‘Take it,’ Asa said. ‘Take the Joy.’

Sham reached forward with his hand shaking, wrapping his fingers around the tiny vial. He glanced up at the man offering it to him, responded with a nod.

‘Good,’ the criminal continued. ‘That’s that then. Clear off.’

And so Sham did, leaving the warehouse on End Street with his head light, or cloudy, or… He didn’t have the word for it. The events of the past few days—the past few weeks, really—were starting to take a toll. Were starting to take the toll that Sham had known was coming. That wasn’t the surprising part; the surprising part was that it had been Asa, of all people, who had recognised it enough to do something about it.

Sham looked down at the skill vial in his hand—a bright yellow liquid which almost seemed to emit a warmth—as he rode the tram back to his apartment. The worst of the alcohol was beginning to subside, announcing with it the worst of the hangover yet to come. But Sham didn’t mind; all he could think about was that little vial that he was almost sure was keeping him warm.

When he finally arrived home, Sham stumbled hurriedly up the wet external staircase, almost slipping and falling at one point but recovering thanks to a strong grip on the handrail. His other hand he kept wrapped around Joy. Was this the end to so many of his problems?

He laid himself down on the bed, holding the vial up to the last of the light. In this tiny glass bottle was the skill that might help him address his most personal issues—his failing mental health, the pain that followed him every single day. Was it really that simple? Should he have been chasing this the whole time, rather than trying to break the Loop? Was there really a benefit to these legendary grade skill vials that seemed to have appeared from nowhere?

There was, of course, only one way to find out. He pulled the stopper free and allowed the warm—yes, warm! It wasn’t just his imagination—liquid to trickle down his throat.

NEW SKILL: Joy

There’s beauty all around you, only obscured by the grimmest of hue. A laugh, a dance, a smile; that’s all that will save you from this terrible trial.

‘And here we go…’ Recollection murmured.

. . .

Sham looked at the ring again.

It wasn’t perfect; he couldn’t afford perfect. But She had never demanded that. All She wanted—as She had so often made clear—Sham already had to offer.

At the sound of someone entering the apartment, he stuffed the ring back in its box and into his pocket. Out of sight.

‘Hey, you,’ She said.

. . .

It was at a cafe on a Harbour District pier that Sham proposed.

They’d had their first date there, all those years ago. Him: scruffy and overconfident. Her: shy, but not without knowing Her worth. Sham had fallen for Her immediately, but She had taken a little more convincing.

The sun was setting to the west, obscured by the southernmost towers of the city, but casting a rippling shadow across the water in front of them. Sham pointed it out, and then, while She was distracted, sunk to one knee.

She answered ‘Yes!’ even before he’d had a chance to ask the question.

But he asked it anyway.

. . .

‘The jewellery store?’ Sham reminded the men in front of him. ‘It was my last job. I’m going straight.’

Of the three other men sitting drinking pints at the White Hag, only Tripe visibly grimaced. Both Fog and Vice managed to keep their feelings on the matter to themselves. They always were the better poker players. ‘This your bird, doing this?’

Sham thought to lie, for a moment. But what was the point? ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah, it is. I don’t want this life for her.’

‘Saink wrong with it?’

‘Wouldn’t have done it if there was,’ Sham answered him. ‘I just… It’s a fresh start for me. You get that, right?’

‘We get that,’ Fog butted in before Tripe could reply.

Tripe, sensing from the other two men that he should drop the matter, kept his mouth shut except for a reluctant sigh.

‘To Sham,’ Fog said, raising his pint into the air.

Vice followed suit. ‘And his new missus.’

Sham raised his pint to join them, then the three men turned to Tripe.

He raised his own glass, and said, with absolutely no enthusiasm, ‘To Sham and his new missus.’ Tripe downed the rest of his pint and then turned back to Sham for a follow-up point. ‘So who’s gonna be your best man, then?’ he asked.

. . .

The planning for the big day was not something that Sham was well-suited for. He had none of the required skills, while She had rare grade Coordination. But Sham did his best anyway, making sure that he shared the burden of their wedding. After all, the whole thing had been his idea. Or, at least, that’s what She was allowing him to think.

They settled for a venue that Sham would never have dreamt of being able to afford—a bar on the river to the East, down in Heron Piers. That was Her family’s money at play, of course. She wasn’t rich compared to those over in Sunrise, but Her wealth was near unimaginable for someone of Sham’s ilk.

Sham and Her stood in front of the venue now, the morning sun rising at its side, a yellow hue cast over the building and the small pasture at its front.

‘It’s perfect,’ She said, grasping Sham’s hand.

‘Ain’t it?’ he replied.

. . .

‘It ain’t much of a CV,’ the interviewer said. She stared down at him over thick-rimmed frames.

‘I know,’ Sham said, hoping to disarm the woman with a smile but immediately failing the skill check. ‘I know. But I can work. I can work hard, and I will. Give me a month and I’ll prove that to you.’

‘And if I do, and you don’t prove nothing, then I’m out of a month’s wages.’

Sham shrugged, took in the woman’s appearance for a moment. She was done up sharply, sure, but there was an edge to her beneath it all. As though she was playing a part. This was a woman who, at her core, wasn’t all that different to Sham.

‘You ain’t ever take a chance on someone?’ he asked.

. . .

Sham and Tripe went for one last drink before the big day, Tripe making it out like this was the last time they’d ever see one another. Pint after pint after pint was poured for them, in all the usual styles: dark, ruby, pale, stout.

‘You know we already had the stag do, right?’ Sham asked, finding to his surprise that his word came out slurred.

‘First stag do,’ Tripe corrected him.

‘Traditionally you only get one.’

‘Per wedding.’

Sham furrowed his brow, managed to let his elbow slip off the edge of the table. ‘Well I ain’t getting married twice. Not yet.’

‘Not yet,’ Tripe said simultaneously. ‘And I’m starting to think, maybe, that…’ He trailed off.

‘You’re starting to think not ever, too, aren’t you?’

Tripe nodded.

‘You know what, mate? I think you might be right.’

. . .

They had eyes for none but each other as She made Her way down the aisle, wearing a dress that would put Aphrodite to shame. The bar was made up beautifully, with pink flowers dotted sporadically throughout the venue, with large candle lanterns blowing even though there would have been just enough light in the room without them. Though family and friends watched on wearing their wardrobe’s best, neither Sham nor Her looked away for one another for even a second..

She arrived at his side, looked up at him, and—

Strange memories flooded Sham. Of explosions, of dead bodies, of the Tower falling. Of being alone.

‘Wait,’ Sham said. ‘No. No, this isn’t right.’

She moved closer, eyes wide with fear. ‘What isn’t? What’s not—’

‘This didn’t happen,’ Sham continued. ‘At least… this didn’t happen this way. I never… I never proposed, did I?’

He watched as She parted Her lips, closed them again, Her eyes remaining wide. She croaked when She finally spoke. ‘What are you saying, Sham? You want to call off the—’

‘No!’ Sham said. ‘Gods, no. But… there’s nothing to call off, is there? I never proposed.’

‘Stop saying that, Sham. Stop—’

‘I got sick before I could. We… we drifted apart. And when I stopped working, I had to sell the ring.’

Sham looked around, faced an empty church. Where once there had been guests, the pews were empty. They were alone. Just the two of them. As though they’d never invited anyone else.

He looked back at Her, recoiled with horror. Where She’d had that beautiful face, there was only a burn now. A burn—as if from a cigarette—in the very fabric of reality.

‘What?’ Her alarmed voice spoke. ‘What is it, Sham? You’re scaring me now. What’s going on?’

He had seen a face there. He was sure of it. But he couldn’t… He couldn’t remember what the woman next to him had looked like. He couldn’t remember Her beauty.

‘Recollection’s the one who did that to you, darling. Don’t you look at me. Don’t you look at me like that! Don’t you look at me like that, no,’ a gentle voice whispered, almost singing, and seemingly speaking from inside Sham’s mind. He clasped at his head, recoiled further from the burn-faced woman, found his back hit a wall.

He turned, found the wall behind him familiar. The pictures hanging from it, the old map. This was Riot’s apartment.

But who was Riot?

The residence of the stranger-friend bled into the interior of the church. Sham found himself firmly on the Riot side, though where the line was drawn between the church-reality and the apartment-reality was not clear. At his side, a woman approached, wearing a posh-looking leather jacket and sporting short-cropped hair.

‘Sham?’ she asked. ‘What are you doing here? And what’s…’ She stared into the wispy break in reality.

As she stared, the burn-faced fiancée approached, wrenching herself through the wall that was there and not there. The two women came face to face in the stranger-friend’s apartment.

‘I know you, don’t I?’ the stranger-friend asked the burn-fiancée. ‘We’ve met.’

‘Not yet. Not where I come from,’ the burn-fiancée replied to the stranger-friend.

‘Riot,’ Sham said. ‘I remember…’ He lost track of what he’d been about to say, but it didn’t matter, because both burn-fiancée and stranger-friend dissolved from reality, leaving him alone in the latter’s apartment.

No.

‘Not alone,’ Fog said.

‘Hahaha,’ Tripe added, ‘Never alone.’

‘A bond formed with us, you told us,’ Vice continued. ‘Said you weren’t doing any more—’

‘—jobs but that we could always have—’ Fog added.

‘—a bond,’ Tripe finished. ‘Was that a lie?’

Sham blinked at the three men, and suddenly there were only two. Vice was gone. ‘I… No. Of course I meant it. But things change.’

‘What changed?’ Fog prodded.

‘Whole timelines, he means,’ Tripe clarified, shrugging. ‘Can’t have us because he can’t have Her because he has to save us all. Isn’t that right, Sham?’

The two men sat alone in the stranger-friend’s living room, Fog evaporated into air, much like his namesake.

‘Tripe, I…’

‘Got to save us all, is that it?’ Tripe said.

‘Such a shame…’ the merry female voice said again inside Sham’s mind.

‘Yeah,’ Sham said. ‘I have to—’

‘—such a shame you can’t have this. Such a shame we can’t reminisce. Such a shame there’s no bliss for you or miss as we kiss the abyss and are forced to dismiss such heavenly—’

‘Enough!’ Sham shouted to an empty room.

Three figures appeared, each to a seat. Each were formed of nothing but darkness, as though formed of… Well, as though formed of nothing. Yet despite this strange visage, Sham recognised them.

‘We’re back!’ cried the shadow figure in the shape of Fog. Though the figures dark lips moved, the voice came from within Sham’s own head. ‘Back and ready to rock. Back and ready to kick some—’

‘Yes, yes, enough of that, now,’ said the ghostly shape of Sham’s absent father. ‘We do all remember what we’re here for.’

‘Oh, do we? I disagree, such as this was so pre me,’ announced the shape of the woman Sham had once been engaged to. Or… No, that wasn’t right. That never happened. That—

‘Yes, Sham. Now—’

‘Oh, must we speak like this? Look at the poor thing. Look how we do his head in,’ the shadow-fiancée said, and this time the words came from her ghostly excuse for a mouth instead of from within Sham’s mind.

‘Recollection won’t like you cutting him off,’ the shadow-Fog said. ‘Trust me. I been here long enough.’

Shadow-father pursed his shadow-lips. ‘Yes, quite. Though I do concede that you have a point, Joy. That is why we’re here, after all—to figure out how we make space for so many lives in so small a brain.’

The shadow-Fog—Vigour, by process of elimination—cackled with laughter. ‘Small brain, he says! Small brain!’

The figure of Recollection turned to Sham. ‘You really must ease off these vials,’ he said. ‘Space grows tighter with every—’

‘Lay off the vials?’ Joy cried out. ‘Never have I heard such vile idea. Only three of us in sight in this strange old site, and the sum of us with some room to spare. Would you confine us to cell, sell us down the river for space enough for four?’

‘Oh, you’re a fun one!’ Vigour said.

‘You like wordplay?’ Joy asked.

‘Fuck no. But I like that you don’t give no shit about what Recollection—’

‘Enough!’ the shadow-father suddenly bellowed. With his shout, the walls shook and the ghostly figures of the other two skills seemed to fade for a moment. ‘Enough,’ he said again. ‘I will not have this any longer. If we are to survive. If our host is to survive, then we must work together. Is that understood?’

‘Yes,’ Vigour said.

‘...Joy?’ Recollection prompted her.

‘...Yes,’ she said after a moment in silent contemplation. ‘Fine. But only because I like him.’

Recollection turned back to Sham. ‘And that includes you, too. We’re here to help you survive, you understand? So use us.’

‘I am—’ Sham piped up, but was immediately cut off.

‘No,’ Recollection interrupted. ‘Use us properly. Don’t keep cramming more of us in here; that will help nobody. You understand?’

‘I think I… Yes. Yes, Recollection, I got it.’

‘Good,’ Recollection said, and the shadow-father seemed to sit back in his seat. ‘Well, if we’re all done here…’

. . .

Sham awoke with a start, finding himself covered in sweat and essentially glued to the dirty bed in the apartment he lived in, alone. He clung to the memories of his dream, even though he knew they weren’t real, desperate to live in that alternate life for just a few moments longer. But soon the memories faded, as though they were waters in cupped hands.

‘Good,’ a voice said, ‘You’re awake.’

Sham whipped his head to the corner of the room, where the table and chair sat. There, hiding from the early morning sun in the shadows of Sham’s apartment, was Julya. The Target.

‘You didn’t make our meeting.’

‘Our…’ Sham started, still trying to place himself back in this reality. ‘That’s two days from now. The eighth day, you said. The eighth.’

Julya narrowed her eyes, pulled from her jacket that same old weapon, and placed it on Sham’s table. It was an act of intimidation as much as it wasn’t.

‘It’s the ninth day, Sham Tilner,’ she said. ‘Just how long have you been sleeping for? Now… you wanna hear what I have to say, or not?’

Sham nodded.