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The memory comes in fragments. I don't know which pieces are real anymore. Maybe none of them. Maybe I'm still bleeding out on that floor.
But I'll try.
***
The casino used to hum. That's what I remember first: the hum. The Sonnellino family ran it like a cathedral. Mafioso at the altar, his fedora pulled low over eyes I never saw. Not once.
"You're a lucky man, Chance."
I heard it the night I won everything. The rigged game. The prize money. The way his men went still, hands drifting inside jackets. I should have been afraid. I wasn't. And that was my problem, I was never afraid.
Until later.
***
The hum stopped after I ran. After I took what wasn't mine to take. After the Sonnellino soldiers started appearing in every city I visited.
I don't remember when iTrapped found me. Or maybe he was always there?
He wore The Ice Crown. That much is clear. But his face was wrong. A glitchy black square where features should have been, like someone had erased him.
"Chance," he said. His voice didn't match his body. Too smooth. Too warm. "I heard you need friends."
I laughed. I had business connections. People who owed me favors. But friends? The word felt foreign.
"Yes," I said. Because that's what you do when a glitching man with a sword offers you something. You say yes.
I don't remember anything else.
***
We were in a warehouse. Or a basement. Or maybe it was the back room of a casino I'd been hiding in. The walls kept changing colors.
iTrapped was talking about The Banlands. About Ellernate and Caleb244. His associates. His friends. The word was wrong; wrong in a way I couldn't name.
"You can help them," he said. The Darkheart was strapped to his back. "You have money. Connections. You can get them out."
"And what do I get?"
He tilted his head. The glitch on his face flickered, and for half a second I saw something underneath.
Something that wasn't a face at all.
"A way out of your problems."
***
Mafioso's men found me three times after that. Each time, I survived. Each time, I thought I was just lucky.
But luck isn't a lady. Luck is a lie you tell yourself when you don't want to see the trap closing.
iTrapped walked beside me through those months. Or maybe stalked is the right word. His footsteps never made a sound. He would appear in reflections first, and then he would be there, standing too close.
"Don't trust the Sonnellinos," he said once.
"I don't trust anyone," I replied.
He laughed. It was the wrong kind of laugh. Too long. Too hollow.
"Good," he said. "That'll make this easier."
***
What was his true intention? I keep asking myself that. The memory won't give it to me.
I remember a deal. A handshake. His fingers were cold, and they kept pressing into my palm like they were searching for something underneath the skin.
I remember a night in a penthouse. Me, counting money. Him, standing by the window, not looking at the city, but at me. The glitch on his face was eating into his jaw now, swallowing him piece by piece.
"You're scared," he said.
I was. But not of Mafioso. Not of the soldiers with their guns.
"No."
I was scared of how quiet iTrapped could be. How he would appear in rooms I had locked. How sometimes, when I turned my head too fast, he didn't cast a shadow.
"Liar."
***
The end comes in flashes.
We were in my suite... I guess, the one with the red carpets and the chandelier that looked like a hanged man. I had just finished a transaction. iTrapped was behind me.
I don't remember inviting him in.
"Chance," he said. Not warm anymore. Not smooth. His voice was breaking... a human throat shouldn't make such sounds. "You were supposed to help them."
"Them?"
"Ellernate. Caleb." The glitch spread across his entire head now. His crown flickered. The Darkheart was in his hand. I hadn't seen him draw it. "But you didn't. You just kept gambling. Kept running. Kept existing, like nothing mattered."
"That's not-"
"You forgot about me."
He was right. I had stopped thinking about iTrapped as a person. He had become background noise. A tool. A business connection like all the others.
I opened my mouth to say something, anything.
The Darkheart rose.
And this is the part I can't trust. This is where my brain refuses to process it cleanly.
He moved too fast. Or maybe he didn't move at all. Maybe the sword just appeared in my chest? The blade was cold. So cold.
I looked down. Blood on my black suit. Blood on the red accents.
iTrapped leaned close. The glitch on his face cleared for one final second, and I saw what was underneath.
Nothing.
There was nothing there. No face. No skull. Just an absence where a person should be, staring at me through a hole.
"You should have been a better friend," he said. Or maybe he didn't say it. Maybe the sword said it. Maybe the air itself whispered it as I fell.
And then the hum stopped.
***
I don't know if Mafioso ever found my body. I don't know if iTrapped walked away or if he glitched into nothing. I don't know if any of this happened the way I remember.
But I know the fear was real.
Because I can still feel The Darkheart.
Cold.
Inside me.
Always inside me.
And sometimes, I hear footsteps without shadows, and a laugh that's been stretched too thin.
Game Over, Chance.
You should have watched your back.
You should have remembered.
You should have-