“A man would rather deceive himself than face a truth he cannot endure.”

  — Dostoyevsky

  The pain spreading through her knees and arms was real. Sloane coughed and forced herself upright. She clenched her teeth to suppress the pain, swearing endlessly inside her head.

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck!

  Her curses echoed through the station.

  “Shut up!” she shouted. No one else had spoken, yet she felt close to losing control. Her consciousness was blurring; she was losing her balance. When the pain in her limbs subsided, she checked the bandage on her abdomen. There was none. Not even the cut was there. That was when she noticed her clothes had changed. Her pants were gone, replaced by a pretty skirt; her sneakers by high heels.

  When she looked back at the station, it was gone. Loud music shattered the silence, making her jump in place. Under flashing lights, she stood in the middle of a dance floor. People were dancing around her. They were having fun.

  Sloane moved away from the floor, not forgetting she was inside the anomaly. Passing by the bar, she saw herself in the mirror. Her black hair had turned blonde. She stepped closer. She barely recognized herself. Suddenly, a woman grabbed her shoulders.

  “Valeri! What are you doing here? Come on, the boys are waiting for us on the floor. We’re supposed to have fun!”

  “Valeri? I’m not Valeri,” Sloane said.

  “Girl, are you high or something?”

  Sloane freed herself from the woman’s grip and looked at herself again. The anomaly was erasing her identity. She had mistaken the reflection for herself.

  [System Notification] [Find the anomaly’s weak point before consciousness disperses.]

  [Anomaly weak point: Consciousness overload backlash]

  Whichever of us burns out first loses. Sloane understood. The longer she stayed in any consciousness, the higher the chance she would forget who she was. She had to exhaust the mind by doing something unpredictable.

  Her first move was to go to the bar and ask the bartender for a bottle. She was inside the body of the consciousness owner, and the woman who had spoken to her earlier was likely her friend. Sloane found them near the men she had mentioned on the dance floor.

  Sloane took a long gulp from the bottle. The alcohol burned her throat. The woman shrieked in excitement. Even in an anomaly, alcohol tastes shit.

  “You finally showed up! That guy is totally your type—why don’t you dance with him?”

  Sloane looked at the man the woman pointed to. He was handsome, but she knew none of this was real. The woman who thought she was her friend had been dead for a long time. She felt sorry for what she was about to do.

  “What are you waiting for, Valeri? If you won’t dance with him, I wi—”

  Before raising her hand, Sloane looked at the woman’s face once more. She was smiling. She brought the bottle down. People screamed in panic as the environment warped and twisted.

  “I’m sorry…” Sloane whispered. The next consciousness formed.

  [Anomaly consciousness loading successful]

  “You have the right to remain silent. If I were you, I wouldn’t talk, filthy whore!”

  The police removed her handcuffs and shoved her into a cell, slamming the door shut. Memories of the consciousness she had entered flooded her mind. She had beaten the man she seduced, not even knowing why she’d done it. Her own memories and the others’ had turned into a jumbled mess. She touched her aching left eye. It was completely swollen shut.

  I got beaten good. That thought wasn’t hers. That bastard refused to pay me! She heard a voice.

  Sloane tried to remember who she was. Why was she here? How had she gotten here? Her stomach twisted. The nausea became real—she vomited onto the concrete floor.

  “Idiot! Who told you to puke there?” the angry policeman shouted. “Don’t puke again. I’ll bring you a mop.”

  What did I expect from cheap wine? That bastard tried to get everything for free! Voice echoed.

  Did that really happen? Sloane wondered. She didn’t remember drinking wine. The man’s face… Why was it unclear?

  Her head throbbed. She rubbed her temples. Then she noticed her clothes. A tight mini skirt revealed too much when she sat. A push-up top exaggerated her chest.

  I don’t remember dressing like this, she thought.

  Another voice rose inside her. I’ve spent my whole life wearing these.

  Sloane was confused. The two thoughts contradicted each other. The angry policeman returned with a bucket of water and a mop. He opened the cell and ordered her to step back. She obeyed. He locked the door again, cursed her once more, then spat at her. The spit hit the floor before reaching her.

  “Clean that too,” he said.

  Fucking cop! Sloane didn’t understand why she was cursing him.

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  Why am I here?

  Her full awareness returned at once. This place wasn’t real. The anomaly was growing stronger. She was almost forgetting who she was. She had to escape this dead consciousness—quickly. But how? She was alone in the cell. Was there anything she could do?

  I hate myself. I should’ve listened to my mother.

  She had regained herself, but she could still hear the woman’s thoughts.

  I want to die…

  Sloane froze. Death… That was it. She had to force extreme actions to overload the anomaly. In the cell, there was only a bucket of water, a mop, and her vomit.

  She knew what she had to do.

  She knelt down and stared into the bucket. In the reflection, she saw the woman with one swollen eye.

  You’re already dead. Dying again won’t hurt you, right?

  Another thought echoed—this time from the woman.

  It’s the best option.

  Sloane plunged her head into the bucket. When her reflexes tried to pull her back up, she pressed down harder with both hands. Her lungs begged for air. Pain spread through her body as her vision darkened.

  Then she heard the woman’s voice again: Thank God!

  When the officer came to check on her, he found her motionless with her head submerged. At first, he thought she was pretending. When she didn’t respond, he fumbled with his keys.

  “Fuck, damn it! Send help! The suspect attempted suicide!”

  [Anomaly consciousness loading successful]

  The warmth of darkness leaned toward her. Not a body, but a feeling—like a soft hand wrapped around her hardened soul. It melted the cold, made her forget her rigidity. It whispered into her ear that she was valuable. And the entity believed it. It demanded no return. Made no contract. Set no trap.

  Lies, tricks, and bargains did not work here. Because the emotion felt was pure. The entity had forgotten what love was. But it wanted to experience it. It was bold enough to try to define the indefinable.

  She was Werther’s Lotte,

  She was Gatsby’s unreachable Daisy,

  She was Elizabeth, who unraveled Darcy’s mind.

  And as Jack London once told, she had touched love in its purest form.

  I must be the happiest person in the world!

  The thought left a sweet sensation in Sloane’s loosening body. Warmth filled everything. The heat touching her skin did not come from a place, but from a feeling. When she opened her eyes, she was in a bed. The white sheets were wrinkled. Pale morning light filtered through a cracked window.

  As she stretched and made a soft sound, she noticed someone sleeping beside her. His breathing was steady. And as she listened, the tension inside her dissolved. There was no voice. No threat. Only… belonging.

  She couldn’t see his face, but his presence was clear. He wasn’t filling a void—there was no void left. She reached out. Her fingers touched the shoulder of the man with his back turned. Warm. Real. Her heart raced.

  He turned toward her. Awake. He didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His presence gave her peace—no, more than that… it infused her with happiness. A thought entered her mind: You don’t need to run anymore. This world was simple. Understandable. No one hunted her. No one demanded anything.

  She was simply loved.

  This love was not an explosion. Not a scream. It flowed slowly, like a quiet river. It didn’t carry her—it held her. She closed her eyes. Who she was didn’t matter. Where she came from didn’t matter. What she had done didn’t matter.

  None of that mattered here. A sentence echoed in her mind: You can stay.

  Stay… What a beautiful word. To stay meant not to decide. Not to flee. Not to resist.

  This love belonged to no person, no face, no body, no name. It was completeness remembered by absence. He wasn’t looking at her. He was seeing her. Looking was direction. Seeing was recognition.

  Every small desire Sloane had forgotten found its answer here:

  Someone was waiting for her,

  Someone asking her name,

  Someone does not want her to leave.

  They were not grand wishes. But they were what kept people alive. Thoughts touched like skin He didn’t say there was no pain. Remembering was unnecessary. Escaping was meaningless. Knowing who she was was a burden.

  Something loosened in her mind. One knot unraveled. Then another. The anomaly wasn’t feeding on her fear— it was feeding on her exhaustion. And exhaustion was older than resistance. Her breathing synced with his. Her heartbeat changed rhythm. It no longer felt like her body. Here, time did not move. Time stayed. There was a moment that could last a lifetime, and that moment asked for nothing.

  For the first time, she felt the blessing of existing without doing.

  And that blessing became the proof that none of this was real.

  Something stirred in her mind. Not a name. Not even a memory. Just… another place. A wall. Cold rails. The smell of metal. The sound of her own breath while running. This room did not belong to those things. The man shifted and held her hand.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. She shook her head. But she was cold. The cold inside love.

  Because this love was:

  Not chosen,

  Not earned,

  Not remembered.

  It was ready. And everything was ready…was dangerous.

  Cracks formed at the edges of her mind. She tried to remember who she was. Her name… For a moment, it wouldn’t come. Her heart raced. The man pulled her closer. His embrace was a trap—gentle, but without exit.

  “We’re together,” he said. “Nothing else matters.”

  “I… was somewhere else,” she whispered. “There was pain there.”

  “Not here.”

  “That’s why you’re not real.”

  This love was beyond perfect. It had made her forget she was human. Love gained without cost had never existed in her life. She had only seen such love in books and films. To her, it could only be fiction.

  The room trembled. The light faded. The smile cracked.

  “Stay.” One word. A powerful one.

  But behind it stood the weight of thousands of minds. Sloane slowly got out of bed. She opened the door and closed it with sorrow, looking back at the kind of love she might never feel again.

  [Anomaly consciousness loading successful]

  [Anomaly consciousness overloaded]

  [Reverse loading initiated]

  [Warning: User consciousness destabilizing]