“I can what?!”

And the words are out into the air before I think maybe I shouldn’t be talking about Night right in front of his face, but maybe we are both fucking crazy at this point. ‘Honestly crazy might be the least problematic option.’

My vision is still swimming like I dunked my head into a cheap Halloween fog machine and Night apparently has two… personalities? Souls? “True selves” according to the wording of the ability, and who the hell knows what that means.

[Heal him] The white box repeats and I can almost feel the annoyance from the emotionless mess of pixels. [You’re a Healer].

‘Well, that’s news to me,’ I think even as I glance over my player screen again, ‘I guess acolyte sounds like a healer, but why the hell am I a healer? The most I’ve ever patched someone up is myself with cheap over-the-counter alcohol and tissues from a gas station bathroom. Not exactly a medical professional here.’

“I don’t think a bandage and a bottle of alcohol is going to fix that,” and I pause to eye Night for a second, taking in the still twitching shadows, the blood-soaked suit, and the grin with too many teeth, “even a REALLY good bottle.”

[Acolytes have three starting abilities.]

Narrowing my eyes I glare at the screen, I can tell I just got ignored.

With a faint ding, a blue system window reappears.

[[Cleansing Touch], unique Acolyte starting ability. Allows player to remove all non-permanent status effects and curses on a player(including yourself) that you are in physical contact with.]

After scanning the description, one of my three starting abilities apparently, I turn to Night and ask in a deadpan voice, “Are you cursed?”

Night pauses, eyes drifting towards the blue system window hovering in front of me, he frowns for a moment before chuckling. “Nice try and honestly I think I would let you if it was going to do something, but not cursed,” and he does a little twirl, as if I can somehow tell just by looking that he’s not cursed. Instead, all it does is make the two flickering versions of him dance around each other strangely, causing my budding headache to get worse, “being cursed would be a lot easier than all the voices.”

While my vision is still blurry and fog-like for everything except Night who is in stark clarity, I only see two ghosts over top of each other, but there could be like 40 in his head for all I know. Maybe these two are just the strongest or loudest of the bunch stuck in Night’s head. Not that I super care about whatever is wrong with him, but the white not-a-system certainly seems invested in this serial killer’s wellbeing.

There’s no white box currently cluttering my vision, but I stare into a space right above the blue one, “Don’t think that skill is going to help much.”

And right where I was looking a white box appears, [It will work.]

“Night just said it wasn’t.”

“Not sure who you’re talking too, but I do agree.” And the murder businessman shrugs even as he lazily swings his sword at me, “Not a curse or a buff or a debuff here.”

I glance at the ticking timer just be sure his attack won’t hit, [00:39].

“What he said.”

[It will work]

And at this point, I’m just annoyed. Clearly me just standing here isn’t going to change anything and I don’t know why I’m wasting time arguing with a block of code.

“You know what? Sure? Why the fuck not?” I feel like I’m stuck in a terrible group chat with all these annoying pop-ups blocking my sight, but it’s still easy to focus on Night as he’s the only thing I can clearly see.

Night himself looks deeply amused with a wide grin and a casual hand propped on his hip, not a flicker of concern or fear on his face. Going so far as to make a show of lowering his sword so I can step a little closer. His smug look is making it really hard to not punch his stupid face and knock the designer shades right off his face, but I manage to reign in the instinct. If this doesn’t work, a punch would only be a one-way ticket to my own death, and its not worth that, no matter how good it would feel in the split second before I’m stabbed.

So I slap a hand to his chest, firmly, though not strong enough to hurt. Night raises an eyebrow and I growl to find nothing but solid muscle under my hands, ‘fucking guy is dressed like a white-collar stock broker but he’s fit like a professional athlete. Some people really are just handed the cheat sheet to life aren’t they?’

And though my hate for Night grows a little stronger as we awkwardly stare at each other for a second and as I press my hand into his designer stripped tie, doing my best to wrinkle it with my grip, nothing happens.

A scream echoes from our left as we both turn, oddly in sync to see what has made the noise. We are just in time to see a big burly man chop the leg off of an old lady. It's weird to watch with my new sight, the man is strange, I can see he’s there but he’s only a black silhouette while as the old lady bleeds out her image gets dimmer and dimmer. Seems Night isn’t the only player killer roaming this cave and whatever the hell is happening is affecting more people than just him, but somehow I know that unlike Night who can be “healed” there’s no hope for the shadowed man on the other side of the cave.

“Rather barbaric don’t you think?” Night asks conversationally like I can’t see him swinging his own sword around eagerly like he wants to join in.

“Don’t think you get to talk psychopath.”

Night laughs and it’s weird to be able to feel the laugh, so I quickly pull back so I don’t have to touch him anymore, even through the layers of expensive fabric he still felt strangely cold, and I can’t figure out if the fact I couldn’t feel a heartbeat is because his was abnormally calm or because he didn’t have one.

Turning to the white box with a little glare, I vent my frustrations about this whole stupid thing, “Well that was a waste of time—”

[You have to activate the ability]

“What? Do I have to say some stupid little keyphrase? The last one had a button and the eyes I can’t even turn off, your shitty system needs an instruction manual.”

[We are not a system.]

“And I don’t give a fuck.” I snap back before turning to face Night, who’s still staring off at the other murder roaming the far side of the cave, his eager expression is still there, but both images of him look oddly… disappointed.

The white text box appears right over Night’s flickering form, taking up my entire vision, [Again. Try again.]

[You must desire to help, or the magic will not work]

“The only thing I have a desire to do is punch his face in.”

Night turns back around to face me, cocky grin back with full force, “I’d let you.”

I narrow my eyes at him, “And you would stab me the moment I did.”

He shrugs, “Never said what I would do after the punching.”

The white text box practically slaps back into my face blocking my sight from anything but its words, [Try again.]

[This is your purpose]

“You’re really fucking pushy.”

And I don’t know why exactly but I feel, weirdly compelled to at least try and give it another go. Night still seems amused and he doesn’t protest when I reach back out and grab a fistful of his tie hauling him closer.

“Little forward isn’t this?” he asks as his eyebrows raise and I feel him scan me again.

The urge to punch his lights out gets stronger, “Shut up right now.”

I don’t really have any desire to save Night honestly. It's a little hard to want that when he’s still actively trying to stab me. But if “healing” Night makes it so he won’t murder me the moment the shield drops then I suppose I will have to play the saint, even though all I really want is for him to just stop.

[Activating [Cleansing Touch] on target player [Night]]

“Oh, damn it actually worked—"

With a gasp, I cut myself off as I quickly back up. Night’s grin falls, eyes widening in horror as he stumbles, clenching at his head, at least that’s what his body does. The two flickering images of Night both scream, though I can’t hear them, and the outlines of their once clear forms start to blur, the edges of one bleeding into the other.

All I can do is stare, I’m not the kindest or most morally good person to ever exist, but I think even a horrible person would be a bit shell-shocked to find out they were just used as a tool for murder. Because that’s what is happening, whatever I did, it's destroying both parts of Night.

He stumbles to his knees, blood starting to trickle from his nose, as the two versions of him bleed more and more into each other, a horrible smear of color that should have been two people.

I take another step back, horrified that I had done this, “You said I was a HEALER!?!”

The white text box reappears, blocking out the horrible sight as it tells me only one thing,

[Run]