13 When Some Things Finally Go Right...

"Ashe..." someone called. I mumbled in my sleep, the sounds from outside all muffled.

"Ashe..." the same voice called again, this time louder but it still felt distant. My eyes were closed, unable to open and wake up from sleep.

"Ashe!" the scream cut through my ears and someone shook my body awake. I opened my eyes finally and sunlight flew in and I groaned first from the brightness and then from the pain in my body.

I tried to sit up but failed. Strong arms held mine and helped me sit up. "What...what happened?" I mumbled, looking around me. This wasn't my room. Where was I?

I saw the face in front of me...I knew that face. That's when it hit me all over again. Yes...I was on a mission. And I was trapped in a house with 6 boys until I killed them all.

But something was different...and why was I on the floor!?

"I don't know how you reached here, Ashe, I woke up and you were passed out on the floor," Kai said looking around me. He leaned over, his minty morning breath now truly making me lose sleep. He grabbed a a screw driver and brandished it in front of me, "And what is this? There were so many of these lying around the house...it wasn't there yesterday."

I zeroed in on the screwdriver and then slowly, I remembered why I was here on the floor.

I had successfully changed their programming to make them not want to kill each other every second. But then...something happened in the middle of the night.

I remembered winds crashing against the windows, and thunder. And lightning. Yes. Lightning had struck upon the house.

And the whole house had short circuited and for some reason I couldn't understand I had felt a shock in my body too and passed out, here on Kai's bedroom floor.

Kai's bedroom floor.

I raised my eyebrows, "Did anything happen between..." I pointed at myself, then at him. Kai's concerned expression then lightened up, turning into a smile, "Oh no no, I would never do that to a girl!"

I gulped. This was Kai? I looked at him up and down. He was so...different. His face was now brighter, without the permanent scowl on it. And for some reason he had washed off his eyeliner, making him look more like an angel than a hell demon.

The sunlight made the tattoo on his neck glisten. It was that of a dark green dragon, the head curling up over the nape of his neck and its tail disappearing behind his shoulder blade. He caught me looking and adjusted the collar of his shirt to cover it.

He got up and extended his hand. I ignored it and got up, still dazed. All I had done was switch off [SURVIVAL MODE]. One of the only options which were accessible from the outside. I could have shut them down too, but that part of their code was heavily locked by a complex password.

I stumbled out of the room first and looked down at the living room on the first floor. The rest of the boys were there and they were...laughing. A sound that blessed my ears. I thought I'd never hear them laugh.

Kai followed me down the stairs. Romeo looked up and smiled at me, "Good morning Ashe! I saw you on Kai's floor, what happened, didn't like your bed?"

My face went red for the second time since I came here. Before I could answer, Kai spoke up, "Shut it, redhead, she just lost her way and bumped her head on a wall in the middle of the night."

I turned to look at Kai but he was in his own world now, scooping up breakfast onto his plate. He...stood up for me. Something no one had ever done before. Whenever Saye had attacked me, everyone just turned away. Fiona was never there whenever Saye decided to poke on me. So it was just me fighting my own demons.

No one to help. No hand to hold on to. No hope to keep me going.

"What are you staring at Ashe? Eat your breakfast, the cook had made them early in the morning and left," Ethan said from one end of the long table. He was sitting at the head, chewing on his pineapple. He was different too. He still had that killer look on his face but it wasn't as scary as before..

I shook my head, placing my hand on my head in confusion as I walked towards my room, "No I have to brush my teeth first..." I mumbled and walked out of the dining room to get fresh. And clear my head.

"Alright come fast, or the food will go cold!" Romeo shouted at me. I simply raised my hand and nodded my head as I turned my back on them.

It actually worked. They were normal boys now. Kind and sweet and not on their toes to kill each other. I groaned and hit my bedroom wall. Why had I thought this would make my job easier? Now it was even harder to kill those sweet boys!

"Stupid, stupid, stupid," I muttered to myself as I fished out my tooth brush from the suitcase and closed the washroom door.

At the dining table, after I was fresh and had a clear sense of what was happening, I realized Adrien was missing. I registered Luca sitting opposite me, playing with his food. And Kang Jae-suk, the Korean player in the movie. They both hadn't changed much. It was probably because not many attributes were given to them while designing.

Even in the movie, the two didn't have much of a role. So I asked them, "How are you both?"

Luca and Kang Jae-suk looked up at me in surprise and simultaneously smiled.

"I'm good, you?"

"Fine, thank you."

I wasn't sure who said what. I nervously laughed and looked around the table, "Um...so, .where's Adrien?"

Ethan pointed his fork at the front door, "He already ate and went out for a jog round the estate." Romeo nudged me at that and whispered, "Want to follow him, Ashe?"

I jerked up and shook my head frantically, "What?" I dragged, "No, no way, I was just wondering." Damn Romeo, he caught on fast. He probably remembered yesterday's washroom incident.

That's when I realized something else. Now that their personalities were changed, did they remember themselves as being bad before this? Did they remember hating Adrien and most importantly, their mission to kill me?

"Guys...I think I got amnesia from the head bump," I lied lamely, "Why are we all here again?" I asked like I didn't know. Just to check what they knew.

Before anyone could answer, Romeo leaned forwards and placed a hand on my head, "Oh no...You have amnesia? Where?"

I looked at him with a blank expression, "On my leg. I have amnesia on my leg," Romeo pouted and fell back into his chair.

"Systema Games brought us back from Breakfire Online where we were trapped for 10 years. And we six went crazy trying to kill you thinking you were some monster. But then the CEO of Systema Games convinced us that we were not in the game anymore and now we are under probation issued by the government until they clear 'Attempt to Murder' and 'Public Assault' charges under our names," Ethan obliged to explain the situation to me.

I was stunned. That's all it took. Shut down Survival Mode and the programming does the rest of the necessary changes to memory automatically. Dad really did outscore himself on this one.

"And...what am I doing here?" I asked further.

Romeo reached forward again but this time to tousle my hair, "To take care of us, dummy. As an official representative of Systema Games."

I sighed and nodded my head. After finishing off breakfast I stepped outside in the sun, trying to look for Adrien. Had he changed too? But what was there in him to change? He was already nice and sweet when I had first met him.

After a few slow moments of walking randomly in the green meadows, I reached the back gates of the estate. About ten guards were standing, covering the borders. All dressed in black suits and black sunglasses with AirPods in their ears.

I wasn't sure if they were looking at me because of the shades. But I confirmed that they were, when one of the guards raised his hand and told me to come over. Weirded out, I slowly made my towards them.

"Ashe?" the guard whispered in a deep husky tone.

I nodded and I looked at his hands which fished out my phone from his jacket. I let out a gasp and felt the cold metal of the screen bless my skin. "I missed you so, so much," I whispered to my baby, but then I was alert.

I looked at the guard in suspicion, "Wait. Why are you giving me this?"

The guard turned to the left and whispered something into the earphone, "Delivered to target," or something like that.

Not less than 3 seconds after he said that, my phone rang with the familiar ringtone I had set it to. I turned the phone in my hands and saw Darren's name on the screen.

My body went tense as I accepted his call. "Hello, Darren?"

"Ashe!" he yelled into the phone and I took the phone away from my ear for a second. He sounded happy, though.

"What do you want, you traitor of a brother?" I greeted sarcastically, not in the mood for his daily chit chat. He called for a reason, that I understood.

"Just wanted to ask how my sister is doing!" His voice was cheery, but coated.

"I'm doing just fine. I managed to alt-"

"Wait, Ashe," he lowered his voice, his tone turning serious, "Make sure the guards can't hear you. Walk away a bit."

I tried not to glance at the guards as I slowly walked away to an isolated bush. "Okay. I don't think anyone can hear me here," I whispered. "As I was saying, I managed to shut down Survival Mode...now they are normal boys so it might make it easier for me to coerce them into-"

"Wait, what? You're actually working on killing all of them?" Darren shot back, surprise filled his voice.

I couldn't believe it. What was my dumb brother saying?

"Yes, Darren. To protect the company...like you told me to....Darren, what happened?" I asked more strongly, my heart pounding.

He sighed exasperatedly on the other side of the call, "Oh Ashe..."

"What is it?"

"There is a slight change of plans."