PAT! PAT! PAT!

The sound of rain echoed against the stone pavement, each drop splattering onto the lifeless ground.

Kneeling in the dirt, his hands clenched into fists, the man trembled. His voice cracked with raw emotion as he gazed up at the girl before him, his face contorted in disbelief.

"Celia. Why? Why are you doing this?"

His voice rang through the empty courtyard, filled with pain, desperation—pleading for an answer that would never come.

The woman whose name appeared to be Celia stood there, unmoved.

Her long, flowing blue hair cascaded down her back, strands dampened by the misty air. The dim light of the lanterns flickered against her delicate features, casting eerie shadows on her porcelain skin.

But it was her eyes—those emerald-green eyes, cold and piercing, that truly froze him in place.

There was no sympathy in them. No hesitation. Only unshaken indifference.

A queen before a beggar.

A deity before an insect.

She tilted her head ever so slightly, as if he were something foreign, something pitifully distant from her understanding.

"I am not doing anything."

The words came, not as an explanation, nor as a denial, but as a simple truth.

She was not the one breaking him.

He was shattering all on his own.

The rain continued to fall.

PAT! PAT! PAT!

Each drop echoed in the still air, punctuating the silence between them. The man, still on his knees, his clothes drenched in rain and filth, could only stare.

His breath was ragged, his chest heaving with each painful inhale. His fingers dug into the mud beneath him, trembling as he clenched the earth as though it could somehow anchor him.

"What do you mean you are not doing anything?!" His voice rose, desperate and raw, the last remnants of composure slipping away.

His head snapped up, eyes filled with disbelief, rage, and something dangerously close to betrayal.

"Why are you taking his side, even after all the things I've done for you?!"

Celia didn't respond immediately. Instead, she exhaled softly, a quiet laugh escaping her lips—one laced with nothing but disdain.

"Heh…"

A sneer curled on her lips as she finally looked at him, her emerald gaze sharper than any blade.

"After all the things you've done for me? Really?" She scoffed, tilting her head. "That is what you're going to say?"

She took a step forward, her shadow looming over him like an executioner over the condemned.

And then, with a coldness that seeped into the marrow of his bones, she spoke his name.

"Damien."

The sound of it sent a shudder through his spine, though not from the rain.

"I never asked you to do any of those things.

Her voice was smooth, yet each word struck like a whip, precise and merciless.

"You did them all on your own."

A presence shifted behind her.

A silhouette emerged from the darkness, his form blurred by the rain and mist. He stood there, silent, unwavering—a figure that needed no words to make his presence known.

And yet, it was not the shadow of the man that made Damien freeze.

It was Celia's next words.

"And, I never wanted you anyway—just like your parents."

The world around him seemed to stop.

A breath hitched in his throat. His body stiffened, the weight of her words crushing down on him more than any physical blow ever could.

She didn't stay to witness the ruin she had just inflicted.

With a flick of her wrist, she turned away, her back facing him, her long hair swaying ever so slightly in the wind.

"Drop it."

She didn't even bother to look at him one last time.

"You and your family are no longer worth anything, anyway."

And with that, she walked away.

The rain kept falling.

---GAME OVER---

The screen went black.

For a second, there was only silence.

Then—

"PUAHAHAHHAHAHAH!"

A long, uncontrollable laugh erupted from my throat. A deep, stomach-clenching, breath-stealing laugh. The kind that comes not from joy, but from something much uglier.

I couldn't stop.

I leaned back against, clutching my stomach as my shoulders shook. My breath hitched between bursts of laughter, my lungs burning, my ribs aching.

"What a fucking joke."

I wheezed, barely managing to get the words out before another round of laughter took over. It was pathetic. The whole thing. The setup, the betrayal, the dialogue. Did they really think that was some kind of heart-wrenching twist?

Celia, that smug bitch, walking away like a goddamn queen. The shadowy bastard behind her, the mysterious third party that every NTR game seemed legally obligated to include. And Damien—oh, poor, pitiful Damien, left broken in the mud, just to make the player feel like absolute dogshit.

I'd seen it coming from the first ten minutes of gameplay, and yet—

It still pissed me off.

I stopped laughing.

The amusement drained from my face in an instant, like a switch had been flipped. My lips curled downward, my jaw tightening, my fingers gripping the plastic edges of the console so hard that they threatened to crack.

"What a fucking waste of time."

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

The console in my hands let out a shrill error noise, the in-game credits still rolling on the screen, flashing words like "A Tragedy Unfolds." "The Price of Love." "An Unchangeable Fate."

I didn't bother reading them.

With a sharp flick of my wrist, I threw the damn thing across the room.

THUD!

The cheap plastic clattered against the wall before hitting the floor with a pathetic little bounce.

I ran a hand down my face, exhaling sharply. My head was still buzzing. A mix of residual frustration, exhaustion, and something else I couldn't quite place.

"You bastard, Eric."

I spat the name like it was poison, my fingers still twitching from the sheer frustration coiled in my gut.

An eroge game, he said.

Something fun, he said.

"You'll love it, trust me," he said.

I should've known. I should've fucking known.

Eric was always like this—smirking like a goddamn fox, dropping recommendations like they were some holy grail, only for them to end up being absolute mental terrorism.

And this time? This time, he really outdid himself.

"Shackles of Fate." That was the name.

A so-called "masterpiece of emotion and passion." A game "filled with beautiful heroines and thrilling adventure."

Bullshit.

It was an NTR-infested nightmare wrapped in pretty packaging. And the worst part? It was perfect for my situation.

A cheap, carriable console that could run on scraps of battery? Something light enough to keep in my hands while I was stuck here? Of course I played it. I didn't exactly have a lot of fucking choices.

BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!

I turned my head to the side, watching as the body monitoring device beside me started wailing. The screen flickered with red warnings—heart rate spiking, stress levels high.

"Well, isn't that fucking normal?" I scoffed, wiping a hand down my face. Who the hell could stay calm after witnessing an ending like that?

Before I could even attempt to get my breathing under control—

The door swung open.

"Mister Damien. What happened?"

And the worst thing was that….

The fact that I shared the same name as that pathetic bastard.