Chapter Text
Altus Zendoji had always been obsessed with an open-world sci-fi game where exploration met tragedy in the form of beautifully crafted characters. A universe teeming with ancient ruins, lawless spaceports, and war-torn planets where the remnants of forgotten civilizations lay scattered like bones in the dust. Among the countless NPCs populating this digital cosmos, one figure had always captured his fascination—Nayuta Umbrage.
A wanderer. A rogue alien pilot with a sharp tongue and even sharper claws. His amethyst eyes glowed like dying stars, a reflection of the void he had long called home. An enigma wrapped in digitized solitude, bound by lines of code yet brimming with more personality than most of the real people Altus knew.
Nayuta was just an NPC. A beautifully crafted one, but an NPC nonetheless. His story was a tragedy—betrayed by his closest ally, left to drift in the abyss, to rot in the void, another casualty of pre-written fate. No matter how many times Altus replayed the game, the outcome never changed. He had tried everything: altering the sequence of events, choosing different dialogue options, scouring the darkest corners of the game’s lore forums for some secret ending that would let Nayuta escape his doomed existence.
But it was just a game.
Until it wasn’t.
The night before it happened, Altus had been grinding through a new questline, exhaustion weighing heavy on his limbs. His fingers moved on autopilot, navigating the familiar star maps, engaging in idle banter with Nayuta’s code-driven responses. The distant hum of a virtual spaceship, the flicker of neon lights reflecting off simulated glass, the rare, amused scoff from Nayuta at something Altus' character had said—it was all part of the routine. Comforting. Familiar. The only world that felt real to him anymore.
Then, the sky above his apartment split open.
At first, he thought it was a dream, some lingering effect of sleep deprivation mixed with the game’s soundtrack still playing in his ears. But the light was too bright. The sound too raw, too vast. A meteor shower unlike anything he had ever seen erupted across the sky, but it wasn’t just in the distance—it was right above him, engulfing his entire world.
It started as a flicker in his peripheral vision, a shimmer at the edges of reality. Then came the lights—streaks of violet and gold tearing through the night, moving too deliberately to be an ordinary meteor shower. The world outside his window blurred, twisted, then unraveled like a glitched-out rendering. His room was no longer his room, but a space flooded with unnatural luminescence, an endless void pulling him in.
His breath caught. His body felt weightless, his mind struggling to comprehend whether he was falling or floating. Voices whispered through the static, familiar and strange all at once. His screen flickered, the game’s UI glitching, stretching beyond the boundaries of the monitor. And somewhere, buried in the distortion, a single name stood out in red: Nayuta Umbrage.
And when he woke up—
He wasn’t home anymore.
He stood in a world draped in black metal and eerie purple light. The hum of machinery vibrated through the air, foreign yet deeply familiar. The scent of something metallic lingered on his tongue.
His breath hitched as he stumbled through a dimly lit corridor, the metallic scent of ozone clogging his nostrils. The walls pulsed, sleek and black like obsidian, reflecting an eerie glow. The air was heavier here, tinged with static, as if reality itself was glitching.
A sudden whip of movement.
A sharp, black, gooey-looking tendril shot forward, stopping just beneath his jaw, its pointed tip grazing his skin.
Then—those eyes.
Glowing violet. Cutting through the darkness like twin shards of a dying star.
“Nayu…” Altus whispered.
“Speak,” Nayuta’s voice was a quiet demand, laced with suspicion and a barely-there tremor of curiosity.
Altus swallowed. He knew this scene. It was scripted into the game—how Nayuta dealt with intruders aboard his ship. But this wasn’t pixels and lines of code. The weight of the tendril against his skin, the way the air felt thick with tension—it was real.
The alien narrowed his gaze, his voice a low growl. “Who are you?”
Altus swallowed, trying to ignore the sharp appendage still dangerously close to his throat.
“I—uh—I don’t know how I got here! I swear! I went to sleep and woke up inside this ship—your ship! I’m not a threat! Please put the tentacle down—holy shit, did I just say tentacle?!”
Nayuta’s eyes flickered. His tentacle retracted an inch. Not much, but enough.
“Ridiculous.” His voice was smooth but edged with suspicion. “And yet… you know my name.”
“I…” Altus hesitated. He couldn’t say I played a game where you die. That sounded insane. Even more insane than the fact that he was standing in front of Nayuta in the first place.
“I just do.”
For a long moment, Nayuta said nothing. Then, with an exasperated sigh, he fully retracted his tentacle, crossing his arms over his sleek black outfit.
“I don’t trust you,” he muttered. “But… you amuse me.”
The tension in the air remained thick, but at least the immediate threat of decapitation had lessened. Altus exhaled, only now realizing just how tight his muscles had been wound. His heart pounded against his ribs like it wanted out.
Nayuta still stared at him, arms crossed, expression unreadable. The eerie purple light cast sharp shadows on his angular features. He looked just as he did in the game—dangerous, calculating, like someone who could kill you with a thought.
Altus rubbed his throat where the tendril had been, still feeling the phantom pressure. “Okay. Okay. Let’s just… take a step back. Maybe I hit my head or something. Maybe this is a dream.” He let out a weak laugh. “A very vivid dream where I almost died, but still—a dream.”
Nayuta tilted his head slightly, his glowing eyes narrowing. “You believe this to be a dream?”
Altus hesitated. “I don’t know what I believe.” He gestured vaguely at the walls, the pulsing black metal, the way everything around him felt hyperreal—more there than anything he’d ever experienced before. “One second, I’m in my bed. The next, I’m here. So either I’m having the most lucid dream of my life, or something seriously messed up is going on.”
Nayuta let out a quiet hum, tapping a clawed finger against his arm. The sound was soft but deliberate, like he was contemplating something deeper than what Altus had said.
“Your presence is an anomaly,” he murmured, almost to himself. “You wear no insignia. No markings of allegiance. And yet, you claim to know me.” He leaned forward slightly, his intense gaze locking onto Altus with an unsettling amount of focus. “Explain.”
Altus’s throat went dry.
How the hell was he supposed to explain that he knew Nayuta because he’d played a game? That he’d watched him die a hundred different ways? That he shouldn’t be here, standing on this ship, breathing the same air as someone who was supposed to be nothing more than pixels on a screen?
“I…” He ran a hand through his hair, trying to keep calm. “It’s complicated.”
Nayuta’s expression didn’t change. “Simplify it.”
Altus let out a nervous laugh. “I can’t. Because if I tell you the truth, you’re either going to think I’m lying, or you’re going to kill me for knowing too much. And I’d really prefer to stay alive right now.”
A beat of silence. Then, to his horror, Nayuta smirked.
“You fear me,” he mused. “Good.”
Altus grimaced. “Yeah, congrats, man. You’re terrifying.”
Nayuta chuckled, low and dark, like he was enjoying this far too much. “You amuse me,” he repeated, this time with something almost resembling amusement in his voice. “That may keep you alive. For now.”
Altus stiffened. “Oh. Great. That’s—comforting.”
Nayuta turned away, his tendrils shifting and curling around him like living shadows. “You will follow me,” he ordered. “And you will not try to run. Unless you wish to see how fast I can catch you.”
Altus gulped. “Nope. No running. Got it.”
He fell into step behind Nayuta, his mind racing.
If this was real, then he needed to figure out why he was here. Fast. Because in the game, anyone who got on Nayuta’s bad side never lasted long.
And just like that, Altus became part of Nayuta’s world. Somewhere between hyperspace jumps and narrow escapes, between stolen glances and quiet nights beneath foreign stars, Altus stopped trying to wake up. Maybe this was insanity, or maybe it was fate. Either way, he followed Nayuta through the cosmos, teasing him until he scowled, guarding him when danger loomed. Nayuta never admitted it, but his once-reluctant acceptance softened into something more.
Days turned into weeks.
Altus learned the rhythm of Nayuta’s world. He memorized the ship’s quirks—the way it shuddered slightly before every hyperspace jump, the faint hum of the engines that never quite settled into silence. He memorized the way Nayuta’s fingers danced over the control panels, the way his lips pressed into a thin line whenever calculations didn’t match expectations.
Most of all, he memorized Nayuta himself.
The way his purple irises glowed in the dim cockpit. The way he instinctively reached for Altus' arm during turbulence, only to snatch his hand back as if burned. The way his sharp tongue softened, ever so slightly, when Altus pushed just enough.
And so Altus pushed.
Again and again.
“Careful, Nayuyu,” Altus drawled one evening, watching as Nayuta tinkered with a damaged control panel. The ship had taken a hit during their last chase, a bounty hunter’s plasma rounds nearly frying their stabilizers. “If you fry the wiring again, we might end up stranded. But hey, don’t worry—I’ll keep you warm at night.”
Nayuta didn’t even look up. “I’ll throw you into space before that happens.”
Altus smirked, arms folded behind his head. “Aw, you’d really go through all that effort? Just admit you like having me around.”
Silence.
Then, a slow, deliberate click as Nayuta powered down his tools. He finally turned, leveling Altus with a stare—sharp, calculating, unreadable.
Altus grinned, waiting for the inevitable retort.
But instead, Nayuta simply tilted his head. “You’re lucky I need a co-pilot.”
Altus faltered. It wasn’t a confession. Not really. But it wasn’t a denial either.
And that? That was dangerous.
Because suddenly, Altus wasn’t just playing anymore.
They chased bounties through asteroid belts, slipping between debris fields like ghosts. They outran intergalactic enforcers on stolen speeders, laughing breathlessly as they skidded into narrow alleyways.
One night, they took a detour to a planet where the sky shimmered with twin moons. The locals were traders, their markets glowing with bioluminescent flora and artifacts from forgotten civilizations. Nayuta haggled for ship parts with practiced ease, while Altus—bored and mischievous—tried to swipe a small trinket from a vendor’s stall.
Nayuta caught his wrist before he could pocket it.
“Really?” Nayuta deadpanned.
Altus grinned. “What? It’s a lucky charm.”
“For what?”
“For my ever-growing patience with you.”
Nayuta scoffed, muttering something under his breath before flicking Altus’ forehead and dragging him away by the collar.
That night, back on the ship, Altus found the trinket tucked into his belongings. He never brought it up.
Somewhere along the way, Altus forgot.
Forgot that this was supposed to be a game.
Forgot that there was a world outside of Nayuta’s spaceship.
Forgot that Nayuta was never meant to last.
Then the dream came.
Blood. So much blood.
The vision burned behind Altus’ eyes—Nayuta’s body crumpled, blood pooling beneath him, his glowing eyes dimming as the betrayal played out just as the game dictated. His last breath, a whisper—words Altus could never forget.
It was inevitable.
Altus woke up gasping.
The cockpit was dim, the only light coming from the soft glow of the control panels. His breath was uneven, his pulse hammering like war drums against his ribs. He turned sharply—Nayuta was beside him, asleep in the pilot’s seat, his face peaceful in the quiet darkness.
A terrible ache bloomed in Altus’ chest.
He wasn’t supposed to care this much.
Wasn’t supposed to want to rewrite the ending.
But gods help him—he did.
From that moment on, Altus never let Nayuta out of his sight.
He became reckless, obsessive. Every mission they took, every planet they landed on—Altus made sure no one got close. He changed routes, destroyed leads, sabotaged any possibility of Nayuta crossing paths with the one who was meant to betray him.
It started small. A simple misdirection here, a recalibrated ship route there. But as they edged closer to the inevitable, Altus found himself crossing lines he never thought he would.
The first time, it was a transmission. They were docked on the trade station at Delta-5, refueling, when Nayuta received a coded message from an unknown sender. Altus recognized the encryption immediately—this was the first breadcrumb, the one that would eventually lead Nayuta straight into the hands of his supposed betrayer.
Altus deleted it before Nayuta could even see it.
The second time, it was a meeting that never happened. They were meant to rendezvous with an informant on Vexis Prime, a contact who would point them toward the next step in the mission. Altus got there first. He paid the man off, threatened him, made sure he never spoke to Nayuta. When Nayuta showed up to an empty warehouse, confused and irritated, Altus feigned ignorance.
“Looks like your guy flaked.” He shrugged, leaning against a rusted beam.
Nayuta narrowed his eyes. “That doesn’t make sense. This was a secure lead.”
“Guess you’re not as charming as you think.” Altus smirked, masking the guilt twisting in his gut.
The third time, things got violent.
They were on the outskirts of Ilaris-7, a barren, lawless moon known for its underground dealings. This was where Nayuta was supposed to meet the one who would set his fate into motion. Altus had done his best to divert them, but Nayuta was relentless, too sharp to be deceived forever.
“This is the place,” Nayuta said, stepping into the dimly lit tavern, his hand resting lightly on the hilt of his blade. Altus followed, silent, tense.
And there they were—two figures sitting at the back table, just as the script intended. The man who would feed Nayuta a crucial piece of information. The woman who would eventually drive the dagger into his back.
Not tonight.
Altus acted without thinking. He lunged before the scene could play out, knocking over a table, sending drinks crashing to the ground. The figures barely had time to react before he had the man in a chokehold, slamming his head against the wooden counter.
Shouts erupted. Chaos followed. Nayuta barely had time to draw his weapon before Altus had already turned the place into a battlefield.
“What the hell are you doing?!” Nayuta shouted, grabbing Altus’ arm as he pulled him out of the wreckage. The informant lay unconscious. The woman had vanished into the shadows. Their lead was gone.
Altus wiped the blood off his knuckles. “They were going to sell you out.”
Nayuta was breathing hard, furious. “And you just decided to start a fight instead of letting me handle it?”
“I handled it.”
“No, you ruined it.” Nayuta shoved him, frustration burning in his eyes. “Why do you keep doing this? You’ve been acting strange. Reckless. Like—like you’re trying to control everything around me.”
Altus hesitated. He wanted to say it. Because you die. Because I can’t lose you. Because this isn’t a game to me anymore.
Instead, he smirked. “What, can’t handle all this attention?”
Nayuta scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Annoying.” But the tension remained.
That night, in the dim glow of their ship’s cockpit, Nayuta broke the silence again.
“You’re overdoing it.” His voice was softer now, almost contemplative. “Like you think I’m going to die or something.”
Altus’ breath caught.
Nayuta sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You’re being weird.” But beneath the annoyance, there was something else. Something softer. Almost… fond.
Altus wanted to believe he had changed the script. That his interference had rewritten the code of this world.
But deep down, he knew fate had a way of correcting itself. And he had just made himself the biggest variable of all.
But fate was not so kind.
The day came anyway.
And no matter what Altus did, the moment unfolded as it was always meant to.
Only… Nayuta changed the ending.
Pain exploded in Altus' skull. It wasn't just a stab of agony—it was fire, searing through his mind, carving through every thought, every impulse. His nerves burned, his muscles locked, and his consciousness flickered, trapped in a body no longer his own.
He tried to scream. His throat only let out a strangled gasp.
His fingers twitched, then curled, closing around the hilt of the plasma blade. The heat of it buzzed against his palm, and his arm jerked upward. Not by his will. Not by his choice.
Somewhere, beneath the suffocating weight of whatever force had invaded his mind, he heard a whisper. Soft. Steady. Nayuta’s voice.
"It’s okay, Altus."
It wasn’t.
His body moved. His grip tightened.
The blade plunged forward.
A wet, sickening sound filled the silence.
And when Altus came back to himself—
His hands were drenched in blood.
The weapon slipped from his grasp, clattering uselessly against the cold metal floor. He stumbled back, his breath ragged, his vision swimming. The world blurred between horror and disbelief, between reality and a nightmare he would never wake from.
Nayuta lay before him.
His sleek clothes, once pristine, were soaked in shimmering violet. His own blood. It spilled in thick rivulets, pooling beneath him, glistening like broken galaxies against the steel floor.
A familiar smirk tugged weakly at the corners of Nayuta’s lips—faint, knowing, as if this had always been inevitable.
Altus dropped to his knees, hands trembling, reaching—grasping at the wound, pressing down, as if he could force the universe to take it back.
“No—no, no, no—” His voice cracked, barely more than a breath. “Nayuta—stay with me—stay with me, please—”
The blood wouldn't stop. It coated his fingers, warm and unrelenting, slipping through like sand, like stars, like everything he couldn’t hold on to.
A soft exhale. “Altus.”
The alien’s voice was quiet. Uncharacteristically so. Almost… gentle.
Altus’ head snapped up, his chest heaving. “Why?” His voice broke on the word, raw and desperate. “Why did you do that?! I tried—I tried so hard to change it!”
Nayuta let out a weak chuckle, though it ended in a shuddering cough. “You really are a fool.” His violet eyes, dim but sharp, fixed onto Altus, something unreadable lingering in their depths. “Did you think you could fight a world that was never yours to control?”
Altus shook his head, violently, his breath coming in frantic gasps. “I—I could have saved you—I should have saved you—”
Nayuta’s body trembled. His breath was growing weaker. But his expression… his expression remained the same. Calm. As if he had always known. As if he had chosen this.
“I knew,” he murmured, words slow, fading. His fingers twitched, barely there, before Altus grasped them, squeezing tightly, desperately, as if he could anchor him here.
“What?” Altus whispered.
Nayuta exhaled softly. “I knew I was going to die. I’ve always known. This world… it’s written in its code. But you…” His lips parted, as if to say more, but his breath was failing. “You weren’t supposed to care.”
Altus clenched his jaw, his heart hammering violently in his chest. “Of course, I cared! I—” His throat burned, his vision blurred. “I love you, you idiot! I—I didn’t care if you were an NPC, I didn’t care if this was a game, I didn’t care about any of it—” His grip on Nayuta’s cold hand tightened. “I just wanted you to live.”
For the first time, Nayuta’s expression wavered.
His smirk faltered.
His gaze softened.
“You…” His voice was faint now, slipping through the cracks of time. “You shouldn’t have loved me.”
Altus choked back a sob. “Don’t say that.” His voice trembled, shattered. “Don’t—don’t make this harder than it already is—”
A ghost of a smile. A final, fleeting breath of warmth.
“Then… let me make it easier.”
His fingers twitched weakly in Altus’ grip.
"I… love you, too."
Altus gasped, his whole body shaking, breaking apart at the seams. “No… Nayu, don’t—don’t—”
But Nayuta’s breath was already slowing. His violet eyes, once burning, dulled like dying stars.
"I love you," he whispered one last time. A quiet, final confession.
And then—
A breath.
A pause.
Stillness.
His eyes slipped shut.
His body stilled.
The world—everything—fell silent.
And all Altus could do was hold him, his fingers tangled in the fabric of Nayuta’s clothes, gripping so tight his knuckles ached, his chest heaving in silent, broken sobs.
Somewhere in the void, the stars continued to burn. The universe continued on.
But Altus’ world had ended.
The universe around him cracked. Not in a way that could be seen, but in a way that could be felt—a jagged, invisible fracture in the fabric of reality itself. The world stuttered, time convulsing around him, and then—
[ SYSTEM OVERRIDE ]
A rupture in the air. A pulse of static. And then, the choice.
Two options. That was all he was given.
[ EXIT THE GAME ] – Return to reality. Forget this place. Forget Nayuta. Forget.
[ CONTINUE ] – Stay. Even if it meant being trapped in a hollow shell of a world. Even if Nayuta was gone.
Altus stared at the glowing text, his breath coming in sharp, uneven gasps. The weight of the decision pressed down on him like a vice, suffocating, unrelenting. His body trembled, not from fear, but from something far worse—an emptiness that had already begun to consume him from the inside out.
Return to reality? To an existence that had long since lost its meaning? A place where Nayuta had never even been real? He tried to imagine it—tried to picture waking up, stepping outside, going through the motions of a life that had already unraveled long ago. His hands curled into fists. No. No, that wasn’t life. That was a prison made of flesh and bone, of beating hearts and empty souls.
But staying—staying meant lingering in this shattered, dying world. A place where the only thing that had ever felt real had been ripped away from him, leaving behind nothing but silence and static. A cruel imitation of reality, one that taunted him with echoes of what once was.
His chest ached. Something inside him fractured, splintering into a thousand jagged pieces.
He laughed, but the sound was hollow, brittle. A cruel mockery of something human.
It didn’t matter. The answer had already been decided long before the question was ever asked.
Nayuta was gone. And Altus—Altus had already died twice.
Once, in a world he no longer belonged to.
Twice, in the arms of a fallen star.
His fingers hovered over the choice, trembling. A deep, shuddering breath. The last remnants of something warm, something human, slipping away like dust between his fingers.
And then, he pressed—
[ CONTINUE ]