"Ah, shit…"
Isaac fumbled through his pockets with shaky fingers, coins and keys knocking together in the dark like they were mocking him, the hallway light outside the apartment flickering faintly through the peephole, catching on his knuckles as he finally found the right key and shoved it into the lock.
The old door gave way with a reluctant groan, the hinges complaining like they always did, loud enough that Isaac flinched anyway.
He stepped inside as quietly as he could manage, shoulders hunched, his weight leaning into the doorframe as if standing upright required a decision he was too tired to make.
The stale warmth of the apartment wrapped around him with that familiar mix of detergent, old cooking, and something sharp that his brain didn't want to think about.
He tried to keep his steps light, but the floor betrayed him, boards creaking underfoot no matter how careful he was, each sound landing in his skull like a small hammer.
A girl stood in front of him.
Not a silhouette, not a shadow, just her, planted right there in the hallway like she had been waiting for the moment he came home, her expression already twisted into disgust.
She pinched her nose dramatically and shouted, loud enough to carry down to the living room.
"Ewww! Dad! Isaac's been drinking again!"
Isaac winced, eyelids fluttering shut for half a second.
'So much for keeping quiet.'
Grace stood with one hand on her hip, the other pinching her nose as if she was about to faint from the smell, the performance so exaggerated it would've been funny on a different day, in a different life, when his head didn't feel like it was full of sand.
He didn't even need to look properly to know it was her, the same energy, the same smug satisfaction at getting a reaction out of someone who was too exhausted to give her one.
"Piss off, Grace."
"Eek—! Dadddd! Isaac swore at me again!"
Her high-pitched voice grated against the throb behind his eyes, the kind that pulsed in time with his heartbeat, and Isaac sighed, rubbing two fingers into his temple as if he could knead the pain out.
"Just ignore it," he muttered, mostly to himself, mostly because there was nothing else to say that wouldn't make this worse.
The heaviness returned, not the kind that came from lifting something too heavy or staying up too late, but the quiet weight that sat on his shoulders even when he did nothing, the sort that made walking from one room to another feel like a task with a timer.
Grace continued whining behind him like background noise he couldn't turn off, the words blurring into a dull buzz as Isaac brushed past her and headed for the bathroom, not looking back, not giving her the satisfaction.
Slam.
The bathroom door shut harder than he meant it to, the sound sharp in the small space, and he stood there for a second with his forehead almost against the wood, breathing in through his nose and tasting alcohol on his own breath.
He turned the tap on and the sound of running water filled the room, steady and mindless, something he didn't have to manage.
He splashed his face once, twice, again and again, the cold sting forcing him to be present, forcing him to feel something other than the numb churn in his chest.
When he finally looked up, a stranger stared back from the mirror.
Sunken green eyes, rimmed red.
Dry skin that made him look older than he was.
Greasy black hair clinging to his forehead in uneven strands.
"…Wow, I look like shit."
A hollow laugh left his throat, too quiet to count as humour, and his reflection didn't return it.
'When did I even start looking like this?'
He didn't remember a clear moment, no dramatic turning point, just a slow slide, day after day, the kind that happened quietly until you looked up and didn't recognise what was staring back.
Even thinking that required energy, the sort of energy he didn't have anymore.
"Whatever…"
He shut the tap off, grabbed the towel, wiped his face without looking again, and turned, already reaching for the door, already trying to leave the mirror behind like it was someone else's problem.
Click.
The door opened.
A tall, broad-shouldered man filled the doorway, and somehow the room felt smaller immediately, the air heavier, the silence sharper.
"Where have you been?"
His father's voice was calm, but sharp in that practised way, controlled like he had rehearsed it in his head, and it wasn't concern, it never was, it was a question asked like a trap.
"I just went out," Isaac replied, tone flat, because anything else would give him something to grab onto.
He tried to slip past him, but a hand shot out and gripped his shoulder, fingers digging in with the kind of strength that made Isaac's body go rigid automatically, muscle memory taking over before his mind even caught up.
"We need to talk."
That voice, cold, controlled, every word landing in Isaac's nerves like a needle, and Isaac swallowed, jaw tightening until it hurt.
"Can we do it tomorrow?" he asked, the words coming out tired rather than pleading, "I'm tired."
The hand tightened.
A small pain shot through his collarbone, sharp enough to cut through the fog, and Isaac didn't turn around, because turning around meant seeing his face, and seeing his face meant remembering exactly how powerless he was in this house.
"You're hurting me."
"I told you we need to talk."
The grip loosened, but not enough to let him go, not enough to make it anything other than a reminder.
Isaac forced his arm up and brushed the hand off, ignoring how his fingers trembled afterwards, as if even that tiny act of defiance cost too much.
"I'm going to bed."
"If you don't listen, you know what'll happen," his father said casually, as if discussing the weather.
Isaac froze.
He didn't need to look back; he didn't need to hear the rest, because the meaning was always the same: an unspoken threat that had been repeated so many times it didn't need words anymore, it just needed that tone.
A quiet laugh escaped him before he could stop it, tired and humourless.
"Heh."
"Was something funny?"
Isaac didn't respond.
He walked away, slow enough to keep himself steady, fast enough that he didn't have to stand there any longer than necessary, and he could feel his heartbeat in his ears, dull and angry.
From somewhere behind, his mother's voice carried, perfectly timed, perfectly familiar.
"Why can't you be more like your sister?"
Isaac clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, the words landing in the same place they always did, a bruise that never fully healed.
He ground his teeth, forcing himself to stay quiet, because speaking back never changed anything; it just made the air sharper, made hands tighten, made the night longer.
'Even if I tried to explain, it wouldn't matter. It never does.'
'They'll always pick her.'
By the time he reached his room, his chest felt heavy, like he had swallowed a stone.
He shut the door and locked it immediately, the click loud in his ears, and the quiet that followed was suffocating, but still better than the noise outside, better than the feeling of being watched.
"Hahh…"
He exhaled slowly, rubbing his face, palms dragging down over tired eyes.
His body felt like it was collapsing in on itself, joints too loose, muscles too heavy, but at least he was alone, at least in here he could breathe without someone judging the sound of it.
He slumped into his chair and hit the power button on his PC, not because he even wanted to play, but because it was what he did, because it was the only routine he had left that didn't demand anything from him except presence.
Whirrrr.
Fans spun up, the familiar hum filling the room like white noise, the monitor flickering to life in soft pulses of light.
The mouse moved sluggishly under his fingers, muscle memory guiding him through the same motions he had done thousands of times, fingers that didn't know what to do with themselves unless they were clicking through menus.
~~♪
A cheerful tune played through the speakers, bright and clean in a way his life wasn't, and on-screen, golden letters faded in against a starry backdrop.
.
❰The Knight of Stellaris❱
[Continue]
.
"Alright," he muttered, voice rough, "let's just… play for a bit."
.
[Loading… 32%]
.
[Loading… 76%]
.
[Loading… 99%]
.
[Loading Complete]
.
'Finally.'
He leaned forward, waiting for the title screen to fade, ready to disappear into something that didn't talk back, something that didn't threaten him, but before he could move, a notification popped up, bright and rectangular, sitting in the centre of the screen like a punch.
Every word he read made his stomach sink further.
.
[IMPORTANT] Support for "The Knight of Stellaris" is ending.
[End of Service Announcement]
——————————————
We regret to announce the closure of The Knight of Stellaris. Thank you all for your support. We hope you enjoyed playing. We will keep the servers open until March 2nd, 2026, at 9:00 PM PST, so please continue to enjoy The Knight of Stellaris until the very end.
For more information, please refer to the official announcement on the TKS Forums, linked below.
https://www.tksforums.net/news/eos-announcement
.
Isaac stared at the message, eyes unfocusing for a second, then snapping back like his brain refused to accept it.
"…Ha."
The laugh that left him sounded closer to a sigh, thin and bitter.
"What a fucking joke."
He closed the announcement and stared at the screen anyway, hand hovering over the mouse, but not moving, because what was he supposed to click now?
What was he supposed to do with the fact that something he had relied on was being quietly shut down as if it never mattered?
The game's bright logo stared back at him, cheerful and polished, like a memory he didn't want to lose, like a friend who didn't know it was about to die.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
For ten whole minutes, he sat there cycling through menus, not really playing, not entering any quest, just clicking, switching screens, scrolling through characters he had spent years building, each one a record of time he had poured into something that couldn't hit him, shout at him, or look at him like he was a disappointment.
"What's the point?" he whispered, barely audible even in his own room.
Knowing it would all disappear soon made every action feel pointless, like trying to hold water in his hands, and yet he kept clicking, because stopping meant thinking, and thinking meant the weight came back.
Eventually, out of habit more than intention, he opened the forums.
Maybe there would be some follow-up post, some extra detail, a developer apology, anything that would make it feel less abrupt, less like they had just pulled the plug and expected people to move on.
.
[The Knight of Stellaris - End of Service] - By Semroft.
.
He scrolled down.
The post was standard PR speak, apologies and gratitude and a copy-pasted timeline for shutdown, the kind of text that tried to sound human while saying nothing, and even though he had expected it, it still hit harder than he thought it would.
The Knight of Stellaris, or TKS for short, was an RPG with life-sim elements, the kind where you could spend an hour fighting bosses or an hour decorating a room and both felt equally real if you let them.
It was a game Isaac had been playing since its release, a little over five years ago, back when he had still been in middle school.
When it first came out, its player base had been huge because it was one of the first of its kind, and for a while, it felt like everyone was there, buzzing with excitement, sharing builds, posting fan art, arguing over which companion was best.
Then time passed.
Updates slowed, people got bored, new games came out, and the crowd thinned.
Being a live-service game meant its popularity rose and fell depending on how recently it had been updated, but even that wasn't the whole story.
The writing lost its charm after a certain point, the quests started feeling generic, and the world that had once felt alive began to feel like it was repeating itself.
There had been rumours that Semroft hired new writers, which might explain why it felt so different, but whatever the reason, it didn't change the fact that the story became worse and worse, the soul of it thinning out until only the mechanics were left holding it up.
Even the most recent update had been poorly received, because it marked the end of an almost six-year-long story and somehow still managed to feel like filler, like they had rushed to the finish line without caring what they left behind.
Unlike most, however, Isaac had never left.
In fact, he had done almost everything possible in TKS.
Every character he owned was completely maxed out, all of their personal stories complete, and he had been ranking within the top five in PvP consistently for the past three years, the kind of streak that took obsessive practice and the ability to keep going even when you weren't having fun.
On top of that, he had obtained every single achievement in the game, which was almost an impossible feat for something like this, because live-service games weren't built to be completed; they were built to keep you chasing.
'That didn't mean I didn't have any gripes, though.'
Even someone as committed as Isaac had spent plenty of nights on the forums complaining to the developers about story choices or balance changes, typing paragraphs he never would've said out loud.
So why had he stayed?
The reason was simple, and it was the same reason the announcement made his chest feel tight.
TKS wasn't just a game.
It was his game.
It was a place he had used to survive the worst moments of his life.
A place he could control when everything else was chaos.
And because of that, he had never been able to drop it, not even when it disappointed him, not even when it got messy.
And now it was ending.
Scrolling through the comments only made him feel worse.
.
└ ISIMPFOR2DGIRLS: Why did they have to ruin the game?
└ PandaDigger: About time.
└ Bunns28: Lololol deserved
└ Firenzy: Ded game xd
└ Leafar91: Surprised it made it this far
└ Livia_chan: Thanks for everything!
└ Chinomnomer: Dogshit game
└ Pongpong: Semroft I would like to ask why you ruined the game, the most recent update 'Light vs Dark' was very disappointing and I would like to ask how any of your team thought this was a good idea, I've been playing this game since day 1 and have been looking forward to the ending of the story, even wading through all the messy content that had been released over the years…► See more…
.
As expected, most of it was harsh, a mix of anger and mockery, people piling on because it was easy, because something ending gave them permission to spit on it.
There was even someone who had written a 3000-word comment detailing their disappointment, and Isaac read it out of morbid curiosity, finding it entertaining in the way a car crash was entertaining when you weren't the one inside the car.
Still, after a while, the bitterness in the comments started to blend together, and Isaac found himself thinking something he hadn't expected.
'Was TKS really that bad?'
No, not really.
Sure, the story dropped in quality, but it was still fine, the gameplay was solid, and the world had charm, enough charm that Isaac could still picture certain cities in his head like real places, enough that certain tracks of music could still pull something out of him, even now.
People just loved tearing things down when they were ending, as if being cruel proved they were above caring.
He exhaled through his nose, the closest he got to a sigh, and started typing.
.
└ YvetteMyBeloved: Thanks for everything, good luck on the next project! <3
.
It wasn't fancy, it wasn't some dramatic defence, just a simple thank you, because even if the game ended badly, it had still been there for him, and he couldn't pretend that didn't matter.
He posted it, leaned back in his chair, and stared at the screen until the monitor dimmed, the room returning to the soft hum of the PC.
Then he pressed the power button.
"Huh?"
The screen went dark, but the PC didn't stay off.
Then, a second later, it powered up again.
"Is it finally done for?" he muttered, tapping the side of the case with his knuckles.
The computer was old, sure, it had its quirks, but it had never done that before, and his first instinct was irritation, tired and dull.
'Well, whatever.'
He reached down to flip the power switch, ready to force it off properly, but something stopped him.
"...?"
❰The Knight of Stellaris❱ had opened again.
The title screen blinked to life without him touching anything.
He moved the mouse.
It didn't respond.
His cursor stayed perfectly still, like his input wasn't reaching the game at all, and before he could even process the irritation, the game acted on its own.
.
[Loading… 49%]
.
[Loading… 83%]
.
[Loading Complete]
.
His save file loaded automatically.
"What…?"
He didn't click; he didn't press anything, and yet the menus moved anyway, smooth and deliberate, as if someone else were holding the keyboard.
Map, world select, then straight into the demon realm, a place he had spent countless hours in, grinding resources, farming drops, memorising enemy patterns until he could do it half-asleep.
His character appeared, moving with perfect precision, weaving through monsters without hesitation, cutting everything down like it was rehearsed, like it was being guided by hands that knew exactly what they were doing.
He should have been worried, he knew that somewhere in the back of his mind, but the feeling that rose in his chest wasn't fear.
It was something sharper.
Excitement.
For the first time in a long while, he leaned forward, eyes fixed on the screen, the fog in his head thinning as curiosity hooked into him and pulled, and he realised his eyes were glistening, not with tears, but with actual interest.
Scraaaaapppeeee.
The throne room doors opened, heavy and slow, the sound loud enough that it prickled at the base of his skull.
On the other side sat a woman with long black hair and hollow grey eyes, posture still and regal, like the room belonged to her even as it reeked of blood and smoke.
The Demon Lord.
[Demon Lord, I have travelled through Ivansia to put an end to your evil! You will pay for what you did back in my village!]
Isaac leaned forward even more, a chill of recognition and confusion running together.
'This… This is new dialogue?'
In all his years playing, in all his playthroughs, he had never once encountered this scene, and as a hard-core fan that meant one thing.
He couldn't look away.
[…]
The Demon Lord didn't respond.
[...All my companions are dead because of you. Don't you have anything to say? Anything at all?]
"Huh?" Isaac blurted, the sound involuntary.
The scene was playing on his account, the same account where he had maxed every character, beaten every quest, combed through every inch of the map like a man trying to wring meaning out of code.
'What does he mean they're all dead?'
[…]
The Demon Lord stayed silent, her expression unreadable, and the Hero's voice began to crack, like anger was turning into something else.
[Damn it all! Why—!]
The Hero raised his sword, breath shaking.
[I'll kill you…!]
And with those words, he rushed at the Demon Lord.
••✦ ♡ ✦•••
The battle unfolded fast, too fast for something that felt this heavy, the kind of fight Isaac would've expected to be cinematic, filled with phases and dialogue and dramatic cut-ins, but this wasn't a showcase, it was a slaughter, messy and brutal, every strike carrying the weight of an ending.
Steel met flesh.
Magic flared and died.
The Demon Lord moved like someone who had fought a thousand times, but not like someone who wanted to win.
Her counters were precise and efficient, yet her expression was still strangely blank, even when the Hero screamed at her, even when he drove himself forward with nothing left but rage.
Isaac's fingers twitched on the mouse out of habit.
Nothing.
All he could do was watch.
It should've been exhilarating.
He was watching a maxed-out character tear through a final boss, but instead it felt wrong, like the game had peeled something open and was showing him a wound it had always hidden behind quests and loot.
The Hero took a hit that would've killed any normal build, staggered, then forced himself upright anyway, refusing to fall, refusing to stop, and Isaac realised with a jolt that the Hero wasn't acting like an AI, he was acting like someone with a reason, someone with a grudge deep enough to turn into a mission.
Then, just as suddenly as it began, it ended.
Both of them lay on the floor.
The Hero's sword clattered from his hand, his body slack, blood pooling dark beneath him, and across from him the Demon Lord lay twisted near the foot of her throne, hair spilt over her face like ink, her breathing shallow.
[I did it…]
The Hero smiled faintly, a smile that looked exhausted rather than victorious, and then his eyes drifted shut.
His body went still.
Before him lay the Demon Lord, in a similar state, blood staining her lips, her chest rising and falling as if she refused to die properly, as if her body hadn't received the message yet.
[…]
She still said nothing, even while tears streamed down her face, even as the life faded from her eyes, hollow grey staring at the ceiling like she was looking at something far beyond the room.
Her gaze held not a drop of life, and yet, she was still breathing.
Then the screen went black.
"That's it?" Isaac muttered, the words scraping out of his throat.
He stood up so abruptly his chair rolled back an inch, and he didn't even notice.
"Seriously?!"
BANG! BANG!
Someone pounded on his door, heavy and impatient, probably his father, but Isaac ignored it, ignored the sound like it was happening in another world.
'No way that's the end… That can't be it.'
His mind raced, not in the chaotic way it usually did when he spiralled, but in a focused way, the way it did when he was trying to solve something, because this was a game, and games had logic, even when they tried to hide it.
He understood what had happened, at least on the surface.
The Hero had gone after the Demon Lord alone.
Because he was alone, they both ended up dying.
It was the kind of outcome TKS punished you for, because TKS was next to impossible without a full party.
Isaac knew that better than most.
He had lived in this codebase for years.
He had optimised routes around party synergy, companion skills, and timing windows.
So why had the Hero gone alone?
'Could everyone really have died?'
Even if that was true, there was still something that didn't make sense.
Why was the Demon Lord looking at the Hero with pity?
Why had she cried while she was dying?
Why did it look like grief rather than fear?
"Ahh… damn it…" Isaac hissed, raking his fingers through his hair, frustration hot and sudden, because the story he had been shown felt half-finished, like someone ripped out the last chapter and expected him to accept it.
He paced a step, then another, then stopped because the room was too small for the energy in his body, and outside the door, the pounding stopped, replaced by a muffled voice he refused to listen to.
"Fucking piece of shit game!" he shouted in frustration.
Then, a flicker.
The screen lit up again, and Isaac froze mid-breath.
Unlike what he expected, the Demon Lord was alive, if only barely, her body moving like it cost her everything, and she pushed herself up with trembling arms, standing over the Hero's corpse with an expression that was no longer unreadable.
It was grief, raw and unguarded.
She clasped her hands together in prayer, head bowing, long hair falling forward like a curtain.
[Mother Iria, may you guide this poor soul to rest.]
Her voice was hoarse and barely audible, as if speaking at all hurt, but Isaac listened to every word intently.
Step… step…
The Demon Lord moved slowly across the throne room, stepping over the bodies of her fellow demonkin like she couldn't afford to look at them, as if acknowledging them would break her, and Isaac noticed the floor, littered with corpses that shouldn't have been there, because this room was meant to be a clean arena for a climactic battle, not the aftermath of a massacre.
She reached the doorway and left the castle, and the camera followed her out into an open stretch of stone and blood-red sky, the horizon stained like the world was permanently stuck in sunset.
[I guess it's almost time…]
Her tone was weary, empty in a way that made Isaac's stomach twist, and she sat down on the stone steps, hugging her knees like she needed to make herself smaller.
[When will it be over…]
Ting-♪
Her eyes softened slightly, and she looked up, not at the sky, not at the castle behind her, but at something unseen, like she was listening to a voice Isaac couldn't hear.
[Ah, thank you, Mother Iria, I'm sorry for failing again.]
Isaac's throat went dry.
'Failing again?'
Then everything stopped.
Not just the character, not just the animation, the entire world froze, the wind held mid-motion, the lighting locked in place, and the silence that followed felt unnatural, like the game itself had held its breath.
Ting-♪
A chime echoed again, sharper this time, and Isaac's skin prickled.
And then…
.
[Do you want to save her?]
[Yes] [No]
.
An option.
A choice.
Something that didn't belong here.
And for a moment, Isaac just stared, because the question didn't feel like it was for the Demon Lord; it felt like it was for him.
"What the hell…" he whispered, but it came out thin.
His stomach tightened, the same ugly, automatic thought rising before he could stop it:
'Why am I the one who gets to choose?'
He swallowed, throat suddenly dry.
His eyes flicked to "no", just for a second, and the idea of it made something inside him recoil like a bruise being pressed, as if that single word could turn into the same answer he had given a thousand times by doing nothing.
The cursor hovered on its own, perfectly still, waiting, and Isaac realised his hand hadn't moved either, not because he was deciding, but because he couldn't, like his body had gone quiet in anticipation, like it had recognised the shape of this moment.
He meant to breathe, to think, to question why the game was asking him anything at all, but the pull in his chest deepened, warm and dizzying, and his focus narrowed until there was only the screen, only that one line.
And before his thoughts could continue, his finger moved.
Not as a choice, not as a breakthrough, just… as if it had always been the next step.
Click.
.
[Yes]
.
[Choice Selected]
[Thank You, Isaac]
.
"Huh?"
His breath hitched.
The monitor flashed white, so bright it washed the room in pale light, and then everything went dark, the hum of the PC suddenly sounding too loud in the silence.
————「❤︎」————