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Only one could make it to the end.
That had been established on day 1, when Grian was designated to lay out the rules, and he'd pretended not to know why.
It had been the one constant, the one thing driving them all forward. The knowledge that, no matter what, he couldn't let Scar win .
And the funniest part was when that translated into Grian had to win. Because anything less would be allowing them to win.
So maybe the idea of who 'won' was slightly irrelevant, since no matter what, the Players would lose. It would just be a different type of losing - instead of losing just a game, it would be losing their identity. Their sense of self. Their humanity .
In a way, that's why Grian was willing to kill everyone else; because he had lost his humanity a long time ago. He had no chance, but everyone else did. But Scar did.
It was messy, and that's how the Watchers liked it. Bloody and gorey and messy, so that they could lick up the remains.
That's why, in another world, in another what-nearly-was , Grian was sobbing harder and harder as he stumbled forward, knife thrust forward so carelessly it nearly slipped from his grasp.
Scar only smiled gently, though that wasn't true. The knife plunged in and out, clean and fast. Scar fell forward onto Grian, blood seeping between their shared fabric and the warmth filling in for for Scar's fading body heat.
Grian sobbed as he hugged the corpse, letting the bloody knife fall from his grip onto the red-stained sand.
Eventually he stood at the peak of Monopoly Mountain, same knife in hand. He began to shout, and anyone around would've assumed he was shouting to himself.
There was nobody around, only corpses.
"The mistake is thinking I sacrificed him so that I could win - but that would fit your perception of Players perfectly, so maybe you won't believe me anyway."
"I'm the sacrifice here. Bit of a rubbish one, but that's the point really - I'm the most you're getting. A faulty, half-human Watcher who crawled his way into pretending to be a Player."
"Take me. After all, that's the point, really."
In the what-nearly-was , that Grian plunged the same bloody knife into his gut, and keeled forward. He still ended up lying at the bottom of Monopoly Mountain, dead, and taken again by the Watchers.
It ended the same way. It just could've happened differently.
But it didn't. So maybe there was no point at all.