The Two Edges of Betrayal - Part 2 - [Prologue Three]

Unable to react physically or mentally, Luana allowed herself to be carried to the room by Philip. In the room, Minerva helped her undress, take a bath, dress in comfortable clothes, and after that, she didn't remember anything else. It was the first time in a long while that she slept a whole night soundly. Despite being tormented by nightmares, thanks to the medicine Minerva had administered, she didn't wake up until morning came.

In the morning, when Luana woke up, she was still exhausted in body and mind. She had slept, but she hadn't rested. With the curtains closed, the room was dark, and not wanting to be in a reality that only brought her pain, she went back to sleep, only to regret it.

It didn't take long for her to fall into a deep sleep and start dreaming. In the dream, she was in a university café, the same café where Arthur had spontaneously proposed to her, a place of happy memories. The sun was streaming through the windows, and the campus trees were in bloom; it was spring, and Arthur was sitting across from her with his face hidden behind the menu.

— What are you going to order? — Luana asked, smiling.

Arthur then lowered the menu, revealing his disfigured face. "The truth," he said with his mouth torn up to his ear. "I just want the truth."

At that moment, Luana froze, the sky turned dark, and everything around her decayed into twisted blood and wreckage of a car inside the café. Unable to react, Luana felt suffocated, and tears welled up in her eyes filled with guilt.

Suddenly, Arthur's putrefied hands were around her neck, shaking her violently. She saw Arthur transforming into a monster with multiple decaying arms clinging to her body, screaming her name in a guttural voice.

— LUANA! LUANA! LUANA! LUANA! LUANA!

Luana closed her eyes. She couldn't bear to see Arthur as a monster he never was. She didn't want to see that dream, and in the darkness behind her eyelids, while feeling suffocated, she heard Arthur's voice gradually change. When she opened her eyes again, she was awake, and in front of her, Minerva was holding her shoulders.

— Luana, you...

Luana didn't wait for her friend to finish speaking; she clung to the woman tightly as she cried. Minerva, not fully understanding but still comprehending her friend's anguish, hugged her back tightly.

— It's going to be okay, — Minerva promised in a whisper and let Luana cry until she fell asleep again, — everything is going to be okay...

In the living room, now clean and airy as it was before Arthur's death, Minerva was lying on the couch with her head in Philip's lap, who was gently stroking his wife's curls.

— Do you think she'll be able to overcome Arthur's death? — Minerva asked, gazing somewhere beyond the window pane.

The day was cloudy like any autumn day, and the maple tree outside let its red leaves paint the yellow lawn. It was a beautiful and sad sight at the same time.

Philip remained silent for a moment. He didn't know what the right answer was. After all, whether Luana would be okay or not depended entirely on her own strength. But he also didn't want to believe in his friend's downfall. He wanted to have faith in her, so he replied, — I hope so. She needs to.

Minerva clung to her husband's hand, and they locked eyes. — We'll stay with her, right?

Philip gently pulled his wife's hands and kissed them. — For as long as she needs. Just as Arthur helped me, I'll do it for the woman he loved.

Days passed. Minerva and Philip continued living with Luana, who still refused to seek professional help. It was as if she wanted to suffer in their sight, and they were right. Luana wanted to suffer. She wanted to pay for a sin that wasn't hers alone and for which she was not guilty.

Rodrigo drowned his depression in yet another bottle of whiskey. He knew what he had done. He knew he was responsible for hurting and killing his own brother, and he couldn't deal with it sober.

Luana wasn't the only one who didn't have the courage to attend Arthur's funeral. Rodrigo was afraid of what he might see. When he woke up on that fateful morning and received the news of the accident, he also didn't want to believe it and isolated himself in his luxurious apartment.

Unlike Arthur, his younger twin brother, Rodrigo had led a libertine life. While Arthur lived a more peaceful life in reality and a terrible villain in virtual reality, Rodrigo was a problematic playboy in real life and a great honorable hero in virtual reality.

The two brothers had always been each other's opposite, but they loved and took care of each other even when they followed completely different paths. Of course, like all siblings, they had their disagreements, but that was something easily forgotten. However, everything changed when Arthur introduced Luana to Rodrigo.

It was love at first sight. As soon as Arthur walked through the restaurant door with Luana, Rodrigo couldn't help but love her. Even understanding that she was his brother's girlfriend, it was inevitable. And even wanting to confess his love, out of love for Arthur, he remained silent and for years drowned his love for Luana until he couldn't take it anymore.

On the day before he received the news of his brother's death, Rodrigo put into action a plan he had been devising for months. He made Arthur busy while he went to pick up Luana at the university pretending to be Arthur.

The two had the same face; the behavior of the younger brother was easy to imitate, and he even bought a car like Arthur's months before. It was an easy plan to execute.

In his plan, he thought that if he slept with her at least once, he would forget her like he had done with the others who had passed through his bed.

He didn't want to hurt anyone, but that night, as always, his alcohol-intoxicated personality took over, and while being intimate with Luana, he took photos, recorded videos, and sent them to Arthur.

That night, Arthur died. That night he realized that his love for Luana was not just a passing desire. That night he was sure he had lost the two people he loved most in the world. Now, sprawled in the armchair in front of a large window, Rodrigo turned the whiskey bottle in his mouth trying not to feel anything.

Sitting there, he looked out at the beautiful and lonely view through the wide window. The sun was setting somewhere in the west and painting the late afternoon with a beautiful orange, an orange he couldn't see.

It could be the effect of alcohol, but to Rodrigo, the world seemed so gray and lifeless. The lights were whitish, and the world was dark, making his pain, guilt, and loneliness sharper. He hated feeling this way, and his only cure and answer to this was whiskey.

Already very drunk, he reached for the bottle that had at some point fallen from his lap and brought it to his mouth to discover that it was empty. Then, angrily that the drink had run out, he threw the bottle against the wall or tried to. He was too drunk, and the bottle made a parabola in the air until it hit the ground where it shattered.

— Shit! It was me... It was me who... Yes... I should... ARTHUR! I'm sorry, man... I... My fault... Can you hear me...? — As he spoke, the lament trapped in his chest tightened and passed through his throat in a cry. — I... Didn't mean to... I... I messed up again... BUT! But... Fuck it... I also... I also LOVED HER! Damn it... But... I know... — Rodrigo struggled against his own body in an attempt to get up. With much effort and time, he stood up and walked to the window. — This way... — He reached for the latch and pushed, opening the window that let the wind in with the smell of the resplendent River Thames.

Rodrigo looked at that scene. London lived even at night. With drivers in their vehicles coming and going, the windows of the buildings lighting up, others darkening, and people living oblivious to the suffering Rodrigo faced.

Barefoot, on the edge of the now wide-open window, Rodrigo felt nauseous and dizzy as the wind pushed him back. But, determined to end it all and stop feeling, he remained standing and walked towards the certain death within his reach.

One year after Arthur's death, Luana still struggled with depression. She hadn't overcome the death of her beloved, nor had she relieved herself of the guilt she felt. But with the help of Minerva and Philip, she had begun to walk again.

During this period, as if it were a form of redemption, Luana had started playing K.O more frequently, which also helped her to carry on. Because K.O was the world Arthur loved. It was a place full of memories of his villainy, but they were memories she could see without being hurt.

Later, after learning the truth about everything Luana knew from the night Arthur died, Minerva gathered the Scavengers one last time for a final battle in the name of Hades. This battle would come to be called "The Fall," marking the beginning of a new era of a game that would kill billions of people in a single night.