Diego was alone. Once a chaotic battleground of twisted reality and cryptic revelations, the diner had fallen eerily silent. Stallion, the voice with him through thick and thin, had vanished without a trace as if it had never existed. And maybe it never had.
Diego sat at the counter, slumped forward, his face buried in his hands. The weight of everything—his father, Mikhail, the Gyro Sphere, Stallion's cruel words—pressed down on him like a boulder crushing his chest.
Diego: (whispering, trembling) "This... in this dimension, this... fractured, broken place... it's all falling apart. I thought—" He pauses, staring into the distance, his eyes hollow. "I thought I could control it. That by becoming Number 1, I could... I don't even know anymore. Fix everything? Fix me? I don't even know who I am outside of this damn race."
His voice cracks, and for a moment, he's just a man—tired, broken, and lost. He slams his fist on the counter, but the usual flare of anger doesn't rise. There's only the cold, empty numbness that has been gnawing at him for what feels like an eternity.
Diego: (humming a sad, broken tune) "I must confront him... my father. I can't escape it any longer. The man who made me, who broke me..."
He closes his eyes, and suddenly, the world around him fades. Diego feels himself slipping into the vast, swirling depths of his mind, into the strange, chaotic inner world where reality blurs and bends. He opens his eyes within the confines of his subconscious—a place more twisted than any nightmare.
The sky above him is fractured, like shards of broken glass suspended in midair. Swirls of black and purple twist around him, and in the distance, Diego can see countless timelines stretching out like paths in a labyrinth. Each one flickers with fragments of memory—of what was, what could have been, and what might yet come.
As he stands in the middle of this ethereal wasteland, he begins to see them: the timelines. His timelines. Diego watches them unfold before him, flickering like old film reels.
He's young again in one, still a boy in a wheelchair, watching his brother Mikhail ride horses with their father. The bitterness gnaws at him, but Diego never gets up from that chair in this version of events. He watches Mikhail win every race and trophy while he rots away in silence, forgotten. In another, he sees himself standing over Mikhail's body after the fateful Grand Gallop. In this timeline, Diego chooses not to cross the finish line. He kneels beside his brother, crying out for help. Their father rushes to them, but the words of approval never come. There's only sorrow, disappointment, and silence.
Another timeline flickers, darker and more distorted. In this one, Diego never leaves the ranch. He remains trapped under his father's thumb, unable to escape the cycle of violence, resentment, and control. The Gyro Sphere? It never existed here. He dies young, his body giving out to the disease that has haunted him since birth.
He sees another flicker—this time, a future. A future where Diego would become the legend he had always wanted to be. In this version, he's won every race and claimed every title. But he's alone. The fame, the glory—it all feels hollow. The world has moved on, and he's just a shadow in the history books.
Diego: (growling, pounding the ground, tears streaming down his face) "DAMN! DAMN! DAMN IT!!" His fists slam into the shifting walls of his mind, each blow reverberating like a thunderclap. "ALL I WANTED—ALL I EVER WANTED—WAS TO BE NUMBER 1! TO FIX THIS DISEASE! I DIDN'T MEAN FOR THE STALLION TO BE GONE... MY BEST FRIEND... MY ONLY FRIEND... AND HE WAS NEVER REAL. THIS WHOLE TIME, HE WAS JUST A VOICE IN MY FUCKING MIND!"
Diego's voice breaks, his rage collapsing into sorrow. He sinks to the ground, his head in his hands, trembling. "Was it all for nothing? The races, the blood, the sacrifices... I thought if I just kept pushing, if I just kept winning, I could rewrite everything. Rewrite me." He laughs, bitter and hollow. "What a joke."
