the HSVRC (or End, as the other inmates call it). The main body is a circle with semi-circles added on to the left and right, making a rough oval shape. I step inside, looking around at the wide, double bed, large holoTV with comfy-looking couches, and even an entire alcove of bookshelves to my right. This is...definitely not a prison cell.

A swoosh and a click sounds behind me and I turn. The door is closed. I guess Wraith wasn't planning to stay around. Rubbing a hand through my hair, I drift over to the couches and do a slow spin. Everything is a sleek black, light gray, and red, making the room feel snug, elegant, and too fancy for my tastes. But maybe...I liked this before? It's hard to tell. Was Deception expecting me? Did she ready this room for me in advance or was it mine before? My ribcage tightens around my lungs and my tongue becomes dry and sticky.

This might be my old room with my old stuff catered around my old tastes and... I shove my thoughts onto another path. Flopping down on the nearest couch, I heave the largest sigh I can manage, pouring out the remnants of adrenaline, stress, and everything else making my legs shaky into it.

I am so screwed.

The laugh starts as an ironic twist of my lips, graduates to a breathy snort, then all at once becomes a short and sharp bark. I've said—thought—that before when I was Denizen, a lie, and I'd thought I'd never had to say it like this again. Naïvely, I thought my life would be the normal kind of hard. Now here I am, in a worse pickle than before, and I am so totally screwed.

Isn't life ironic? I drop my head into my hands, wheezing until the tears prickling the back of my eyeballs lull into a dull burn. Slush creeps down from the back of my neck, down my arms, and piles in my fingers, leaving a burning trail of chilliness. Reaching up, I brush my hand over the spot, rubbing the outline of where the PowDown patch used to be.

My power is unhampered now, and it constantly trickles through me to make up for all the times it was too sluggish. How bad will the withdrawal symptoms be? Normally, coming off PowDown cold turkey is unpleasant, but with how high my doses were, it's going to be a lot worse.

Just like the situation I am in right now.

My ribs squeeze tighter and my insides knot like they're being knitted into a tapestry of dread. I shove a wall at the building tide of questions I don't want to think, let alone answer, but they spill over anyway, washing through me and turning the taste of my mouth sour.

What am I going to do now? What is Deception going to do? She is the worst Villain to be stuck with, not just because she's been climbing the rankings in the South Quarter, not just because she's suspected to have mind control powers, but because she's apparently actually my ex-girlfriend. (Or still a girlfriend? Did I ever cut it off officially? Does it even count if I don't remember her? Why in all the universe did relationship problems have to come into this?)

The afterimage of her rich purple eyes and the warmth of her hand on my cheek flickers behind my eyelids. I tear them open and stare fixedly at the slightly domed ceiling until it goes away. She has suspected mind control powers. Was she controlling me already back there? Or was that the lingering evidence of our previous relationship? Could I even tell if she uses her powers on me? Am I already slipping? What does she even want from me?

And this place, it's decked out with the latest tech, if not the highest. She must be more successful and rich than I thought.

Maybe this is where the millions of dollars I stole went into. Dark smoke shrouds my mind, sinking me deeper into the holes riddling my insides. It makes sense, too much sense, and the holes yawn wider like the many mouths of deep sea creatures. I helped her. I was on her side.

And she just promised to make me—with mind control?—be on her side again.

The holes swallow me in an instant and tingles precede a violent shudder that shakes me from my head to my toes. My breaths constrict and my fingers dig into my curls, so tight it almost hurts as much as my chest. It's like I am sliding down a dark, muddy black hole—no, worse, flying away into Deep Space without a tether or life suit.

Everything these past months I've worked for is falling away, crumbling, melting, disintegrating. I don't want to be a Villain again. I don't want to fight for my sanity again. I don't want to be tangled in the past instead of working for the future. I don't want to waste my life here.

I need to get out of here. But how? There's no windows, the tracking chip embedded into my skin is most definitely blanked by now, and I probably don't have access to the net. The task looms above me like the sheer walls of a skyscraper, unyielding and daunting, and the breath in my lungs turns into stone.

My lungs stutter, and for a moment, I can't breathe. It's happening again. I am losing control, my life's outcome slipping through my fingers, a probably inescapable fate spilling out before me, and the Villain label rising to the top. I can't do this again. This can't be happening. It's—I—

Breathe, Elias.

I suck in a breath and scrub my face with the heels of my palms until the dizzying doom spiral fades enough for my head to clear. If I panic, I'll have no chance to get out of here. If I panic, I really will be lost. If I panic, I die.

So don't panic. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. I...can do this. I just need to keep my head about me. My grip is shaky on my control, but it's there, and right now that's what counts.

I could use a hero right now, one part of me mutters. A hero to come in and save the day. Another part of me rolls his eyes but I push in between them. It is the Heroes' job to come rescue kidnapped people, and they will be looking for me. All I need to do is hang on and...try to make myself as findable as possible, which means I need to know where here is and have some sort of access to the outside.

The task skyscraper shrinks and loses its looming qualities. It's still tall, but it's not an impossible height and there's footholds near the bottom. I can do this. Or at least, I can do something.

Taking another deep breath, I pull myself into a sitting position and reach into my pocket. My holopad is still there and amazingly is in one piece, but when I flick it on, I am hit with a blue screen of death. An invisible fist hits my stomach and I wince, dropping the useless device on the cushions beside me. It was a long shot, but still...one hope down the drain.

Rubbing my hands over my face, I force myself to stand and turn on the holoTV. It's fairly standard and I manage to navigate to the online search engine. All social media is blocked except the news. Maybe if I remembered how to hack and code as well as I used to, I could dig around for an IP address (is that even helpful? I barely remember) or something. Even the pre-downloaded games are all offline ones, and any online ones I try to download are blocked.

Another fist punches my gut. That avenue is out of the question, too. Body feeling like a sack of sand, I flop back onto the couch, pressing the heels of my palms into my eyes. I can't access the online world. Alright. Fine. I'll just...have to go off what I can observe. Think, Elias, think!

There's no windows, at least that I've seen. (Maybe I am underground?) The internet is crazy fast and the tech is high-quality, which means there's a lot of energy consumption (don't know how that is useful, but okay). There's an illegal Teleporter out in the open, so this place must be secure and hidden (there's Leapers, too. Did I see a down and an up one or just a down?).

This place must be at least two jumps away from the End by Teleporter, which means it's somewhere in a 6,500km radius from the End. That could be literally anywhere, especially because I don't know where the End actually is.

So basically, I have no clue where in the megabitten world I am. That's great. Awesome. Stellar. Absolutely per—

A knock sounds from the door.

I bolt upright just in time to see the door swing wide and Deception and a deliver-bot swish in. A stab of ice hits my fingers and I am on my feet faster than my head can keep the world from smearing.

Deception slows her approach, a crease between her eyebrows. (They're thin and so sharp, I feel like if I touch them, I'll cut my finger. What the megabytes, brain?) "It's okay. There's nothing to fear here."

Except you and your mind control. Muscles tense, I watch as she rounds the second couch and stops across from me. The deliver-bot wheels to the low glass table between the couches, sets down a tray of edibles I don't bother identifying and two wine glasses full of clear liquid. Task done, it swivels and rolls out the door, closing it with a soft click. Clenching my fingers into fits, I turn my gaze back to her. "I don't know you."

A carousel of emotions flicker over her face before settling on a wince and a glance down and away. She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear, expression twisted and pinched. "Did you...really blank yourself?"

Two hollow pangs shiver through my chest. I've seen that expression before on David when he realized—actually, fully realized—that I am not who I said I was or whom he knew before. It's the, 'how could you do that to yourself?' and the, 'you're not the person I know and it hurts' look. It's the heart-wrenching, pain-filled, tightly pressed lips of betrayal, the scrunched eyebrows and darting eyes of denial, the tense shoulders and guarded position of walls closing up.

And it's on her face. Her, a villain, hurting just as much, if not more, than David.

It's not what I expected.

Her breaths are heavy as she continues. "I knew something was off about you when you left, but I—I didn't—" her eyes snap to mine, brimming with the burning of an open wound, "—Why didn't you tell me you were hurting so badly? Why did you insist on leaving? I could've helped you! Prevented you from sliding far enough to blank yourself! I would've kept you from losing yourself!"

The agony, the regret, in her voice strikes my heart so hard I almost flinch. She's hurting so much. And...and something is wrong. Didn't she leave me behind? Isn't that what I remembered when Edison reversed the blank for a little while? Isn't that what the Auto-Played Message implied? I frown. "You were the one who left me behind."

Deception shakes her head, hair flying in a quick circle around her. "What? No, you insisted on taking that mission on your own for secrecy and safety. If I had known you were struggling so hard mentally... Oh, Elias, why didn't you tell me? You know you get lost without me!"

I still, a slow, sneaky tendril of purple vibrating in my chest, hitting deep inside of me. I was...mentally unstable before I left her? And I...hid it from her? Why? Had I wanted to escape her? Or was it for some other reason, like stress? Or maybe I didn't have a reason other than secrecy and safety?

"I do?" Why do I get lost without her? Why am I dependent on her? Hang on, I am not dependent on her, I don't need her to keep my way, and she left me, not the other way around. Maybe. She...would know the story better than I do, and that look in her eyes right now, that trembling in her voice and the near-tears desperation speaks towards truth.

Mentally, I shake thoughts out and lay them out straight, kicked-up static and colored hues fluttering down around me as I do. Maybe she's right and I did leave her. I had been mentally unstable enough to blank myself. It could be true. It could be.

"Yes!" She clutches a hand over her heart, leaning forward. "Your heart is gold but you always struggle not to be swallowed by the evils of the world. I helped you stay on track, keep our eyes on the light. We helped each other do that. Don't you remember?" Her tone is almost pleading, an open palm for acknowledgement, a hint of recognition.

But it's not there. I don't remember, and I never will.

She swallows thickly. "We promised to keep each other straight because we do get lost without each other."

Her words sink skin and strike a chord on my heartstrings that vibrates a rich purple. I don't remember much of my past or childhood, but from the little I do recall, that sounds like something Younger Elias, Blank Slate, would promise.

Both their faces flicker into place behind my eyelids. Younger Elias stares at me with determination and conviction, his innocence not quite dulled and quenched by the rest of the world. Blank Slate has his mask on, two oval eyes and an empty smile projected onto his holomask. In a way, I have gotten lost without her. On that mission, I ended up blanking myself in desperation, got caught by the heroes, and becoming this, a literal blank slate.

Maybe this could be avoided if I'd stayed with her. Maybe things would have been different. Maybe... Wait. That would mean I'd still be a villain and would never have gotten to know David or reconnected with Edison. I'd still think that everyone I ever knew before hated me. I'd still be with her, being her girlfriend, being partners in crime.

That's not what I want. Not in the least bit. Pulling my gaze from her face, I stare at the holoTV and my warped reflection in it. The bags under my eyes are stretched beyond reality, seeming like tall shadows trying to tell the time, and my eyes sit above them, weary and strained. You have to keep it together, I tell my reflection. Don't let her get to you. She has mind control powers, remember? You can't trust a thing she says.

Unless, my reflection whispers back, she's already gotten to me. Unless she doesn't need me to trust what she says and has already messed with my mind.

The purple strands weaving around the edges of my mind glint as they slide back into obscurity, sending shivers of warning down my spine. I grit my teeth and pull my hands through my curls, shaking my head. No, she can't. I can still think, I know I am not a villain, and I still want to return home. And it's going to stay that way no matter how hard she tries.

I am not going to leave Edison again. I am not going to betray David thrice over. I am not going to never cuddle Skittles again, either. I will get out of here in one piece and so help me, I will blank things if that's what it's going to take.

Resolve hardening, I look at her. "Maybe once I did, but I don't remember that. I'm sorry." The apology is out of my mouth before I can swallow it back. Why did I say that? I am not sorry. She doesn't deserve a sorry but the anguish in her voice, the almost tears glistening in her eyes, the hurt obviously running deep is there. It's there because of what I did, what I chose, again. It's my fault again and...and maybe I am sorry for that.

Deception swipes at her face and steadies her voice. "No, I am. It's just been so long and I've been worried about you and now..." She shakes her head, drawing herself together. "No. You're different—you don't remember—I understand. But like I said, I will find you again. Even if we have to start from square one, I'll find you in there and everything can go back to how we wanted it."

"I'm not him anymore." I don't want what she wants, what a villain wants, anymore. Everything is different.

Deception pulls back the emotion leaking through the cracks in her facade, wraps it up and ties it in a bow with a faint smile that's more sad than comforting. "You are, somewhere deep down in there. I'll help you remember who you are."

I shake my head. "No, you don't understand. My memories are gone. Wiped, deleted. There's no getting them back."

Her smile falters, the purple flickering, then she's closing the distance between us and her arms are tightly wrapped around me, her body close—too close.

A gasp lodges in my throat as a jolt of ice hits my fingers. I freeze, acutely aware of the warmth radiating off of her, the strength of her grip, her breath just brushing past my ear. She's hugging me and it's—I can't—it's too—

"Then we'll just have to rebuild," she whispers, "and we'll make us even stronger."

A full body shudder cascades through me, a purple fog rolling in. The purple inside of me rushes forward in a tangle of vibrant shades, twisting around my bones, weaving around my tendons, flowing through my veins, and gathering into a slowly hardening ball deep inside of my mind. As it sinks into place, a soft click echoes in the emptiness.

Deception squeezes tight and lets go, stepping back. "Rest up; you've been through a lot. I'll be back with supper, okay? And if you want to talk before then, you have access to the holopanel by the door." She walks out of my view, and a few heartbeats later, the door swishes shut.

Faintly, I drop into the couch, the impression of her arms still wrapped around me. I...I need a game plan. And fast.