Q’s eyes widened in horror as he caught Daphne in the act of trying to dry swallow a handful of NGF pills. He lunged at her jittering body. She had already taken a couple of handfuls before he had arrived.

She quickly feigned innocence, asking Q what was wrong. Daphne had returned to her formal gentle self, but at what cost?

Q had finally snapped out of his lull and began to shout in a wavering voice. Realizing the gravity of the situation Daphne had put herself in.

“HOW COULD YOU LIE TO ME DAPHNE!! JUST HOW MANY PILLS DID YOU TAKE?!!”

His grip on her twitching wrists tightened.

“You’re hurting me!” She cried out.

Q had become delirious, his mind had become a jumbled mess. He snapped his head over to a bag filled with NGF pills that Daphne had managed to sneak into her room.

“THESE DAMNED DRUGS!!” He hollered as he stormed towards the bag.

“What are you doing?!”

Q looked into the bag, his eyes widened. The empty tabloids revealed just how much Daphne had consumed. He glared at Daphne with a disgusted look on his face.

“W-why are you looking at me like that!”

“WHY! WHY IS THIS HAPPENING?!”

“Y-you’re scaring me Q!”

“I need to get rid of these…” Q spoke in a disgusted tone.

He stomped towards the door to Daphne’s room

“Stop it…” she murmured in a low voice.

Q continued to ignore her.

“Give it back…”

As Q reached the door to her room, she lunged towards him screaming. Her personality had drastically shifted once again.

“YOU CAN’T! I NEED THEM!”

A pure feeling of hatred erupted from within Q. He had finally snapped. He turned around and grabbed her flimsy wrist as she wrestled to try and grab the bag of NGF pills. Their dialogue had completely broken down into a nonsensical shouting match. Daphne eventually managed to make Q lose his balance, causing him to fling the bag into the wall, causing an explosion of white pills to scatter all throughout the room. Q had had enough, his grip on her arms tightened as he shook her around trying to make her come to her senses.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF ME!”

“LISTEN TO ME DAPHNE! YOU N-”

“HELP!! RAPE!! SOMEONE HELP M-”

“DAPHNE YOU NEED TO STOP TAKING THESE PILLS! YOU’RE GONNA DIE!!” Q shouted.

“PLEASE SOMEONE HELP!” Daphne screams as she tries to push Q aside and reach towards a pile of crushed pills on the floor.

The lights began to flicker as the tension in the room escalated.

“I NEED IT!! I’M GONNA DIE WITHOUT IT!”

“YOU’RE ADDICTED DAPHNE! YOU ALREADY HAD ENOUGH FOR TODAY, YOU DON’T NEED ANYMORE!” Q’s voice was trembling and tears began welling up in his eyes.

“I DON’T CARE!!” Daphne’s voice boomed as she sent Q slamming into the wall.

“Her neural potential is out of control…” Q whimpered as he tried to recover.

Daphne had lunged onto the ocean of pills and grabbed a handful.

Q reached his hand out as he stumbled forward trying to stop her. “NO DAPHNE!!! STOP YOU’RE GONNA-”

All of a sudden, Wolf and the other members of the Fourth had barged into the room. A man and a woman had managed to subdue a violently screaming Daphne and drag her out of the room. Q could only watch in horror, still trying to process everything that had gone down.

Wolf slowly approached him afterwards.

“You know what happens next… don’t you…” he said in a low tone.

Q slowly turned to face the menacing red glow of Wolf’s mask. Almost as if he were staring at the devil himself.

He understood what Wolf was implying, but there was nothing he could say or do. All he wanted to do at that moment was disappear.

***

“This is Q’s memories…” Ten shuddered as he once again found himself watching another tragic backstory unfold right before him.

He couldn’t control the overwhelming emotions of fear that were running rampant in his mind.

“This is addiction…” He said as he looked down towards the dark floor of the infinite plane. There was a dim reflection of himself staring back from the black sea he stood upon. 

Ten made a disgusted face. He couldn’t look at himself, after what he had put Q through with his addiction.

Q remained silent, staring downward towards his own faded reflection as well. A new memory began to develop, transporting them back into the realm of Q’s past.

***

Daphne had been subdued to a chair in a dark sinister room. The only other person there was Wolf, whose glowing red eyes pierced out from the shadows.

“I didn’t want things to end up like this…”

Daphne looked at him, a cold bead of sweat ran down her face.

“W-where’s the NGF pills?” She asked desperately.

“You mean these?” Wolf rummaged through his coat and pulled out a fresh tabloid of NGF pills.

Daphne’s eyes glistened at the sight.

“Taking any more of these will kill you… even knowing that… you still want more?”

“Please.” She said without hesitation.

“I’d die regardless…”

Wolf stared into the tabloid of pills for an awkward amount of time before slowly placing them on the interrogation table she was subdued behind.

“Very well… if that’s your final choice…” Wolf said with a hint of disappointment as he turned to walk out the room.

“What about my hands? Their still strapped to the-”

The door closed and she was all alone.

“Tsk…” she muttered to herself as she ripped open the packaging with her bare teeth.

She looked like that of an animal, gnawing down on the intestines of its unfortunate prey. But the intestines here were white and red capsules mixed with hastily torn shreds of aluminum. 

Wolf found Q slumped against the wall of the hallway outside the interrogation room.

“She’s got 30 minutes at most… those pills were laced with Velithra. A neurotoxin mainly used in assisted suicides for.”

Q didn’t respond.

“It’s completely painless-”

“That’s enough… you don’t need to say anymore…”

After a long silence.

“This was the only course of action. Any longer and she could pose a huge threat to the Fourth. You know what happens when someone reaches Stage 5 addiction don’t you?”

“An abnormal…” Q replied weakly.

“This is for her sake as well-”

“I know that! I know…” Q blurted out in anger.

Another awkward silence. After a short while, Wolf finally turned around and started walking down the dark hallway without uttering another word. Q continued to lay on the floor, slumped in defeat.

He understood what Wolf had meant. It was the only logical option forward. Velithra was a common drug used in the AA for assisted suicides. In fact, the death toll on AA members are primarily from assisted suicide. After all, the stress induced from having the reality shattering revelation that your whole entire life was a simulation would be enough to destroy anybody, no matter their background.

This world was no place where the weak belonged. A weak individual with a weak mind was a recipe for disaster. An unstable conscience filled with negative thoughts, temptations, addictions and a chasm of other terrors. 

Yet it was an ironic world where the mentally ill ruled with an iron fist. Those who found a way to turn those negative thoughts, temptations and addictions into a delusion powerful enough to leave an imprint on this cracked and dirtied canvas of a reality.

But that kind of fate only holds true for those who carry all the knowledge and power in this world. Those with wealth and technology that had the capabilities of sharpening and taming these terrifying double edged swords. The Fourth was not one of these powers.

He gritted his teeth in despair.

“Perhaps I should ask Wolf for some of that Velithra as well…” He muttered to himself.

“Hey… What are you doing on the floor mister?” The voice of a young girl spoke out curiously.

It was Naomi. She would often wander around and get lost in the hideout all the time. Perhaps it was mere coincidence she found herself in front of him at the very moment he began contemplating suicidal thoughts.

“N-Naomi?” He responded suddenly.

The innocent aura surrounding Naomi had a huge calming effect, chasing away the dark thoughts he was swimming in earlier. He was always curious as to what Naomi’s inscription entailed, or whether she had one at all. Naomi was the second person to join the Fourth, the original vice captain before he had been recruited. But her amnesia made her a horrible fit for the role so he had no choice but to fill in. Whenever he asked Wolf about her powers, Wolf would simply dodge the question. Eventually, Q took the hint and stopped asking all together. 

“How do you know my name? Are you a mind reader?” She asked as her eyes sparkled with curiosity.

Q let out a weak laugh. “Thank you Naomi…”

“Huh… Why are you thanking me?”

“I was feeling down earlier, but you’ve made me feel better…” Q said as he got up and began patting Naomi on the head.

“So are you a mind reader or not… Hey! You still haven’t told me your name!” Naomi said in a cranky voice.

“Q…”

“Q?”

“My name’s Q…”

“Quuuuuu.” She said elongating the vowel.

“That’s a cool name, I won’t forget it!” Naomi chimed with excitement as she ran down the dark hallway in the direction Wolf had gone.

Q had somewhat snapped out of the dark haze he was engulfed in earlier. He stared at the door to the room that Daphne was being held in. His hands began shaking as he went to open the door. Pausing, as a wave of hesitation washed over him. It was then that he heard a soft lull coming from the other side of the room. The serenity of Daphne’s voice as she hummed a familiar tune she would often sing whenever she was alone. It was a habit she had picked up from her past protocol. She said the beauty of the melody was enough to help her forget about her horrible situation.

Q’s eyes watered as he used his last bit of resolve to open the door and confront the harsh consequences of this relentless reality.

He was greeted with a single dim light which hung from the ceiling of the dank interrogation room. In the center was Daphne, who was cuffed to a metallic chair. In front of her was an iron table scattered with the remains of NGF pill tabloids.

Daphne continued to hum in her soft voice, blissfully unaware of her fate. Q slowly approached the table, longing for some sense of closure.

Daphne stopped humming and finally looked at him. Her eyes were calm and innocent, just like the day they first met. It was a common side effect of Velithra. Before imminent death, an individual would show signs of tranquility and ease, almost as if they had made peace with death itself.

“Q…” she finally called out to him.

He wanted to look at her, but his guilt and shame had forced his head towards the floor.

“I-I’m sorry…” Q replied weakly.

“Sorry? I should be the one apologizing… you warned me about the dangers of addiction… yet I still…”

Q continued to stare at the floor in silence.

“No… it was on me… I’ve heard things like this happen often in the AA… I was careless…”

“But still…” Daphne frowned.

Another long pause.

“Q… Can you look at me?”

Q hesitated but his gaze slowly began to drift towards Daphne’s face. It was glowing.

His eyes widened with sadness.

“I really did have fun in the Fourth…” She smiled softly.

“Everyday… with you all…”

Q bit his lip holding back tears.

“It was nothing like my old world…”

Another long silence.

“Hey Q… Can you bring me outside… It’s getting hard to breathe being stuck in here…”

No more words were exchanged as Q quietly unstrapped Daphne from the chair.

When she tried to get up, she stumbled to the floor.

“Daphne!”

“Ah… For some reason I can’t feel my legs… why aren’t they working?” She giggled innocently. Her tone began to slur like that of a drunkard.

The Velithra was definitely working.

Q decided to pick her up off the floor himself. Eventually the two found themselves outside of the hideout. Looking up at a dark rainy sky in between the alleyways of the slums. Memories of the grand luxurious palace which she had suffered in stood in stark contrast to the setting she now found herself in. Yet, it was in these dank and gloomy corridors that she had found solace. 

It was a heartbreaking irony.

The rain continued to peck away at the two, as they looked up towards the sky in silence.

“Q…” Daphne called to him.

As soon as he looked down towards the sound of her weak voice, he found his lips embraced by the cold bittersweet touch of her own.

“I love you Q… thank… you… for… everything…” Her voice began to trail off as the glimmer in her eyes slowly faded away.

In that moment, Q shot his head up at the unforgiving sky and screamed out in pure agony.