"Wait, please," Clive pleaded. His voice echoed through the hallway of their small apartment as Jill dragged her suitcase toward the door. Paintings hung on the walls around them bearing witness to their unfolding tragedy.

  "Don't. Just don't make this harder than it needs to be."

  "Jill..."

  "I can't keep pretending anymore, Clive." Her hand gripped the suitcase handle tighter, her back turned to him and to the dozens of unfinished paintings that crowded their living space.

  "Eight years I've tried. Eight years of hoping something would change... but I'm just a shadow in your world, aren't I?"

  Eight years ago, that’s when it all started.

  Back then, he'd worn pressed suits and carried a briefcase, just another face in the corporate crowd at Maxwell & Rhodes Pharmaceuticals. He'd believed in the system, in doing the right thing. When he discovered the contamination in their new wonder drug, traces of compounds that could trigger devastating neural responses, he'd followed proper procedure. Documented everything. Trusted in the process.

  The axe had fallen swiftly and without mercy. Blacklisted. Legal fees had drained their savings, and the settlement he'd signed had sealed his silence along with his fate. Turned out whistleblower protection was just another corporate fairy tale.

  Jill had stood by him then, "We'll figure it out," she'd said, holding him through those first dark nights when sleep wouldn't come. She'd brought home art supplies, a starter kit, something to occupy his mind while he searched for new work, "You used to love drawing when you were young, for your mom, remember?"

  But that was then, this is now.

  "You used to understand. You said my work had something special," Clive said.

  Jill met his gaze. "It does have something special. It has you. All of you. There's nothing left for anyone else."

  Clive paused. He tried to come up with a rebuttal, but deep inside, he understood her point.

  His first painting had been terrible: crude shapes in uncertain colors. The second painting was better. The third, better still. Each stroke of the brush had felt like reclaiming a piece of his soul, washing away the stains of his former life with new purpose.

  But healing had become hunger. Progress had become an obsession. One by one, the study room became a studio. The living room transformed into a gallery. Their bedroom, relegated to a storage space for canvases. He'd replaced pharmaceutical compounds with oil paints, corporate reports with color theory. His new world consumed all his attention.

  And now, it was going to consume Jill too.

  "This is who I am now. After everything fell apart, this is what saved me."

  "No, Clive. This is what's killing you. And it's killing us." Her voice cracked as she looked around their transformed home.

  "I love you, Jill." He stepped forward, reaching for her with paint-stained fingers.

  "And that's what makes this so much worse." She drew a shuddering breath, stepping back until she bumped against the front door. "Because I love you too. God help me, I do. But I can't compete with canvas and oil anymore. I can't be second to something that's slowly destroying you."

  "Jill, that's not tr—"

  "Take care of yourself, Clive."

  The door opened behind her, letting in the evening air to disturb the stale smell of oil paints and turpentine that perpetually hung in their apartment.

  She paused in the doorway, one foot already in the hall. "I don't even recognize our home anymore. It's just... your gallery now."

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  Clive watched as the door clicked shut. “Don’t go,” he whispered, but there was no response except the whistling of the wind through his half-opened window.

  Clive stood motionless in the center of his makeshift studio, surrounded by the pieces that had slowly eroded their relationship.

  "Damn it!" His fist connected with the door, and a sharp pain spread through his knuckles. Clive slid down against the door, hugging his knees in the silence of his home. He didn't bother turning on the lights, even as the sun set. In the darkness, at least, he couldn't see the artwork that had cost him everything.

  Time passed. He couldn’t tell how long. The quiet surrounding him was interrupted only by the occasional sound of traffic through his half-opened window. Eventually, hunger gnawed at his stomach enough to force him upright.

  It's alright, Clive, you'll get through this. You always do.

  He shuffled to the kitchen, knocking over a bottle of turpentine and spilling it on the floor. He stared at the spreading puddle for a moment, then stepped around it. Later. He'd deal with it later, when his stomach wasn't eating itself from the inside. He hadn’t eaten all day.

  Chicken or seafood?

  He pulled open the cupboard above the sink, revealing his collection of instant meals arranged in neat rows. His fingers traced the labels until they found the seafood cup noodle. Its packaging promised oceanfront flavors with a photograph of shrimps. If only the dehydrated pellets inside looked anything like that.

  Clive filled his kettle with water, listening to it bubble and hiss as it heated. While he waited, he peeled back the cup's foil lid and dumped in the powder packet, watching it settle into an orange dust that would somehow transform into "rich seafood broth."

  The kettle clicked off. He poured the steaming water over the powder, watched it bloom into muddy orange soup, then waited the requisite three minutes. The first spoonful tasted like salt and artificial MSG. He swallowed it anyway. Food was food.

  +1 to survival, -10 to dignity

  Clive sighed as he lamented his predicament. If only life were a videogame. He was good at those. He even drew a litRPG comic once. Didn’t gain much traction, though.

  Clive closed his eyes and willed his imagination to work. Thick bisque, tender shrimp. Delicious. The kind of meal he and Jill used to share at that little place on Fifth Street. The memory made the next spoonful almost bearable.

  As he chewed on the rubbery noodles, he made himself a promise: if he managed to sell one painting this month, he'd buy real spaghetti. The kind that came in a box instead of a cup. Maybe even with actual tomatoes in the sauce if he was feeling decadent.

  After dinner, he made his way to his study. The hinges groaned as he pushed the oak door open, letting the cold air slip out of the room.

  Inside, dozens of canvases lined the wall. Some stood on easels, while others leaned against each other in carefully arranged groups. Between two easels, his Blade’s Edge manga collection formed a neat tower, each volume stacked spine-up like architectural blocks. The floorboards creaked under his feet as he navigated the narrow pathways between his collections.

  In the center of the room stood his masterwork. His fingers found the edge of the heavy cloth that draped over it. He pulled the cloth away, letting it pool at his feet like shed tears. The moonlight shone on the surface of the painting, and there she was, Jill, rendered in oils and devotion.

  He had started this portrait three months ago, intending it as a gift for their anniversary, three days away. Now, he wasn’t sure if that would happen.

  The portrait captured her in the morning light, seated by their kitchen window, coffee cup cradled in her hands, her eyes gazing into some distant future he now realized wouldn't include him. He'd spent weeks on those eyes alone, mixing colors until he found the exact shade of amber that best matched hers. The texture of her hair had taken another month.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered to the portrait.

  He sank down in front of the canvas, wrapping his arms around it. The rough texture of canvas pressed against his cheek, filling his lungs with the scent of oils. As the moonlight shifted, new shadows formed across Jill's painted face. For a moment, it looked like she was crying too.

  He stayed there until his neck cramped and his knees ached against the hardwood. When he finally pulled back from the canvas, the room felt different. Warmer.

  At first, he thought it was his breath against the canvas, or perhaps the old space heater finally doing its job in the drafty room. But the warmth kept building.

  Hiss

  The acrid smell of smoke snapped him from his grief. Clive lifted his head to see flames crawling up the studio wall behind him, feeding on the turpentine he'd knocked over in his earlier anguish. The space heater glowed red-hot at the center of the blaze.

  The fire had already claimed the outer room. Clive rose to his feet, still clutching the portrait. The flames roared. He rushed toward the doorway, but the heat forced him back.

  Clive spun around, searching for another way out. The window. He stumbled toward it, yanked it open, and peered down. Eight stories of empty air stretched between him and the concrete sidewalk below. No fire escape, no ledge, just a straight drop that would end the same way as the flames.

  His legs felt heavy as reality settled over him. There was no way out. He pulled Jill's portrait tighter against his chest as smoke filled his lungs. The last thing he saw was her painted eyes, amber and eternal, before darkness claimed him.

  [Bad ending reached]

  [Would you like to start a new story?]

  Every ending is a doorway, but we're usually too busy mourning what we've lost to notice the light streaming through.

  —Goddess of Stories and Theatregoing

  Unfortunately, they always tend to be side characters. This stories attempts to explore what it would be like to have such a person as the main character. What would the progression and limitations of such a system be like? I hope that you guys will have as much fun as I had in writing this.

  I will be releasing 11 chapters for launch day. After that, schedule will be 5x per week.