For the first time, I was glad to hear the distant saxophone and see the bright pink sparkles fluttering around me like unhinged butterflies. It meant that the ‘romantic scene’ was in full swing and any moment now, the episode would end in a cliffhanger. Hunter was still murmuring some sort of nonsense in his ever-changing accent, an inconvenient background noise to my spiralling mind, formulating the ultimate counterattack.

I realised that acting too out of character would simply make the system hijack my body and make me do whatever the plot required anyway. If I was playing along, the system worked as intended at first, but the sheer nonsense of whatever was going on in this story might get me killed, or worse, into a relationship with my stepbrother. So there was only one choice.

Go apeshit.

The door handle rattled, probably the overused trope of the danger of being discovered by someone coming in during a ‘sexy’ moment. In my experience, it never actually delivered. The NPC would gasp, ask what the hell we were doing, only for the next episode to completely disregard the cheap cliffhanger and conveniently teleport us somewhere safe, or get our clothes on, or have the character decide to immediately forget why they were going in and head off.

As we were around episode 10, God help me, the discovery of our illicit relationship would have been too soon. So I patiently waited for Hunter to grin down at me and ask if I was worried we would be walked in on. And then the blessed freeze-frame, a welcome demon in this particular layer of hell, liberated me.

I blinked and was transported into a convenience store. Apparently, Liam had a part-time job to pay for his sister’s/mother’s medical bills and school tuition. Because, God forbid, social services or competent parents exist in this bullshit world. I pushed the trolley full of soup cans along the aisle when I was met with a crowd of familiar faces.

Brittney and a gang of generic-looking bullies blocked my way. Yet another scene of the damsel in distress being saved by his conveniently timed romantic interest.

Well, not today, Satan.

Before Brittney even managed to open her overpainted face to spout yet more nonsense, I grabbed a soup can from the trolley and lobbed it at the group with all my strength. It hit one of the bigger bullies straight in the forehead, and he dropped like a sequoia in the Sierra Nevada.

Fucking timber, bitches.

Before any of them could respond, or the system recovered and took over, I kicked the trolley as hard as I could to roll towards the group and grabbed the handle of a frying pan on one of the shelves. I met with Brittney’s saucer-like eyes and went to town.

It was cathartic. I didn’t regulate my strength, nor did I give two shits about the store’s integrity or my own skin. I wielded the pan with the frustration of a 50s housewife who finally snapped at her wayward cheating husband.

To my ardent surprise, it worked. By the time Hunter exploded yet another set of doors today, I stood among the broken bodies of my bullies, covered in blood, some of it mine, and laughing maniacally. Hunter’s face had that blank expression one sees on mannequins, his purpose thwarted now that my foes lay defeated beneath my feet.

I grinned.

“Liam? What happened?”

I did not deem that worthy of a response. I could feel the system beginning to tug at my ankles, trying to force them to buckle, trying to replace my ecstatic grin with tears of fear and submission.

Before any of that could trap me once again, I lunged. As my makeshift weapon connected with Hunter’s temple, I could see the familiar glitching streak all around me. This time, it was accompanied by a blaring siren.

Maybe if I completely obliterated this shitty simulation, I would be ejected or deleted. I would take either in my desperate state.

As Hunter collapsed in a heap over the other NPCs, the dark swath of nothing beyond the glitch flashed with red warning letters as the floor gave way beneath me once again.

This time, I embraced the fall.

Wherever I ended up, it couldn’t possibly be worse than this.