"When you are mad, mad like this, you don't know it. Reality is what you see. When what you see shifts, departing from anyone else's reality, it's still reality to you." - Marya Hornbacher
"It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane." - Philip K. Dick
Sweet Insanity of a Fractured Mind
Sugar Rush belonged to him.
He, who had been thought dead, whose name lived on in cautionary ghost tales about greed and selfishness. He, who had survived on sheer will and determination, not about to give up due to his one failure in taking back his rightful place at the top of the food chain. He, who had successfully migrated into an unsuspecting and innocent game, corrupting its source to fool everyone into believing his pretty, painted lies. He, who had ousted its leader, manipulating all of her former friends and subjects into believing she was less worthy than the ground they walked on, replacing her as their beloved king and being worshiped by all.
As it should be.
He deserved it, he would think as he surveyed over his dominion from a lofty height far up in the castle towers. He had suffered many years, living in squalor and solitude amongst the dusty wires that made up the secret, hidden pathways behind the Game Central Station walls. He was designed to be the center of attention, all eyes on him, and that was impossible to do whilst in hiding. Hiding from those who thought ill of him, who would want him dead, for simply doing what all beings do when someone steals their glory: destroy them.
Oh, everyone thought they were so much better than him. That it was wrong of him to take out RoadBlasters before it had a chance to bask in its newfound popularity. Fools. None of them knew what it was like to be on the top, only to have the rug pulled out from under them and abandoned as soon as something newer and shinier came along. If they had been in his position, they'd have done the same! It was only natural to strive to be the best, to be the apple of everyone's eye. He guaranteed that he was not the only person in all the world to climb his way back to the top, regardless of how it was done!
And climb back, he did. Oh, it was such a shame that no one could offer their congratulations to him on a job well done. He had gone in without so much as an inkling of suspicion floating around, and he had taken control over an entire world in such a short time. It was surely the greatest achievement in all of history! He longed to tell someone, to hear them say that, yes, it was a bold and triumphant feat. However, he supposed that hearing the crowds cheer for him once more, to be chosen by the players as their racing avatar once again, that was good enough for him.
So he would say.
In truth, what he wanted was to be in total control, and that was unable to happen even here because of his one dire error. He thought he had been murdering that snivelly little princess when he ripped her code asunder, but he had done nothing but cause her to become a glitch in the program. A small microbe, a cancer that left a black spot in his well-oiled machine of a world.
That little brat.
Who did she think she was? Constantly trying to join in on a race, thinking she deserved to be on the same track as him. She had done nothing to earn her spot there! He had slaved away to make this world his, had suffered many years waiting for his glorious return to the spotlight, and there she was hiding away in the shadows...waiting...waiting to take it from him.
Who cared if she was programmed to be the game's ruler? That meant nothing. It had been handed to her. She never had to fight her way past competitors to earn the title, never had to work to earn any rewards. She was a spoiled child in every sense of the word.
And yet he could not control her.
He had his methods, yes, such as the pay-to-play system, and in case of an emergency (which had yet come to pass), there were the glitch-proof chains he had concocted over the course of several late nights in the solitude of his castle basement-turned-dungeon...or the Fungeon, as he called it because it would be great fun when he finally threw the little brat in there to rot like the disease that she was!
It irked him greatly that she was still alive...still able to take his spot from him. Some days, his hatred of her ate him inside out like a poison, a virus in his code. How dare she think she could steal what he had worked so hard on! How dare she exist! Her very presence mocked him to the core. It gave him some pleasure in seeing her little friends abuse her on an almost daily basis, but at the end of the day, the joke was on him because she was still alive.
His fatal error...if only he could go back in time somehow, plan his takeover more tediously, he would give her a proper Game Over. What with her trapped inside the game that he so desperately wanted her out of was the very thing that kept her from dying. Glitch or no glitch, she was still immortal here, unable to die much like a cockroach. Her state of physical well-being grated at him; she was the one cavity that his sugary domain bore.
No matter. If the time ever came when his reign was threatened, he would go to the extreme to keep it safe. No one, especially a mere child, was going to knock him down off his pedestal. He refused to go back to a time where he was forgotten about, wallowing in a pit of loneliness and bitter rage. Never. Again.
Sugar Rush belonged to him.