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It had been years since Neo and Swap had first gotten together. A failed revenge attempt turning into one of the best decisions Swap had ever made in his life.
It was all thanks to the Admins and other Gordons- heck, even the persistent messages- that Swap had the courage to ask his crush out in the first place. Of course, he was nervous at first, but all turned out well in the end. Neo was the perfect little security breach and Swap couldn’t have asked for anyone better to spend the rest of his life with.
After around two long years of being together, they finally got married. Neo had taken him to a fancy restaurant down by the water, something Swap assumed was just another normal date. But once they left and the sun began to set on the golden horizon, Neo had pulled out a ring and proposed in a very Neo-esq manner, making a bunch of gaming references to convey just how much Swap had meant to them.
Swap, of course, accepted the offer of being with him till the very end, and a few months later, a wedding was held on the ship on a day that everyone could attend. It was one of the best days of Swap’s life, one he would never forget.
But of course, all good things came to an end eventually.
Even things as precious as those you care about.
Swap really should have noticed it from the beginning, the one fatal flaw that would later come to crush his happiness under its unstoppable force of nature. But he didn’t. He hadn’t even considered that such a thing could happen. And if any of the others did, they chose to keep it silent, hid it away from him and let him live in blissful ignorance.
He wondered if Neo had noticed either. If they did, why didn’t they say anything? Perhaps then there could have been a way to prevent such an unfortunate outcome before it was too late.
The flaw in question was the human lifespan. On average, humans were only supposed to live for around 75 to 79 years, maybe a little longer if they were lucky. But Neo had only managed to live up to 76 before dying peacefully in his sleep.
The discovery of his significant other's icy cold corpse next to him the next morning had completely shocked him. At first, Swap had thought that it was just another weird human thing, that maybe older humans could simply cool themselves off and halt all movement. However, the fact that there wasn’t a heartbeat and that there was no sign of breathing were the things that made his brain click.
He had frantically called the others, hoping that maybe they had another explanation, that maybe Neo was okay and that despite everything suggesting otherwise, he was still alive.
He was wrong.
A private funeral was held on short notice once the others received the unfortunate news.
As time went on, the denial ate away at him. Every passing day, Swap pretended as though it was just like back in Xen, that one hopeful day Neo would appear beside him and things could go back to normal. Of course, they never did. Neo wouldn’t be coming back, he was dead for good. It wasn’t like in the game where the player character could be revived after a game over. But Swap still didn’t want to accept this unfortunate truth.
In a desperate attempt to bring his husband back from the dead, Swap had made his way to Doc’s lab and begged the mad scientist to do the same thing that he had for his own team all those years ago. But much to his dismay and anger, Doc apologized and said that he wasn’t able to do such a thing. According to him, the revival machine was broken and was far beyond repair- the passing years leaving it outdated and malfunctioning.
Not only was the machine too old to function, but even if it were to be working by some miracle, Neo was already long gone, buried deeply 6ft in the ground.
It was one thing to revive bodies that had been carefully stored and maintained, but one such as Neo's would be too far gone to do anything to help it.
So, with sorrow and dismay in his heart, Swap returned home.
The house used to be so lively, Neo always adding a strange new decoration or playing Crazy Frog on the speakers. But now it was quiet and the halls, once colorful from all the skeleton and clown decorations, seemed so dull.
After a few more agonizing weeks passed by, whatever remaining hope Swap still had to see their lover's face again was long gone, buried with them, the reality of the situation finally settling in.
The whole reason Swap left the game in the first place was to get revenge on Neo for leaving him behind- revenge which turned into a crush that would change everything. But now with Neo no longer by his side, he had no reason to be here anymore.
He truly was alone now.
As a practically immortal final boss, there was no real way for Swap to die of old age or disease like a normal human could. no real way to kill him. Or, at least that's what he thought until he found that his code was still stored in the games files. Maybe if he deleted those, he would be deleted too.
It was worth a shot.
He had nothing else to lose after all.
And so Swap slowly made his way to the spare bedroom where Neo’s computer still sat upon the desk, remaining unused for quite some time now. But before fully entering the room and doing what would be irreversible, he quickly dipped back out and into the main bedroom. Swap grabbed something from one of the bedside tables and made his way back to the other room once more, taking a seat in the gaming chair that was rolled away from the desk.
Now seated, he began digging through all the files on the computer, searching for the copy of Half Life that he’d come from. Before long, he found it, opening up the file to display the rest of its contents.
Skimming through a bunch of folders, most of which he didn’t even bother to open, he looked for the character file folder. Right clicking it, his eyes scanned over the code stored neatly inside.
The code for all the others was here too. They’d occasionally come out into the real world but for the most part they stayed in the computer, happily living their digital lives without a care or worry. But Swap wasn’t interested in their files, nor was he interested in saying goodbye.
Instead, he minimized the file window and located the chunk of code dedicated to him. Grabbing it with the mouse that was modded to look like Crazy Frog, a shaky hand slowly began dragging it away to the main desktop, only stopping to hover briefly over the trashcan full of other old discarded files.
Taking a moment to gather his thoughts, Swap looked away from the screen and instead turned his gaze towards the thing he’d grabbed from the other bedroom- a framed picture taken the day of his and Neo’s wedding. It was a beautiful picture, the couple smiling with glee in fancy suits while Neo held a bouquet of roses. God how Swap missed them…
But now, it was time to do what he had come here for.
Releasing his finger from the mouse button, the file disappeared into the trash, being lumped in with various other files that were no longer needed. The left button clicked on the icon and the options menu appeared next to it, waiting for a command to be pushed.
Mousing over the “empty bin” option, Swap took one last glance at the framed photo before clicking the mouse button once more, resigning himself to his own fate.
Sure, try all he might, Swap couldn’t die to normal human means, but that didn’t mean that death was impossible. After all, the best way to defeat the final boss for good was to delete their very being and wipe them from the world of which they lived.
And that's the way it would be. The final ending of the cruel game of life.