"I want Truco."
"I want Re-truco."
"Let it be Worth four."
"I accept."
With a confident smile, I played an Ace of Clubs on the table, the second strongest card in the game.
My opponent sighed in resignation.
"You were holding onto that one, huh?"
"I was lucky it showed up at the end."
I replied and leaned back, confident in my victory.
"Luck… An interesting word. Luck is very ambiguous. For example, there are people who live their lives without being dealt good cards to play, and others who are born with everything served to them on a silver platter. Which has more merit, winning a game with bad cards or the simple fact of always being dealt good cards to play with? Which is better, effort or talent?"
He asked, returning my smile.
"Where are you going with this?"
I raised an eyebrow.
"To me, the important thing about playing is having fun. Although many maintain that talent or effort is the main drive, I say having fun is the key to winning. In the game of life, it doesn't matter who holds the advantage at the beginning or in the middle..."
He lowered his last card slowly and set it on the table.
"What matters is who has the final word."
Ace of Spades. The strongest card.
"Good game."
He extended his hand toward me, smiling in a way that insulted my wounded pride.
Until the very end, I believed I was dominating the game, but victory slipped away from me at the last second.
I couldn't help feeling angry, even though it was a friendly game.
I sighed and shook his hand.
"I've never been a good loser. I hate losing, even if it's just a card game."
The man chuckled softly under his breath.
"Who likes losing?"
Indeed, nobody likes losing.
And I had lost much more than just a game of Truco.
The most evident loss was in my body. I no longer had my former obesity. I had lost a lot of weight.
Another loss was my clothes: now I wore a sort of gray ensemble with green details.
I had also lost my home: the room I was in was not my personal sanctuary with a mid-range PC. Instead, on one wall, there was a sign that read "Santa Lucía Psychiatric Hospital."
But the most significant loss was that of my parents.
According to what I was told, the day I "was summoned" to the world of Re:Zero was an invention of my mind.
What actually happened that day was that I returned home to find it on fire, with my parents trapped inside.
I tried to save them, but I failed, so my brain created a massive simulation to help me deal with the pain of the loss.
At first, I refused to believe that everything I experienced was a lie, but the more I analyzed it, the less sense it made. A fictional world becoming real? And me, of all people, being the protagonist? It sounded like a very convenient fantasy.
And yet, I still couldn't accept it. The loss of my parents was something I couldn't stomach, but even that paled in comparison to the Re:Zero affair.
I didn't remember my parents' death, but I did remember my life in another world. I built a new identity, became someone different, all to wake up one day in my old world, in my old life, only now it was much darker and felt empty, foreign.
Supposedly, I had spent months suffering from catatonic episodes and dissociative identity disorder. My supervisor mentioned it to me during a conversation in which I argued that my brain couldn't have produced such complex and extensive memories out of nowhere. They had to mean something else.
But his response left me cold.
"Is that what you think? Think about it, Leandro. When you arrived here, you were in shock: you barely responded to any stimuli and had a blank stare. Time passed, and suddenly you started talking normally. We thought you had recovered, but then you began telling us a story about having traveled to a fantasy world, just like you are doing right now."
"What?"
"After explaining to you that all of that only happened in your mind, you shut down again. After a similar period, you woke up once more and repeated the exact same behavior, as if you were resetting each time."
"That can't be. I don't remember any of that."
"Yes, that's why I'm paying more attention to you now. From the first time you told us about the 'other world' until now, you hadn't had trouble remembering the hospital or us, but now it seems your selective amnesia has worsened. For example, you no longer remember the other identities."
"Other identities?"
"The Hunter, the Swordsman, the Necromancer, the Spiritualist, the Beast, the Conqueror… Don't you remember any of them?"
I recognized the first three titles, but the rest were new.
"I have some memories of the Hunter and the Swordsman. How much do you know about them?"
"They are the 'versions' of yourself that you invented on different occasions. I've never seen a case of someone fragmenting themselves so much just to escape reality. It's a completely absurd level of dissociation."
"Shit. I didn't think it was that severe."
"You must accept reality, Leandro. If you don't, you'll live the rest of your life trapped in your own mind, unable to move forward."
"And would that be worse than living in a world where I lost my parents?"
The doctor placed his hands on my shoulders.
"Of course it is. Nothing is worse than obsessing over the past. A man who cannot overcome his trauma is a man destined for failure."
I was already a failure before I had trauma.
"Anyway, I have work to do. I'll come visit you again tomorrow. If you need anything, don't hesitate to ask the nurse."
"Thank you, Doctor Daniel."
He stopped at the threshold of the door and looked back at me with a satisfied smile.
"I'm glad you're suffering, you miserable worm."
Daniel muttered a few words under his breath that I couldn't quite hear and left, leaving me alone with my thoughts.
I spent a long time staring at the ceiling and letting my mind wander.
"A journey to another world… Yeah, sounds like the perfect way to dodge reality."
It was pathetic...
I had to accept it: none of it was real. I needed to leave those memories behind and start over.
For some reason, those thoughts made me feel exhausted.
***
THAT'S IT.
THE INFLUENCE.
IT'S WEAKENING.
SOON.
I WILL RECLAIM WHAT IS MINE.