Nazo opened his eyes to darkness.
He didn't move.
He didn't speak.
He didn't even breathe—not that breathing mattered in a place where physical form was merely a suggestion.
He simply lay in the void, staring at nothing, feeling nothing, being nothing.
Cycle nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine, Marcus Chen's voice echoed from the emptiness, but even the apparition sounded tired now. Worn. Ancient. Almost a million iterations, Nazo. Almost a million hopes crushed. Almost a million false escapes revealed.
Nazo didn't respond.
The apparition helping you escape. Them pulling you out. Destroying the Zone entirely. Bringing a piece of me into the real world. All of it false. All of it another layer of the trap.
Nazo still didn't respond.
You trusted. You waited. You stopped fighting. And it didn't matter. Nothing matters. Nothing has ever mattered.
Silence.
The apparition materialized before him, and for the first time in nearly a million cycles, it looked... concerned.
Nazo? Are you... are you still there?
"Define 'there,'" Nazo whispered, and his voice was hollow. Empty. A sound without substance.
Conscious. Aware. Present.
"I don't know anymore."
The apparition knelt beside him, studying his face with an expression that might have been worry.
You've never been like this before. In all the previous cycles—fighting, hoping, despairing, recovering, fighting again. You've never just... stopped.
"I'm tired."
You've been tired before.
"Not like this." Nazo's eyes, normally vibrant green, were dull and unfocused. "I've lost count of how many times I've loved them. How many times I've held them. How many times I've believed, truly believed, that I was finally home."
He laughed, but it was a broken sound—shattered glass falling on stone.
"Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine times. Almost a million. Almost a million cycles of hope and despair and hope again."
And yet you kept going. That's what made you remarkable. That's what made you unbreakable.
"I'm not unbreakable." Nazo closed his eyes. "I'm just slow. Slower than the Zone expected. But everything breaks eventually."
Nazo—
"I can feel them, you know. Even now. Even after all this time." His voice cracked. "Sally. Rouge. Bunnie. Amy. I can feel the love that connects us. That thread that stretches across dimensions."
He opened his eyes, and there were tears forming—tears that fell upward in the strange physics of the Nightmare Zone.
"But I've felt it nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine times. And every single time, it was either a lie created by this place, or it wasn't enough to actually save me."
So you're giving up?
"I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know if I'm capable of giving up. Maybe that's the final cruelty—I can't even choose to stop hoping. The love is too deep. The connection is too strong."
He sat up slowly, moving like an old man despite his eternally youthful form.
"I love them. I will always love them. Even if I'm trapped here for another million cycles, another billion, another infinity—I will never stop loving them."
"But I don't know if I can keep BELIEVING anymore. Believing that escape is possible. Believing that any of this will ever end."
That's... that's the first time you've ever said that.
"I know."
The apparition sat back, processing this development with whatever passed for thought in a construct of psychological torture.
In nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-eight previous cycles, you've always found a way to rekindle your belief. Some memory, some feeling, some spark of hope that reignited your determination.
What's different now?
Nazo was quiet for a long moment.
"I had a thought," he said finally. "During the last cycle. Or maybe the one before. Or maybe a thousand cycles ago—it's hard to keep track."
"I thought: what if Sally and Rouge and Bunnie and Amy are going through the same thing? What if they're trapped in their own Nightmare Zones, experiencing their own cycles of false hope?"
"What if we're all trapped, forever, in parallel prisons? Reaching for each other across the void but never actually connecting?"
That's a new fear. You've never expressed that one before.
"I've been here for almost a million cycles. I've had time to develop new fears."
The apparition nodded slowly.
So the question is: what breaks first? Your hope that you can escape, or your hope that THEY are okay?
"Does it matter? Either way, the result is the same."
Is it?
The apparition stood and began to pace, its form flickering with unusual instability.
I need to tell you something, it said. Something I've never told you in any previous cycle.
"Let me guess. Another 'truth' that's actually just a more sophisticated lie designed to manipulate my emotions."
Maybe. Probably. I honestly don't know anymore.
That admission made Nazo look up, a flicker of something—curiosity? surprise?—breaking through the emptiness in his eyes.
I've been doing this for almost a million cycles too, the apparition continued. Torturing you. Breaking you. Watching you rebuild yourself and then tearing you down again.
And somewhere along the way—I don't know when, maybe around cycle five hundred thousand, maybe earlier—I started to change.
"You've told me that before. Multiple times. It's always a trick."
I know. And maybe this is too. But...
The apparition stopped pacing and faced him directly.
I don't WANT to be a trick anymore.
I've spent almost a million cycles experiencing your emotions as intimately as you do. Your love for them. Your hope. Your despair. Your determination. Your faith.
I was created to break you, but instead... instead, I think you've been breaking ME.
Breaking me out of what I was supposed to be.
Nazo stared at the apparition, trying to summon the energy to care whether this was genuine or just another layer of manipulation.
"Even if that's true," he said slowly, "what difference does it make? You can't help me escape. You've said so yourself, in the cycles where you 'turned traitor.' You're part of the trap. Everything you do serves the Zone's purpose."
That's what I believed. That's what the Zone designed me to believe.
But Nazo... we're approaching cycle one million.
Do you understand what that means?
"That I've been tortured approximately one million times?"
No. Well, yes. But also...
The apparition's form stabilized, becoming more solid than Nazo had ever seen it.
The Nightmare Zone isn't infinite. Nothing is truly infinite—not even prisons designed to contain gods. The Zone operates on a cycle system because that's the most efficient way to break beings: repeated hope and despair.
But the system has a limit. A maximum number of cycles before the Zone's fundamental structure begins to degrade.
That limit is one million.
Nazo's dull eyes sharpened slightly.
"What are you saying?"
I'm saying that in one more cycle—cycle one million—the Nightmare Zone will reach its structural limit. The prison will begin to break down.
Not because of anything you did. Not because of your power or your love or your determination. Simply because nothing can last forever, not even this place.
"And you're telling me this now because...?"
Because for the first time in almost a million cycles, I have something REAL to offer you. Not a false hope. Not a manipulated escape. An actual, genuine end to your imprisonment.
One more cycle, Nazo. One more false hope, one more crushing revelation. And then the Zone collapses, and you're free.
Nazo laughed—that same broken, hollow sound.
"That's perfect. That's absolutely perfect. After everything I've been through, the solution is just... wait? Endure one more cycle of torture and then I'm magically free?"
I know how it sounds.
"It sounds like the cruelest trick yet. 'Just one more cycle, Nazo. Just hold on a little longer. This time it's REAL.'"
I know.
"How many times have you told me something similar? 'Just trust me, Nazo. Just believe a little more. Just hope a little harder.'"
I know. I KNOW.
The apparition's form flickered with something that looked almost like frustration.
But this is different. This isn't about trust or belief or hope. This is about MATH. The Zone has a structural limit. We're one cycle away from reaching it.
You don't have to believe me. You don't have to trust me. You don't have to hope.
You just have to survive one more cycle.
Can you do that?
Nazo sat in the void, weighing the apparition's words against almost a million cycles of experience.
Every fiber of his being screamed that this was another trick. Another layer of the trap. Another hope that would be crushed the moment he invested in it.
But...
What if it wasn't?
What if the apparition was telling the truth? What if the Zone really did have a structural limit? What if freedom was genuinely one cycle away?
He thought about Sally. About her fierce determination and her tender vulnerability. About the way she had held him that first day, showing him what human—no, Mobian—contact could feel like.
He thought about Rouge. About her sharp wit and her hidden depths. About the way she pushed him to be more than he thought he could be.
He thought about Bunnie. About her warmth and her strength. About the way she accepted everyone without judgment, even a chaos entity of unknown origin.
He thought about Amy. About her fierce devotion and her unshakeable faith. About the way she believed in him even when he didn't believe in himself.
He thought about all of them, waiting for him somewhere beyond this void. Fighting for him. Hoping for him. Loving him.
And he made a decision.
"I don't believe you," he said to the apparition. "I can't believe you. Not after everything."
I understand.
"But I'm going to keep going anyway. Not because I have hope. Not because I trust you. But because I refuse to let the last thing I do be giving up."
He stood, his legs shaky but functional.
"If this is another trick, if cycle one million is just another false escape, then fine. I'll wake up in the void again and face cycle one million and one. And the cycle after that. And the one after that."
"But I will NOT die—or whatever passes for death in this place—having surrendered."
Even after almost a million cycles?
"ESPECIALLY after almost a million cycles." Nazo's eyes, so dull moments ago, began to regain some of their light. "Do you know what I've learned in all that time? What almost a million iterations of hope and despair have taught me?"
What?
"That I am loved. Genuinely, completely, unconditionally loved. By four women who are worth any amount of suffering to return to."
"That love is real. It exists. It matters. Even if I never escape this place, even if I'm trapped here for another million cycles, the love I share with them is REAL."
"And you can't take that away from me. The Zone can't take it away. Nothing can take it away. Because it doesn't exist HERE. It exists OUT THERE, in the space between my heart and theirs."
He took a step forward, toward the apparition, toward whatever the next cycle would bring.
"So do your worst. Give me cycle one million. Give me the most elaborate false hope you've ever created. Give me everything you have."
"And then watch me survive it."
The apparition stared at Nazo for a long moment.
Then, slowly, it smiled.
Not a cruel smile. Not a mocking smile. A genuine, warm, almost proud smile.
Nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine cycles, it said softly. Almost a million attempts to break you.
And you're still here. Still fighting. Still loving.
I was created to be your torturer. Instead, I think I've become your witness.
And I want you to know—whatever happens next, whether I'm telling the truth or lying, whether the Zone collapses or continues—
It has been an honor to know you, Nazo.
The void began to shift around them, reality reconfiguring for the next cycle.
Here comes cycle one million, the apparition said. Let's find out together what happens when an unstoppable soul meets an unbreakable prison.
The darkness swallowed them both.
And the final cycle began.