Aimee could hear her faint heartbeat, and her breath echoing through the room. Nothing was happening. She sat down, cross-legged and almost disappointed, and then she sighted something, a blurred object. She narrowed her eyes for a clearer view and saw a door. She beamed with potent hopes that it was a way out, but relaxed again. She recognised the door as her bedroom door. She rose from the floor and went up to it. Her hand reached out in front of her, until she held the cold spherical handle in her five fingers. Through the door, she saw a mirror image of herself, and then a mirror image of Gavin, hugging her from behind as she cried.

A memory?

She saw no point in this. A scary thought came to her mind: that maybe Buckley was controlling this mechanism and all of the others, that somehow he focused on a sweet memory that she had of Gavin to change her mind about Stefan. She was hoping that that thought of hers was wrong, but why else would that be what she saw during this segment of her training? It was a nice moment, but pointless now.

There Gavin was, telling her how she is so beautiful. Aimee did not know how she was supposed to feel, what a proper reaction would be, but she could not help feeling enraged. Her blood boiled as if she was positioned over a fire, being cooked on a spit. As her hand constricted the door handle, she knew that it would be best if she returned to that great and empty room, and closed her door. The door shut with an unintentionally loud bang, and she rested on it, exhaling uneasily. She then took a good look at the steel room and noticed something on the walls that was not there before: cameras.

"What is this?" she whispered.

They each spun with a robotic hum and a blinking red light, targeting Aimee. And then she realised that they were not cameras at all.

They were wall-mounted machine guns!

That memory of Gavin was a distraction, so that she could be caught off-guard. A gun on her far right opened fire. It was distant. She had time to get up and evade the bullets, it was easy, but who knew for how long. She had to run – she did – faster than she had ever run. And her panicking inner voice asked her what Valerie would do in such a situation. She remembered her words.

"Stay calm, focus hard," she repeated it as a mantra, short of breath. "That's not gonna stop machine guns!"

Aimee glanced behind her, at the hot metal guns that had fired. They were getting faster, every bullet making a beeline for her. She looked ahead. She was running towards the gun that she figured would be the last to fire. It was last in the row of the wall-mounted holders of hell. Aimee had to think quickly. Eventually, she would run out of steam and surely die. She could not die, not then, not before Domino Doomsday had even begun. Her life was precious, frustrating and unkind and falling apart, but precious. After all, the fate of her country rested on it.

She reached the gun and climbed onto it. She came up with a plan, and although it was not her best plan, at the moment it was all she had.

I'll destroy the other guns with this one, at least until it becomes automatic, too, and then I'll have to dodge its bullets until it runs out... Well, running from one gun is easier than running from all of them.

She grabbed the gun firmly and fired. Some of her bullets ricocheted off the walls, but she got the hang of it. She was doing well, blasted a minimum of twenty other buggers, until the gun just before hers shot at her. It was too quick for her to shoot back. She slid off of her gun, and they shut down, thinking she was dead, as she fell onto the ground. Her gun was a hot, melted mess, a clump of metal. It had been fired at, not her, so why did she feel an unbearable pain? She would know if she'd been shot. She raised her shirt and observed her bandaging – it was red, her blood was spreading. Her wound had reopened.

She groaned in pain. She cursed, unable to stop herself. And then she tried to calm down. Inhale; exhale; repeat.

"Stay calm," she said, undoing her bandages and using them to douse the blood. "Not the greatest advice right now," she moaned.

She waited on the floor, with her hand, which was coated in her own blood, pressed on her side. The fact that nothing more was happening was worrisome. She looked at her scarlet hand and the bandages that had hidden something she once thought was miniscule.

"Hello?!" she yelled out, her voice bouncing between the walls of fragmenting machine guns.

She did not want to draw attention, but something had to happen before she went insane. It was like she was in AIM again. Her bedroom door was no longer visible – it had disappeared once the guns started shooting – so she did not know what compelled her to look in that direction, but something, or someone, was there.

"Gavin?" she called.

"Aimee... Gavin isn't your boyfriend," it was a familiar voice.

"Stefan?" she uttered. "Stefan, please help me," she implored, trying to stand up, but every move she made was agonising.

He walked up to her, wearing GINM uniform, like she was.

"Why?" he asked viciously. "You think Gavin is so much better than me. I'm perfect. I've always been perfect. Are you too dumb to see that? I'm who you belong with, stop thinking about him!"

"What are you talking about?" she breathed, and tears dripped from her eyes.

His anger caught her by surprise. Stefan had never been so incensed – not ever.

"You love him more than me!" he exclaimed.

"I couldn't love anyone more than I love you," she whimpered, it was all she could do.

"You didn't say that the first time I told you I love you."

"You're not real," she coughed. "Why am I even talking to you?"

"I am real."

"Then you should have the decency to c-carry me out of here."

He rolled his eyes, "It's all about you in this fairy tale you think you live."

She became quiet. She knew that if she said something, she would probably curse him, and there was no point in wasting her last words – if these were her last words – on him, a heartless figure, whoever he was supposed to be. She forced herself to stand up, struggled from the pain of her wound. Still, she walked proudly away from the wall, with only the slightest limp. And then, it was all over. She was brought back to the real world.

She gasped, the goggles on her face, and Stefan – the real Stefan – was the first tangible thing she sighted. Valerie and Finn stood at her side. Her hand was upon her wound. It was fine. She removed her goggles herself, revealing her eyes, which were shuddering and smothered by tears.

"Aimee," said Stefan, not for the first time. "It's okay. Nothing you just saw was real."

She pulled him closer by his shirt and hugged him tightly; her hands locked at his upper back. At that moment, Gavin strode in, and he seemed misplaced in this room. He was older than everyone there, he never wore uniform, and it was clear that the only person who existed to him then was Aimee.

"I know," she sobbed, speaking to Stefan. "Tell me you love me – please. Because I love you."

"Always. I'll love you always," he hugged her in return.

She composed herself and gave a snuffled giggle. She then separated from the hug to stand up from the simulator.

"We're sorry, Aimee," Finn whispered, his sister stood next to him, drowned in shame. They had never looked more alike.

Aimee nodded at them with understanding. Whatever betrayal she should have felt, whatever guilt she should have passed unto them, was not there. They did not know what she had witnessed in the simulation, she could not blame them.

"Do I have a schedule?" she asked, trying to concentrate on what her life had become; something so dangerous that she had to train in order to live it.

"Right here," he said, handing it to her.

"Are you okay?" he and Gavin chorused.

Aimee was taken aback by the sound of Gavin's voice. She stared at him. She wanted him to come back, right? But she felt an enigmatic frustration seeing him there.

"Yeah," she replied to both of them, not sure whether she could consider it a lie really, as her eyes skimmed the page that was her schedule.

Stefan greeted Gavin, and he smiled back fleetingly, a smile that could even be defined as heartbroken. An unfathomable guilt came over Stefan, and it had made itself difficult to ignore.

He turned to Aimee, hoping to distract himself. "I thought you'd want to train in The Arena as soon as possible. I booked it for a half hour. Starting in five minutes," he tested.

"The sooner the better," she said hurriedly because she could already imagine Stefan saying 'You don't have to if you don't want to.'

She turned to Valerie and Finn, and Dominick had been there, she just noticed. He must have neared when he heard her freaking out.

Aimee smiled at the three of them, "Thank you, for helping me, I guess. It was a pleasure meeting you."

"Stefan, can I talk to you for a minute?" asked Gavin, pulling him away from the group, without awaiting his permission. "What was Aimee doing in the Cerebral Simulator? What training has she received?"

"You don't have to worry about her."

"You're right, you do!" he yelled. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and then whispered, "She was just shot, okay? She's recovering from injury."

"I-I know," he stammered. "I wasn't here when she –"

Gavin glanced at her as she hugged the others goodbye. "Your call," he said, not taking her eyes off of her.

There was something else he wished to say, but when he finally looked at Stefan again, at his concerned and sad expression, which was as masterful as his mother's, he decided to hold his tongue and leave.

"Stefan," uttered Aimee, nearing his frozen body.

Stefan stared at the exit, wishing Gavin would come back, that he would not hate him for this. Aimee looked at the door with him and held his hand.

He was beginning to doubt himself, his ability to be a friend, or a boyfriend. He just had so much faith in Aimee that he forgot she was only human. She was not invincible. And in this world, she was his responsibility. He needed to make sure that she was safe. He was not going to stop her from training altogether, – it was important for her to develop her skills – but he would protect her at all costs.

Stefan and Aimee returned to the passage, to the grand alder doors that Stefan could swing open so effortlessly, and the high metal dividers that deteriorated behind them. They returned to The Arena.

Stefan shut the door and walked up behind Aimee.

"Where do we begin?" she murmured, as the forest, swamp, beachfront and desert sand materialised, detailed to the point where it all seemed perfectly real.