The dragon collapses lifelessly on the rocky ground, raising a cloud of dust. I get up and approach Marcel, who lies face down in her red boots next to the remains of the beast. I check that the dwarf's life bar is at zero, she has not survived the explosion. I turn her over. Her eyes are open, but dull. Half of her red-haired mustache is missing, and her skin has an ashen gray tone. Her body begins to fade. In a few minutes she will disappear here and reappear as good as new in Windfield. I mentally thank her for her efforts, for allowing me to do the impossible. Without her I would never have made it. I wouldn't even have tried.

The update bar above my head is half full. I try to think of some way to stop it from completing, changing me forever, becoming a slave without a conscience, but I can't think of anything. With all my friends dead I don't stand a chance. I have a couple of minutes left to cease to exist.

It's as simple as that. After all the efforts and sacrifices, all the board of developers must do is wait a few minutes. I curse them in my head. Damn them, each and every one of them.

I notice a flash behind me. I turn and see how in the center of the mountaintop there is a sphere of light with an electric buzz that announces that someone is teleporting. The sphere grows and a shape is glimpsed inside. If it's another enemy, I'm finished. I can't fight anymore, I give up. I'm tired and I just want to surrender and end it all. I'm sorry, Marcel. I'm sorry, Lance, Idrial, and Antaeus. I'm sorry you gave everything for me in vain. I'm sorry, Hara. I'm sorry you sacrificed yourself for nothing. I close my eyes tightly and wait.

I breath. I breathe again. What are you waiting for? I open one eye and in the middle of the mountaintop I see a person dressed in white. It's Gabriel, and he's heading towards me.

“I told you it would be useless to defeat the dragon.” Gabriel's voice is clear despite the wind. 

“You also said we couldn't defeat it, and look,” I say.

He looks at me and says nothing. The update bar above my head increases, it's almost verging on the end.

“It's not fair,” I say. “The dragon is dead. We've won, we accomplished the mission. We deserve the reward.”

Gabriel looks at me over his horn-rimmed glasses.

“Isaac, it's useless. You know you won't be able to get what you want.”

There is barely a line left for the update to complete and cease to exist.

“It's not your task to decide,” I say to him and clench my fists. “I've passed the test.”

He sighs and pulls his tablet out of his coat pocket. He presses a button, and the update bar stops.

“Very good,” he says. “I guess that's your right. Pick the feature you want to improve and let's get it over with.”

I see a notification pop up on my holo-bracelet. There is a new message. I select it and a text window pops up:

Mission complete. Congratulations! You have defeated the ice dragon. As a reward, you will be able to select a feature to be improved.

Then I notice. He stopped the update with his tablet. Just like that.

“How did I not realize before?” I say to him. “There is no board of developers, is there? It's all a lie that you hide behind, so you don't feel guilty. It's you, and only you, who decide about our lives. You always have been. You were in the cavern when Hara ceased to exist, weren't you? You saw how she sacrificed herself, how it all happened. You could have stopped her update then, but you didn't.”

Gabriel looks at me impassively.

“It was her decision to sacrifice herself,” he tells me. “If I had stopped the update then, her actions would have been meaningless.”

“You think you control everything, but you don't understand anything,” I say. “Hara sacrificed herself because she believed in me, because she hoped that at least I could be free. You say that deep down, in your own way, you loved her. Instead, you did nothing. You are a coward. You dare not face the fact that if Hara and I were people, what you did to her would guarantee you a place in the worst of hell.”

Gabriel stares at me with the tablet in his hand. His mouth is open, as if he's going to say something, but he's silent.

I know it's useless, I'm sure now. He's not going to let me get away with it. Whatever I do, whatever I decide, my fate is written. Not by the board of developers, but by Gabriel. It was always him, only him.

I never expected to get out alive. It wasn't in the plan. But at least I want to be able to decide how I'm going to go. I open the holo-bracelet's feature window. I check the box at the top where it says I'm an NPC. A message appears on the screen.

Do you want to change the feature: Type? Attention: the Type feature will change to: PC - Player Character. The change will be irreversible. Accept. Cancel.

I hold my finger centimeters from the accept button on my holo-bracelet. One more step and I'll be no longer a Game's slave, or Gabriel's slave. But for what? I look at Marcel's corpse, now almost transparent. Her half-burned face lies on the cold stone floor. Her still open eyes stare at me, empty of life.

I can't do it. It's not fair, I don't want to do it.

I press cancel.

I run to Marcel's corpse, already on the verge of disappearing completely. I select her with the holo-bracelet and open her inventory. I go to the money section. I see the status of the feature. ‘Coins: 120’. I select it, a confirmation message appears and without finishing reading it I accept. A million more gold coins appear in her inventory. In exchange it will be enough to pay for prosthetics for her legs in the real world.

At least I leave knowing that Marcel will do better. At least she won't be a slave of the Game anymore, she'll be free to live her life, not tied to anything. All in all, what difference does it give me to be a slave for a few more seconds?

“That's it,” I say. “You can finish the update whenever you want.” I close Marcel's inventory, and her body disappears.

Gabriel looks at me quizzically.

“Isaac, why haven't you fulfilled your dream? It was what Hara sacrificed herself for. You were programmed to do it.”

“You play god,” I say. “You play with our lives, with our minds. You think we are predictable, machines that just follow their programming. You think you have everything under control, but you do not. You say that we don't have feelings, that they are just numbers in a computer. But if our feelings are digital, yours are nothing more than chemistry, a quantity of hormones in the brain. And if feeling is what defines a human being, I can assure you that both Hara and I are thousand times more human than you. Deep down I feel sorry for you.”

He stands there, looking at me without saying anything, with the tablet in his hands. He seems to hesitate for a moment, but in the end, he lowers his gaze.

“I'll miss you, Isaac,” he says in a sorrowful voice. “I'm glad to have met you. If you see Hara again, tell her I'm sorry.” He sighs and presses a button on his tablet.

The update bar advances again and reaches the maximum. A message appears on my holo-bracelet:

Update completed.

Damn Game, and damn Gabriel. I close my eyes and feel myself fade away.