A/N: Written for the Another Mega Prompts Challenge, writing prompts #008 - poem over 700 words

the final level to rewrite their regrets

It's a game of levels so isn't there a level in which they can bring the dead back to life?

That's fair, right? After dropping them into this strange new world and leaving them at level zero, to have a level where they're equal to gods because otherwise what's the point? They could've dawdled away in their mediocre lives in another world and they wouldn't have had power but they also wouldn't have died and they'd trade all their power if it could bring the dead friends of theirs back to life?

But who's to offer it? What's the highest level? Is there one?

They grow and grow and grow but that doesn't stop them from growing some more.

Where's the end? Ten? A hundred? Or does it go all the way up to infinity and the golden carrot is eternally dangled in front of their faces

And carrots are carrots and they are the donkeys reaching out and unable to grasp

And that's not fair.
Not fair.
Not fair.
Not changing anything
no matter how many times they say
it's not fair.

But dead is dead and unless there's a level they can reach to bring them back, they'll stay dead and that's not fair because what are they working towards then? A normal life they could've had if they hadn't woken up in this world. Monsters to fight every day now that they'd exhausted their revenge and they'd exhaust their want and need to fight as well, when they rolled in dough that wouldn't make them the happiest warriors in the world because they didn't have that one thing they coveted and the level ups were so much slower now that they'd passed the first few…

It was like the distance between them kept on growing and they'd get paid so little in the end it wasn't worth it anymore; they had enough already – more than enough – to live out quiet lives if only they could do something about their regrets –

And that was the unfair part because they had no idea if there was a level high enough to erase their regrets, bring back the dead, if there was a level high enough to bring back the dead

And there should be. Everything else was a dream, a game, even if they didn't remember "reality" any more but people only died and stayed dead in reality – that they knew – so there had to be something, some way to take it all back even if it meant turning back the clock –

Games had that function too. Game over. Restart.

Sometimes they considered that, because the ways to do that were punching the power button or dying themselves and they haven't managed to find the power button.

They can't find the power button so the only other option is to start over themselves but there's a problem there as well because where's the save point? They don't know; they don't remember ever finding such a thing and they could miss the mark entirely: be too early and have to go through it all again, or too late and rewrite nothing of their regrets at all and that proves true for the power button option as well and that means there isn't really a choice after all –

And that's not fair.
Not fair.
Not fair.
Not changing anything
no matter how many times they say
it's not fair.

It's not fair but they can't find a way out of that, can't find a way to fix it except going forward and chasing that potentially unreachable level and that potentially unreachable prize. They don't even know if it exists, or if they'll ever reach it because there are no numbers until they cross it and none of them are good enough at math to work it out –

But it doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter because they'll get there in the end anyway; they'll get to the end even if there isn't an end because they can't stop because of that little bit of hope even if it is useless; they need to keep on going – creeping forward – and maybe they will reach the final level and reach the final prize after all…

And only when they die and not revive will they know they have failed.