The Confined

23. Ego

Updated chapters 22 and 23! Make sure you read them in order!

2302. 04. 21

The world is full of lies. Trust the people who are the closest to you and those who love you, but don't trust yourself. You don't know when your true self will abandon you.

Maximus Pluto abandoned Ego. This doesn't make any sense at all because they both are aspects of me, but it's true. Maximus left Ego stuck in the dirt because of his problems. I had just confirmed that I wanted to be Ego for the rest of my life. Now, Ego was a nobody. It was Maximus that TITAN was talking to. So I decided that I would treat him in 'Maximus style' (although I didn't exactly know what kind of style that was).

The way I pictured Maximus Pluto was a courageous young man that had a handsome face along with a healthily built body, and had ultimate authority to the world of the RL. In other words, I just didn't have to be Ego. I had to do everything the opposite way of what I would normally do.

"What have you done?" I shouted. I meant for those words to be loud, but they ended up sounding like my throat was clogged. I kept shaking Min to keep her conscious. I was afraid that if she closed her eyes now, she would be gone forever. "Min! Stay with me!"

She couldn't answer from the pain. Beads of sweat were forming on her forehead and nose tip. Her expression told me how much it hurt. Suddenly, two people came to me and pulled me away from her. For some reason, the people's arms felt as cold and as hard as steel. "Min! Get off of me! Min!" I objected.

TITAN crouched down next to Min. He grabbed her shoulders and looked her straight in the eyes. "Tell me where they are," Min's eyes were wide with pain, and her face was so red that I thought she would burst.

"Let go of her!" I kicked and fretted, but the people were firm. Their incredible strength amazed me. I couldn't move at all.

"TELL ME WHERE THEY ARE! TELL ME!" TITAN hollered at Min's face. I was sure that on Min's forehead now, you couldn't distinguish what was Min's sweat, and what was TITAN's saliva. Min glared at him like she was going to kill him with her boring eyes. She slowly turned her head to look at me. It was like she was saying her last words to me, do not die. Then, as her eyes rolled up, she stopped moving and lay completely limp. My breath stopped and my heart skipped. TITAN was surprised, too. His eyes were frantic, as if he were searching for any hint of life in Min but couldn't find it. "Get up," he murmured. He shook her shoulders as if to wake her up. "WAKE UP!" he screamed. I couldn't understand the situation. Why did he need her to wake up, when the real person who tried to break his prisoners out was me? The answer came out of TITAN's mouth right after the question popped into my head. "WHERE IS PLUTO?" The muscles in TITAN's neck bulged and his white face turned as red as a tomato. He threw her dead body on the ground, and Min lay cold and lifeless.

The Pluto, who TITAN was looking for, wasn't me. Then, who was it? Was he or she my family member? I had so much to think about, but as I looked at Min's corpse, I forgot why I was here.

"Min?" I whispered softly. The robots let me go, and I crawled to her. She didn't even give a flutter of an eye for an answer.

I couldn't cry right now. Either because of the shock to see someone who I just met yesterday die, or because of the anger that someone died because of me. TITAN didn't say anything next to me. I closed her eyes for her. Standing up, I looked him straight in the eye. I wasn't afraid of him. I wasn't afraid of dying. I was afraid that I would lose another loved one. I didn't even want to think about Pluto and what that had to do with me.

"This is what happens when you don't follow the rules," he sneered. "You get hurt." He was right. There were always consequences that we took risk of when we didn't follow the rules. It was paying the cost. It was obvious that there would be sacrifices. But I didn't want it to be someone else who paid them off for me.