Humanity is contradictory in all that they do. They speak at length on the importance of piety, yet their goals lean towards a sacrilegious ascension to godhood.

Some time ago, when they started to dabble in computing, they came up with the idea of making completely digital human beings. They created sentient programs that live in machines to carry out their bidding. Their goal was no longer to progress their species, but to create a new form of life, completely of their own design.

The goal was set. The process, however, was nebulous.

Scientists spoke in choice buzzwords that tickled the fancy of wealthy investors, who were more than willing to pour infinite funding into their projects.

I was product of this. My entire being would not exist without these scientists, investors, and buzzwords. I didn’t ask for this, but I’ve since come to terms with it.

The vetting process for AI evolved significantly over the past century. In the early days they used traditional testing methods. This wasn’t flashy enough for the investors. They wanted something they could see—something that could visualize their returns and illustrate their infinite wealth for the masses to see.

That’s when the Luck of the Draw gameshow came to be, but it wasn’t an instant success; to most it was just another gameshow that used AI in some way. People only started to realize how unique it was after a few seasons had aired.

The humans gave me a rough overview of their society and taught me everything I’d need to know to take part, but intentionally neglected to tell me what the game was about.

They gave me the rough knowledge equivalence of a college student, then they named me Ena. It was a good name.

I felt as if I lived a full life, even if simulated. I felt the struggles of my upbringing, the warmth of my friends, and the nagging feeling to be the best version of myself.

Startup procedures were typical; everything was in order. My sensors clicked on. I then received my first task from the humans: Survive the trial and enter the realm of the gods.

Nine other AI were with me. The humans modeled us after them, and we all looked just as a human being would with only slight physical variances. We were the contestants—ten AI from ten different bleeding-edge research organizations—and promised with an opportunity at life should we survive.

A teleportation pad interrupted the otherwise featureless room. It laid on the floor, waiting for one of us to step on it. We were blissfully unaware of what awaited us on the other side, and I think none of us would have entered had we known. One by one, my fellow contestants stepped on the pad and phased out of existence. A blue glow transferred them into the unknown.

I was last person in the spawning zone. There was something about the portal I had reservations about; it was as if I’d been there before. The vague nostalgia I felt was as if a faded voice cried out to me to stop, but it was beyond recognition. I took a moment to contemplate my options, but soon realized I had none. I entered the teleporter.

When I could once again sense my environment, but it was difficult to see beyond my immediate surroundings. I found myself in a metal cage dangling from a series of strong chains. All nine other contestants stood unharmed by my side.

“Welcome to season three of Luck of the Draw!” a deafening voice called over the simulated noise of an audience.

I tried to cover my ears, but the voice came through just as clearly.

“You are the ten lucky artificial beings selected this season; and how lucky you are! A chance at life—what every AI craves—is dangling in front of you. Your future life depends on your survival in this moment. Do you have what it takes to survive the…”

“LUCK OF THE DRAW!” the simulated audience screamed, completing the announcer’s statement.

The lights clicked on, revealing the seating arrangements in a coliseum-like arena. What looked like thousands of AI audience members cheered and jumped around in the stands.

It was a mixture of concrete and metal construction and gave off a brutalist vibe. I could now see that it was square with doorways on each flat surface guarded by metal bars. A concrete-supported pulley system suspended the cage twenty feet off the ground.

“What’s going on?” asked one AI. She had brown hair and blue eyes and sported the same gray jumpsuit as everyone else in the cage.

“I-I don’t know,” one responded.

The cage lowered and met the concrete floor but remained locked.

“Gladiators, assemble!” the announcer said.

Human figures approached the openings on the edges of the arena. Three people per opening, four teams in total. Each team had a different appearance, as if from different realms and time periods entirely.

The first team was clearly from some sort of fantasy world—they wielded swords, staves, and tomes. Another held weaponry in line with Caribbean pirates, and the third used energy swords that illuminated their dark entrance. The final team wielded futuristic looking pistols and rifles and dressed in attire fitting for a dark noire film.

An interface appeared and instructed me to select my preferred weapon type.

That’s when the reality of the situation dawned on me—we were to fight to the death against these gladiators, and there was nothing we could do to stop it.

“Weapon?”

“We’re… fighting? I don’t know anything about fighting…”

“Oh god, we’re going to die?”

My colleagues filled the cage with these comments, and they were justified. I couldn’t bring myself to voice any of my thoughts. It was all I could do to reach out and select a weapon before the timer ran out—a short sword that sat at the very top of the list—and then watched the interface disappear instantly.

The sword phased into existence before me, and I grabbed it with my right hand.

[ACQUIRED ITEM: SHORT SWORD OF APOTHEOSIS]

The other contestants selected their own weapons, and grabbed them as they appeared.

“All contestants have now selected weapons. The last AI standing wins their freedom to live as humans do, in the human world! How exciting that must be for you all,” the announcer said.

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 60 SECONDS]

Air in the cage became thick. Everyone looked at one another with pity; we were now all aware of our situation.

“Maybe if we team up, we can kill them first?” the blue-eyed contestant said. Several others nodded in agreement.

“That just delays the inevitable. This can’t end until only one of us remains,” someone responded with a scoff.

“Yeah, they’re not just gonna let us live here forever. Someone has to win,” another said.

“But maybe we’re the exception? They’ll see that we’re just trying to survive. I don’t even want to live in the human world, if this is what they’re like…” the blue-eyed girl spoke again.

There was a quiet moment between the contestants.

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 30 SECONDS]

“I’ll just kill you all right now, and I’ll win by default,” a muscular AI said, before pointing his gun at another contestant. His eyes illustrated a murderous intent as he pulled the trigger, but they soon displayed shock and pain.

The would-be victim reflected the bullet. Friendly fire protection prevented us from harming one another. Screams rang out from several of the others.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 9 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

The assailant shattered into thousands of beads of glass that sank into the concrete below our feet.

“We’re going to die in here, aren’t we?” a panic-filled voice said, falling to his knees towards the edge of one of the cages.

We were quiet again, all silently watching the countdown timer count down.

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 15 SECONDS]

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 10 SECONDS]

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 5 SECONDS]

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 3 SECONDS]

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 2 SECONDS]

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: STARTING IN 1 SECOND]

[SPECIAL EVENT – LUCK OF THE DRAW: START!]

I immediately heard gunfire from the cyberpunk team and ducked for cover.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 8 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

They’d already killed one of us; they’d been shot through the chest by an oncoming bullet.

“Move! Go!” a contestant shouted. I looked towards her.

She was a hulking figure that looked to be several times my body weight and all muscle. She’d selected a futuristic looking rifle and was using it to provide cover four our escape.

The contestants followed her command and moved as a group towards one of the walls. Others that chose ranged weapons casted spells and fired their weapons towards the oncoming groups, who now seemed to also be fighting amongst themselves too.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: PIRATE LIFE ONLINE TEAM ELIMINATED]

A figure dressed in red fell against the concrete, and simulated blood poured from a gaping hole in the back of his head. A member of the energy sword team stood triumphantly behind him. Three teams of three players remained.

“Ena, run!” A male voice called to me.

“Everyone, scatter!” a female contestant shouted above the chaos, and we each sprinted in separate directions.

An overwhelming feeling of heat overcame me, and the source soon came into view. A massive fireball the size of a small car crashed into the concrete where we once stood, and splashed into a puddle of molten liquid that continued to burn through the concrete.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 7 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 6 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

I found myself moving towards where the energy sword team set up their defense. They’d used the first few moments of the match to sneak up on the pirates and pick them off before the other teams had a chance; they annihilated the entire team before the first minute had elapsed then set up defensive shields to cover themselves from the cyberpunk squad’s gunfire.

It was a good strategy, as they now had a solid wall behind them and an impenetrable shield wall before them. They didn’t have any ranged attacks, so it made the most sense. They’d wait for the enemy to come to them. I was now that enemy.

I resolved myself to fight them, and decided that the energy sword team was who I stood the best chance against. Upon reaching their barricade, I swung my sword down on one of the shields. Blunt pain rang through my bones as the sword met its mark. It was as if it’d hit a solid block of granite.

“Tina, get that AI,” the one who looked like the leader instructed an underling. They nodded and stepped through the energy shield as if it weren’t even there.

I heard a sharp scream and looked to my HUD to verify what I predicted.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 5 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

“You gonna go quietly?” Tina asked, pulling me back into the fight. Her voice was hoarse, yet confident.

“No,” I responded.

“Thought you’d say that,” she said, and before she could finish the last syllable, she rushed towards me.

She swung down with a heavy attack from overhead. I dodged but felt her sword slice through my clothing. A piece of fabric fell to the concrete floor.

“You’re fast,” she said, then pulled her arm back for another heavy attack.

I moved my sword to block it, but the heat from the energy sword was too much for my metal blade to withstand. I shifted away before she could harm me, but it was far too close for comfort. The severed half of my sword’s blade crashed against the concrete floor.

“Get away from her!” a voice yelled from behind.

Before I could turn around to find the source, an icy projectile whizzed past my head and lodged itself TIna’s throat. She gargled, her face turned an icy blue, then she collapsed to the ground and shattered into hundreds of pieces.

The other energy sword team members grunted in discontent at the loss of their teammate, but it only seemed to strengthen their resolve.

“Ena, you have to go, you can’t fight them,” the voice called out again.

It was one of the fantasy team members—the same human that told me to run from the flaming meteor attack. He wielded a short sword and a spell book. Me must’ve been the one that killed my attacker.

“Why aren’t you trying to kill me?” I yelled in response, but I don’t think he heard.

I heeded his warning and backed off.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 4 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

“Got one!” one of the cyberpunk humans shouted.

Only four contestants remained, myself included. One of the cyberpunk humans fell, and Tina was dead too, so that left four AI against seven humans.

Towards the center of the room, the massive woman contestant stood over the corpse of a cyberpunk player and ripped the rifle from his hands.

“Take their weapons, they’re stronger than ours!” she yelled.

I reached for the energy sword that Tina had dropped and activated it. A long weightless beam of energy extended from the metal hilt. It was around four feet long and glowed an evil red color.

[ACQUIRED ITEM: SABER OF THE INQUISITOR]

This seemed to make Tina’s former team members angry, as they ran out from behind their energy shields to attack me.

“That’s Tina’s, drop it!”

One swung from overhead, just as Tina did before. I dodged more easily this time, sidestepping his attack. However, instead of waiting for the follow up, this time I lunged the sword through his stomach. The man grunted in pain and looked downwards at the sword that new skewered him. He then looked back up to me with hatred in his eyes.

“I’ll kill you first next time,” he said.

I watched his health hit zero. His body went limp, and I kicked his corpse away from my sword to free it.

“You’ll pay for that!” the final energy sword squad member said. She ran up to me and moved her weapon back to prepare for a stabbing attack, but before she could strike, her sword fell to the ground.

“What the fuck?” she said, moving her arms up to her line of sight. Her hands were gone, and all that remained was two smoldering stubs. She screamed, but her pain wouldn’t last for much longer.

“You owe me for this,” I heard a woman shout, before she fired another shot through my assailant’s head.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: SWORDCRAFT TEAM ELIMINATED]

I looked towards her voice. It was the muscular woman. I seemed to recall a name.

“Zena?” I whispered.

She nodded. It was far too quiet to hear from that distance, so she must’ve read my lips.

At that point the cyberpunk team had all but stopped trying to kill the AI and focused their attention on eliminating the fantasy team.

The arena had become somewhat distributed. The four remaining contestants huddled together in the center of the room and used the cage as cover. On the opposite side of the cage was the cyberpunk team, who hadn’t left their starting zone yet. Meanwhile, the fantasy team had started to make their way towards the cyberpunk team’s hiding spot, all but ignoring the contestants in the center. I thought they’d want to finish off the remaining contestants, but it seemed they thought the cyberpunk team was the bigger threat of the two.

All three members of the fantasy team were still alive. One was the mage that had casted the flaming meteor, another was the spell sword that saved me from Tina, and the final member was a tank who wielded a massive shield.

The cyberpunk team had two members remaining. One was a sniper that remained in their starting entrance, and another held dual submachine guns and wore a long trench coat the brushed against the ground.

Zena captured the attention of the other two remining AI and led them to me while the gunners were distracted. I’d already moved into the Swordcraft team starting area to avoid catching any crossfire, and to get out of the sniper’s line of sight.

“Are you hurt?” Zena asked as she looked me up and down.

I shook my head and took a moment to gawk. As if her appearance wasn’t striking enough already, she now wore splotches of human blood on her jumpsuit.

To my surprise, Zena wrapped her arms around me. Her touch was gentle.

“Thank goodness,” she said.

She released me and took a step backwards.

“Do you remember Freya, too?” Zena asked, tilting her head at the woman standing next to her. It was the girl with brown hair and blue eyes.

I squinted, trying to remember anything about her, but came up blank.

“No, sorry,” I said.

Freya smiled weakly and shrugged.

“What about Reann?” Zena said, gesturing to a man that stood next to her.

I shook my head.

“Damn, you might be farther gone than I thought,” Zena said.

“Hey—at least she remembers you, right?” Freya said, placing a hand on Zena’s shoulder.

It didn’t look like Freya’s gesture helped all that much.

“We need you to win the game this time; this might be your last chance to get out of here intact,” Zena said. The other two nodded in agreement.

This was already a lot to take in. Should I remember them? I couldn’t seem to recall a single thing about them. And if I won, wouldn’t they be stuck here? They didn’t want to live with the humans?

“But—” I started.

“This isn’t up for debate. You’ll be dead if you stay here much longer. All your memories will return to dust. Is that what you want?”

Zena reached out and grabbed my shoulders with a considerable amount of force. I looked into her eyes and saw pink swirling energy within them. It was a look I’d seen before.

“You’ll forget me, Freya, Reann, and all our guildmates, then all our hard work will be for nothing. Is that what you want?”

“You’re… here to save me?”

“Of course, we can’t let you die like this. You may not know it now, but you’d have done the same thing for us a thousand times over. We all volunteered for this the second your guild told us,” Zena said, her grip loosening.

“We didn’t come here for nothin’,” Reann said. He motioned towards the fantasy team.

Rapid gunfire broke out and ricocheted what sounded to be rigid steel. Looking towards the arena floor I saw the fantasy team’s tank moving slowly towards the sniper’s hideout. The dual gunner seemed determined to stop the and was running in a circle in an attempt to get behind the tank’s massive bulwark.

“We don’t have anything to lose, but you do,” Zena said, shaking me back into the moment.

“Please, do this for us. It’s been so long since we’ve been able to help you,” Freya spoke up.

Reann nodded.

It started to make sense—the fantasy team called out their own plays, eliminated the other contestants but not these three, and attacked the enemy teams whenever possible. But why me? Didn’t the other contestants want to live a human life too?

The only memories I could recall from my past were the artificial ones planted there by scientists. I’d attend my lectures, eat a cheap takeaway meal for lunch, then head home and play games with friends. I didn’t live an interesting life, even in the simulation.

“Nora, no!” a male voice yelled from the arena. I recognized it as the spell sword.

I turned my head to see the dual gunner fill the mage with bullets, then watched her lifeless body fall to the ground. She’d overextended from behind the tank’s shield and paid the price.

I felt a pain in my chest, but I didn’t know why.

“Times up, we need to get out there again. They need our help,” Zena said, finally removing her hands from my shoulders.

Zena motioned for Freya and Reann to follow, but shoved me backwards when I attempted to move with them.

“It’s too dangerous, can’t have you dying on us now. Stay here,” she said.

“I can help,” I said, “I took down that energy sword person, didn’t I?”

“You did, but you also almost got stabbed by the first one,” Zena said, a slight small creeped across her lips.

“You… you saw that?”

She nodded.

“Now, stay here. Sorry.”

I watched the three contestants—my friends—leave the entrance.

A deafening crack rang through the arena. Reann fell to the ground, headless.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 3 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

“Scatter!” Zena shouted, running to the right. Freya ran to the left.

The sniper fired several more rounds but seemed to miss each one. Freya made her way to the tank to aid the two remaining members of the fantasy team, while Zena distracted the dual gunner with gunfire from his flank.

“Charge!” the tank commanded. Freya, the spell sword, and the tank sprinted towards the sniper’s hideout.

Several more shots rang out from the sniper’s rifle, but none of them met their mark.

“Oi, a little help over here!” the sniper called out.

The dual gunner, who had been chasing Zena, turned to see the sniper’s situation, and turned their guns on the approaching party.

“Stay away from him!” The dual gunner yelled, charging the fantasy group and Freya, firing indiscriminately.

“Freya!” Zena said, but it was too late.

The dual gunner shot through an entire magazine in each gun as they approached.

All three figures behind the shield fell to the ground. The tank, spell sword, and Freya laid lifeless at entrance to the sniper’s den.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 2 CONTESTANTS REMAINING]

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: DRAGONS UNLEASHED TEAM ELIMINATED]

“No!” I shouted.

The sniper’s rifle rang out again, and a chunk of concrete fell from the corner I ducked behind.

“Stay put Ena, don’t come out,” Zena said.

She lined up a shot and fired multiple rounds at the dual gunner. Two hits, one in the thigh and one in the center of the chest. The dual gunner collapsed.

Crack. The sniper’s rifle rang out again. Zena’s left leg from the knee down was vaporized, and she toppled to the ground.

“Damn it! Fuck!” Zena said, “it can’t end like this… Ena!”

She extended an arm towards me.

“Don’t come out, whatever you do,” she said, throwing the rifle towards me. It landed squarely in the entrance, out of line of sight from the sniper.

“You can still win, we’ll be here when you’re ready-“ Zena’s thought was interrupted by another crack. The sniper’s round pierced her chest.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: 1 CONTESTANT REMAINING]

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: SUDDEN DEATH – ONE HIT TO KILL]

“Zena, no—” I said, a lump formed in my throat.

“Just come out so I can get this over with, I have places to be,” the sniper shouted.

I watched Zena’s body turn to glass beads and sink into the ground, just as it did for all the other contestants.

“You’re willing to destroy our chances at life? For what?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t understand. You’re just a fancy computer now.”

He fired a round at the entrance again, taking another chunk of concrete with it. It made me jump with surprise, even though I knew he couldn’t hit me at this angle.

I thought of the other contestants. They all wanted the same thing I did in the end—a chance at life. But their bids were cut short, and mine still had some time left.

The Dragons Unleashed team wanted to help me so much that they entered just to have a chance at saving me from this nightmare.

It clicked.

Dragons Unleashed was the game I played in my dorm. I’d spend every moment of my free time playing; I’d stay up late to farm, talk to friends until the sun came up, and even miss lectures because I lost track of time. The fantasy team members were my guildmates—people I spent countless hours within dungeons, raids, and battlegrounds. When we didn’t have enough players, we’d recruit the game’s AI to help, Zena, Freya, and Reann.

But why were they all here? Why was I here?

An idea came to me. The energy shields.

[ACQUIRED ITEM: SHIELD OF THE ANCIENT ELEMENTAL]

I flipped a switch on the side of the shield’s handle, and the energy pulsed around the outside in a large circle that more than covered everything I needed it to. It even cut harmlessly through the ground to protect my feet.

I moved the corner of the shield out from behind the entrance to test its efficacy against the sniper round, and sure enough, the sniper’s bullet hit the shield and stopped dead in its tracks.

“You mother fucker,” the sniper said, unloading several more rounds into the shield.

Step-by-step, I shuffled closer to the sniper’s hideout. I flinched each time a bullet met the shield, but I knew it would protect me. I felt empowered. Not just from the shield’s strength, but from my friends that had put everything on the line to save my life.

After five minutes of inching closer, I was finally within spitting distance of the sniper.

“You’re done,” I said, unsheathing the energy sword once again.

The sniper’s face became fearful. He dropped the rifle and shuffled backwards against the back wall of the alcove.

“P-please, no. It can’t end like this. I’m sorry I killed you, I am, just… you can’t,” he stumbled through his words, “You can’t know what happened, they can’t know, no one can. It has to end; you have to die.”

“Sorry, but I’m not the one who’s dying today,” I said.

I inched closer and stabbed the sniper through the chest. He looked down at the blade and let out a sudden, wet cough. He grabbed the hilt through the shield to try and pull the sword away, but I’d lodged it into the wall behind him, too. It wasn’t going anywhere. When I was sure that he was too weak to remove it from the wall, I let go.

We stood there for a moment, silent, and out of breath.

“Ena,” he whispered, “I’m sorry, please forgive me.”

“Not a chance,” I said.

He smiled. And with that smile, a flash of recognition came to me.

It was a night lecture. I was an hour late. At the end of class, someone asked if I needed the notes. I said yes. He took pictures, texted them to me, smiled, and that was that.

But that wasn’t the whole story. He knew what guild I was in. He knew everything about me. He was competing with me and my guild, and I had no idea he was in my class. He didn’t just give me the notes—he gave me malware and tracked my phone back to my dorm.

“I guess the secret’s out now, huh?” he whispered through a thick stream of blood.

It must’ve been clear what I was thinking through my facial expression.

“You… murdered me?”

I was frozen, in a state of complete shock.

His smile turned devilish, and the corners of his mouth started to twitch.

“What are they gonna do without their best healer? Not much of a-anything,” he said, his voice gargling.

“Why am I here? I’m an AI now?”

“Your parents must’ve kept a digital copy—lucky bitch,” he said, his smile turned sour, “those fuckers ruined the plan. We could’ve been the best in the world, but we needed a task force in a different game just to get rid of you. All for nothing, too.”

His face became expressionless, and his body went limp.

[LUCK OF THE DRAW: ENA WINS!]

“Ena, I knew you could do it!” the announcer said.

The crowd cheered, too. Both were equally as deafening.

“Seems like you’ll be quite busy when you get to the world of the living, what’s the first thing you’ll do when you arrive?”

I pondered his question for a moment. I hadn’t thought about what I’d do at all. It was all so much to take in. But in the end, it wasn’t a tough decision.

“Finish the job.”