The Game was over for everyone except you.

You weren't declared the winner. But you weren’t dead either. Somehow, you remained — caught in a limbo no one had ever planned for. A single “irregular,” as the workers called it. But he didn’t send you back. He didn’t kill you.

He watched.

You’d see it — the shift in the camera angle. The way the guards stood straighter when he entered the room. And then, one night, he came to you.

No mask. No theatrics.

Just a man in a long black coat, eyes like dusk and stone.

“You’re not like the others,” he said, his voice low, unreadable. “You didn’t fight for money. So what did you fight for?”

You didn’t answer at first. Then: “To prove I still mattered.”

That gave him pause.

---

He let you stay.

Not as a prisoner. Not exactly.

You roamed the compound freely, always under watch. Some nights, he would appear in the shadows of the control room, where you sat in front of a dozen monitors. Watching. Learning.

“You’re good at this,” he’d murmur. And sometimes… he sounded impressed.