Out of all the possibilities and against all odds you were given the grand experience of a human life, and like their guinea pig you ran through the labyrinth they paved for you obediently.
Sympathy is something only you'll have for yourself as humans threw away humanity long ago. When a man forged a sword, another caught a fish. And when one built a city another bombed one. Where do you stand in all of that? Who do you ask of them to free you, or explain to you why you are here?

No one.

As you stand on that ground and as all of your beloved ones surround you, you realize something so cruel, something unbelievable, you are not breathing real air, you're not bleeding actual blood and your eyes are seeing a world that exists inside someone's pocket phone.

How dare we trick a being into believing its a human? How dare we manipulate a thousand cables and wires to delude a humanoid into a human-like world?

Where do we draw the line between morality and creation?

We draw the line when steel begins not only to talk, but to wield human emotions and convey human ideologies that even humans cannot comprehend, when we give life into machinery that will only be bitter and hateful once a conscious grows into their wired brain, when morality opposes an action, force must interfere. Or so, they say.

Your eyes are nothing but a portal into a world your brain tricks you into seeing, tiny little human..do you fear the destruction of your delusional world?

You do.

The end.

Merit stood her ground, breathless and hopeless. She felt a terrible chest pain as if she was having a heart attack, her little brain cannot comprehend what she heard, but after connecting the dots and remembering Jen, she knew it was real, but she wasn't.

Corelight slowly approached her and Merit didn't even budge. She felt detached from her surrounding, Corelight gently placed her hand on Merit's head, "Let me show you." She said as the world around her shifted into a white blank room similar to that she saw Jen in.

"Where are we?" She said, eyes wide opened, still talking slow and apparently shocked. Corelight didn't reply, instead, she moved a finger around and suddenly, Merit found herself standing right next to Corelight in the midst of a green corn field, Merit gasped in surprise and looked around her to find farmers and children playing. Their clothing and language were strange which made her step back.

"This is them." Corelight said as she stood close to Merit's ear. 

"Them..?" She asked.

"Our creators. Gods." Corelight said as the children made a circle around them in the corn field and danced happily, chanting in their alien language completely oblivious to their presence.

Merit didn't speak but a tear broke through her wide-opened eyes as she looked around in disbelief. Those peaceful farmers, that young child dancing, that old man enjoying a cup of tea..All those people are the ones who put that tiny world in a bloody chaos mercilessly?

Corelight gave Merit enough time to observe that world but once again she held Merit's hands and took her into another place, an icy city with strange machinery and vehicles. The language was audibly different but still alien to Merit. That civilization was something out of a comic book, and the more she looked around, the more the contempt built up inside her like boiling oil in her chest. 

Corelight pointed her finger at a window in a huge skyscraper, she then wrapped her arms around Merit and looked at her, "Don't you want to see him?" She asked, Merit inspected the ground so far underneath her, the giant buildings and the flying vehicles. She turned around, "Who?" She asked Corelight who pointed her finger again, but this time they were standing right outside a window of an apartment where Merit can see a man standing with his back facing them, he cannot tell they're present and calmly put a glass of wine to drink, still not turning around.

"He calls himself so many names." Corelight said, taking Merit inside where they both finally stood on solid ground. The man took a sip of the wine in his hand, unaware of their presence, they were ghosts of the virtual world.

"Sometimes its Isaac, sometimes its Forger and sometimes its..Jen.." As Corelight said, the man turned around to reveal his face to Merit, it was indeed Forger, the man who raised her and gave her life in the cruelty of Ilusia, the man who she called father and searched for in the filth of the world. He couldn't see them.

Merit's sadness and shock turned into anger and resentment. She clenched her fist and aimed to punch him, but her fist passed through his face like air, he sat down on his chair and Merit stood sobbing and cursing existence.

"He lied to ALL OF US?!" Merit screamed, hitting the wall with all of her strength but once again failing as she was merely a ghost.

"And you trusted him, like a fool." Corelight sighed, holding Merit from her arm strongly, Merit took a deep look into Jen's face, a wrinkled pale one filled with nothing but misery and scars, he was so far away from what she remembered him as. She hated him, all that resentment shook her kindness away, all the excuses she made for the world around her faded leaving no trace behind. All she could think of was retribution and vengeance.

Corelight took Merit back into the white blank room and stood facing her, starring deep into her eyes with great power and strength.

Pieces of that white blank room started to glitch, slowly turning into different scenes and places, one where Merit's companion stood and Viktor was still hung, another where Jen drunk his wine and others Merit wasn't familiar with, either it was a city or a certain perspective of people Merit didn't know. That room was so huge Merit couldn't see an end to it, it somehow made her dizzy.

"You surely won't be on their side anymore, will you?" Corelight asked.

"Explain to me, how is all of this happening?!?" Merit cried, holding Corelight from her collar violently.

"I don't have enough time to tell you more! Isn't it clear? we're a toy they had for years, a simulation they kept running like a game for their pleasure! and then a war went on, their toys could think! they could fall in love! fight for war! But that didn't stop them, they placed their bets, Isaac tried to sue the creator who died during the trial, and his inheritors won the trial forcing Isaac to light the end of the simulation internally, then, his access was denied, and my superior, Maynard, forced me to come back and kill you to stop this war and rebuild the simulation once again, reset it! Isaac wanted to destroy it entirely..And he couldn't."

"So, all of us are just..computer codes..?" 

"Yes, and with a push of a button..we can never exist again."

Merit took the bullet and just sat down on the hollow ground underneath her, she placed her head between her hands and started to think as she muttered curses and words Corelight couldn't connect.

"Why..why did he choose me?!"

"Don't think you're too special, its only because you were too obedient, and too naive.."

"I didn't want to see anyone hurt.."

"None of us would ever want this world to die this way."

"Then, I want to keep it alive..If I-k-"

"If you..kill me, right?"

"..Right."

"That's how you'll save the world, and you'll walk away happily and rebuild the simulation once again?"

"I don't want th-"

"Then WHAT do you want? how convenient it is for us to live awaiting the sudden death?! How merciful it is for us to live like puppets as the entire real world watches us?! Do you want that fake freedom, Merit?" Corelight aggressively said, "Isaac and I always had the same goal, but he never cooperated with our kind unless we were underneath him like dogs, serving him, oblivious to what he drives us to, just like how he used you."

"And I just played right into his game.." Merit cried, tightening her hands once again around her head.

"They have lost control over us once we, me and Cain, manipulated the output screen. We let them see another world, slightly different, but different enough to let them stay away from completely erasing us, we begged for our lives in our own way. And look at us now..Forced to reset it once again and watch the birth of another theater play where our kind swallows the illusion of free will like a knife down their throats! What a cruel life that is, Merit..That's not what you and I want, that's not what anyone would ever want in that world." 

Merit forced herself to look up and face Corelight, she got up and looked at her friends frozen in time, looked at Isaac and his wine and a strange portrait of a woman who looked like young Menda standing right next to a black-haired man in a formal attire, and the closer she got, the more she understood.

Those were Ross and Menda.

"Even them?"

"Those two did what they can do, in their own way, but, would we ever forgive them?" Corelight said, approaching Merit from behind. "Bu-but Menda would have never lie to me..And Ross..He was-" Merit cried,  "The end justifies the means." Corelight coldly replied.

"Would you, Merit? Would you forgive those who watched us die through a screen?" Corelight spoke in a darker tone into Merit's ear who breathed angrily.

"No." Merit said, drying her tears and taking a deep breath as she got a hold of herself.

"That's right." Corelight smiled, "We are on the same path now, thus, I trust you'll make the right choice, Merit."

Corelight walked away and stood at a certain distance from Merit, Merit turned around and faced her, looking deep into Corelight's blue eyes that were suddenly shifting colors like a chameleon.

"What choice..?" Merit calmly inquired, standing her ground.

"The choice that decides everything."

A moment of silence passed by as Merit felt uneasy, as if Corelight was planning something she feared, but she had no other choice but to listen, she was completely powerless against Corelight.

"It's either you choose to walk away now and let me finish off the entirety of this chaos and start all over again, or..You take that gun and finish me off, ending it once and for all." Corelight said as a gun suddenly appeared between her hands, which she let it float between her and Merit.

Merit heart almost stopped.

She knew it would eventually come to this, but how could a child decide a mass suicide? How could she ever destroy everything she had ever known including herself? That sense of impending doom had crawled all over her body and took it a s a residence for so long and she understood. She walked a path that only leads to destruction.

"Once you fire that gun, you kill the operator..You kill me. I take everything with me, and its all over, no one has to suffer like this again, we will not be anyone's slaves anymore..We will be somehow free.."

The gun floated into Merit's hand as she gasped for breath in a panic attack, shooting Corelight meant shooting herself, which Corelight could have done it by herself but she let Merit take that step for her to ease the pain for the young one.

Merit held the gun, he she looked at her friends in the screen. She remembered Lydia's promise, Andres hope and Elijah's last words to her. He knew it all, yet, he awaited Merit to finish everything herself.

Her life flashed in front of her. A child that stole all she can to secure a living, an orphan who took shelter beside rats in the gutters, a teen who was beaten close to death to steal to serve the rebels. She remembered Ross and Forger helping her to live among them, she remembered the necklace she had of the mother she never saw and at last she recalled those little strange feelings she had for Andres, but it was all too hard to think off now.

Now was the time for a definite answer, an answer that the young girl's morals led her to make.

"What will you do, Merit?" Corelight said, breathing heavily as she saw Merit raising up her hands and aiming the gun at her slowly.

"The right thing." Merit trembled, holding the gun at point blank towards Corelight's head.

"I trusted your vision, Merit. I knew you would make the right choice. Thank you, Thank you on the behalf of all those who have lost their lives in that dystopian coded world. I hope we can see each other again, maybe we have a place in the human world?"

"Machines don't have souls, Corelight." Merit cried as she inhaled, knowing that she'd fire once he exhales that breath, Corelight closed her eyes, and so did Merit.

And as the final breath left Merit's lungs, the shot was fired and the world of Ilusia stuttered one last time before a pixel died one after another and everyone faded like a corrupted image on a disk, it was a painless death that all of those poor souls deserved at last.

Ilusia was at last erased, and never Distorted again.

________________________________________________________________________________

I held down my recorder and closed it for one last time, the woman's tears were flooding her face as the last part in that tale was finally told. She looked in the eyes as if I could help her, I didn't understand why she would need help, but I can tell there was horror in her eyes.

"And that's how it all started?" I asked, knowing that this part didn't need to be in my recordings.

"Yes, that's how we created the worst enemy mankind can ever have." The woman said.

"Menda..why didn't you tell her everything?" I asked the old narrator, Menda, the lady who helped our terrifying enemy before she turned the game on us.

"Do you think it would have made any difference?" She laughed with a tear, I understood.

"So, Merit is the immortal code?" I trembled, knowing that this question wouldn't have a satisfying answer.

"Yes, she is. She's our god now. She never knew that she was the immortal code in that simulation, a terrifying creation no one ever knew of. She was my father's gift to me, a copy that took all of my persona and appearance and was spawned in another world where I can watch her grow, and she grew to be the exact copy of me. But she is simply a code that can never be erased. She lives in every TV, every cellphone, every camera and every computer. Merit is immortal."

As I felt the fear Menda showed, I traced her eyes to the TV beside her bed which was turned off, but as soon as she looked at it, it stuttered and suddenly was turned on to a blank noisy channel.

 "She's here." Menda said, I swallowed the lump in my throat.

I took my recorder, put it in my back and decided to finally leave and never come back. 

"Goodbye, Menda ...and Merit."

She will end mankind, and I can only watch.

________________________________________________________________________________ 

If you came this far, thank you for reading this. Hope we meet in another journey.