Marrow sat in the living room discussing things with Stu, it’d been a couple of days and Chaos was still down. Her vitals and everything were doing good; she was in some sort of hibernation thing that Stu didn’t quite understand but nodded along like he did anyway. Stu asked, “How did the gods, come to be here anyway?”

  Marrow said, “How do you mean?”

  Stu sighed, “I just wonder how this all started, that’s all..”

  Marrow said, “Congratutions Participant you have earned an unredacted entry to the rules.” Rule 18 has now been mostly redacted.”

  The tournament was designed with input from all parties involved. After the flood the humans, gods, [REDACTED], and judges agreed to wait over a period of 11,000 years. After 11,000 years the gods would take 500 years waking up. Upon the st god awaking the tournament would officially begin. As agreed upon the tournament will end when only a single God remains.(A) The decisions were hard to arrive at, so all parties have a guarantee of participation by the judges.

  (B) Section 18A amended to not include any uncontained Stewards, for the sake of humanity. As decided by the Gods. [REDACTED]

  Stu jumped up saying, “What? How could this have been set up that long ago? This is impossible.”

  Marrow said, “Work harder.”

  Stu growled at the response, he asked, “Did the thing inside of Chaos, did it decide to participate in the tournament like the gods?”

  Marrow shook his head saying, “No, not like the gods. It didn’t agree to the rules. I think you are correct in your assumptions though.”

  Stu spoke slowly, “I want to know whether or not, you just indirectly or directly, just called me autistic..” Giving him the stink eye.

  Confused Marrow asked, “What? How did you get that from.. huh?”

  Stu turned red slightly saying, “Never mind, I don’t want to talk about it..”

  The other girls came into the room with miracle saying, “Don’t worry marrow we didn’t know how to respond either, but we told him he’s the most autistic! If you tell him that, then it will make him feel better.”

  Marrow squinted at her saying, “But he’s not autistic..”

  Prosperity threw a pillow at him saying, “Come on Marrow! Chaos is sick and he feels bad enough without you being mean to him!” Stu hung his head, she meant well at least.

  Marrow looked at Stu asking, “Why are you in love with them exactly?”

  Everyone stared at Stu, he sunk into his seat. Miracle asked, “What did he just say Stu?”

  Prosperity agreed saying, “Yeah, did we both mishear him?”

  Marrow looked pleased with himself saying, “Alright, on that note, I believe my work here is done. Everyone, please enjoy your time off for now.” He turned to leave but the girls hollered and ran after him saying something, but Stu wasn’t paying much attention. Everything that happened the other day still weighed heavily on his mind. He thought about Chaos nonstop the st few days, and he knew he’d freeze when he saw her again. He couldn’t wait to tell her, but it wouldn’t happen and that’s one thing he knew. He sighed sadly.

  The images of the encounter with Evil Chaos fshed repeatedly in his mind, why was she so compliant going away. That was an awful lot of effort to get out and then willingly return. It was obviously for a reason; it was just a question of why.. What if she really made me eat that heart? What then? It hadn’t had a defined form until after he’d hit it, or maybe it was breaking the chains. Looking at his wrists, when she ordered him to leave, he disobeyed and they appeared. He only barely broke them, he knew one thing, he needed to get stronger. This getting by with just wits wasn’t cutting it, he didn’t even know until recently that if his god ordered him to do something it could make him stronger or silence him..

  The girls came back in from talking to Marrow at this point, and Stu asked, “Will one of you sit with Chaos for a while?”

  Prosperity said, “Of course, anything else we can do for you?”

  Stu shook his head saying, “No, just let me know if anything changes. I’ll be in the gym if you need to find me.”

  The girls sat down while he silently made his way to the gym. He knew they were worried but the best he could do for them was not share. They didn’t need this burden, he knew he saw this power in Demi’s eyes as well. This wasn’t just one God, maybe it was all of them. Could he trust the gods? What a crazy thought, of course he could.. Couldn’t he? Turning on the treadmill he set it to the fastest setting. He began running for a minute before turning it off, it was too easy.. Looking around he had an idea, loading up the barbell with as much weight as possible he lifted it over his shoulders. Turning the treadmill on it was set too fast to run like this, which meant he had to slow it down, perfect he thought. He started to run like that; it was incredibly difficult and just what he needed.

  If Evil Chaos showed up, if Demi or another steward showed up, if anything showed up, he’d protect his house. He started jumping as he ran with the weights. He pushed himself as long as he could until one of his jumps caused him to slip, and sent him crashing to the floor, he y there waiting to get up, he’d broken his back with the weights. He wanted to get back to working out, but the fact was he wasn’t moving until his body repaired this.

  After around half an hour he could feel his feet again, and he sat up. He dusted himself off and wiped dry blood from his face. Getting back to his feet he grabbed the weight and started kicking the punching bag. He’d do all of this, and if the weight wasn’t enough ter, he’d get more. He kept kicking the bag, it swung back harder every time and he kicked it again, the chain snapped sending the bag across the gym. He scowled walking to the next bag, he began again, in fewer kicks the bag let loose from the rafters. Stu threw the barbell across the gym; it crashed into other equipment breaking. He screamed at the top of his lungs as he stomped the treadmill into pieces. He flipped rge pieces of workout equipment, severed wires, and kicked a rowing machine sending it out the gss wall it sat next to. It fell twenty feet to the ground exploding into small fragments. Next he grabbed the hand weights and started throwing them through the windows, shattering the ten-foot panels of gss one at a time. the whole-time yelling, “Goddammit! This fucking shit doesn’t work! Fuck the tournament! Fuck the rules! Fuck everything! God damn it, just God damn me..” He finally simmered down, after completely destroying the gym and the equipment. This wasn’t a normal reaction for him, some guys break things in anger, Stu didn’t even punch walls in anger. He sank into the rubble softly crying. Miracle and Prosperity appeared in the door at some point, honestly Stu had no idea how long they were there, or when they’d arrived.

  Miracle said, “Stu..”

  Prosperity asked, “Is everything.. are you okay?”

  Stu asked, “Is it time for me to sit with Chaos again?” He didn’t have any emotion in his horse voice, and he didn’t look at the girls.

  Miracle said, “Why don’t we sit with Chaos tonight for you. We can clean this up too. Maybe you should..” She looked at Prosperity hoping for something.

  Prosperity jumped in saying, “Y-yeah, look we will take care of Chaos and the mess. Don’t worry about it. You have done a lot tely, maybe just get some rest?”

  Stu still didn’t look back as he said, “If you can sit with Chaos tonight I appreciate it. I think before you try to clean the gym up, I’d like to work out a little longer. Alone.”

  The girls looked at each other trying to silently figure something out. Prosperity said, “Maybe you shouldn’t work out anymore tonight. Honestly, I’m not sure you should be alone tonight..”

  Stu chuckled, not in happiness but from pure disgust. He said, “I’m doing exactly what I’m supposed to be doing. Murder, plotting, intelligence, death battles, constant death, so much fucking death, sickness, watching the ones I care about tortured, every day.. I’m doing what I’m supposed to do, every god damned day, I don’t even know who I should and shouldn’t kill anymore. I’ve lost my sense of self, I’ve lost my humanity, I’m so God damned lost.. I’d like to work out a little longer, alone if you don’t mind.. please.. You can get me if something comes up, if not.. It might be best to give me some time. I’m going to workout some more now, I wouldn’t stay and watch if I were you, I’m going to act like the pathetic guy.. well, the pathetic thing I am..”

  Miracle gingerly said, “Stu.. The gym is gone.. There’s nothing left here..”

  Stu was just wanting them to leave, he doubted he would trash the gym further, but he couldn’t honestly be sure. The girls whispered among themselves also unsure what to do. Miracle nudged Prosperity, Prosperity blushing reluctantly said, “Um, Miracle and I could take you to bed, and stay the night with you..”

  Suddenly Stu stood up from the debris, turning he walked toward the girls saying, “I changed my mind, you can clean the gym after all.” Walking past them, out of the room, and down the hallway without saying another word.

  Miracle said, “This is worse than we thought..”

  Prosperity watched him until he turned the corner, she said, “He’s really hurting.. what do we do?”

  Miracle was shaken saying, “I don’t know, if we don’t lose him for good.. We’ll be lucky. He is fighting a war on the inside, and he’s losing.”

  Prosperity said, “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too.” She whispered, “Stu.. We need you, for far more than you know..” She slowly walked to the debris and started cleaning as Miracle solemnly joined her. They worked in complete silence as they cleaned up the rubble that used to be their gym.