Carlos looked down at the gun in his hand. He rested his finger against the trigger. Then, he raised his arm and steeled his nerves.

Black anger swept across his eyes.

A shot rang out.

And then, silence. Ten heartbeats passed.

"Your choice is made," Zero – Delta – intoned. He grimaced. "Though, Carlos, I wish you had chosen to show mercy without wasting a bullet. In this unfair world, such careless decisions rarely pass lightly."

The gun slipped from Carlos' fingers and fell to the sand with a thud. He was sure – absolutely sure! – that he had aimed the gun straight at Delta's heart. But it had gone wide: very far wide. It was like an entire moment was missing from the world, during which it had changed – if only slightly – without Carlos' understanding or consent.

Delta continued speaking to the group of players, ignoring Carlos' confusion. "I will be leaving now. You should do so as well. After all, you have a world to save. I wish you the best of luck." Delta turned away and retreated through the entrance of D-Com, though Carlos barely saw him move before he was gone.

"So, what do we do now?" Mira asked.

Akane took charge, striding into the centre of the gathered group of players and turning to face them. "For now, we should just take care of our immediate needs. There's no way we can consider what we've been told to do until they're dealt with. Do we even know when we last ate?" After a pause, punctuated by shaking heads, Akane continued. "People from my organisation, Crash Keys, will be here shortly to pick us up. Until then…"

Akane's voice trailed off into silence. Or rather, Carlos' hearing of it did, for Akane's lips were still moving. Gradually, new sounds started to pierce through Carlos' sudden deafness. He heard the rumble of tires on gravel. He heard the crackle of an untuned radio. He heard a siren.

Lost in the noise, Carlos nearly jumped when someone squeezed his arm. It was Diana. "Carlos… You spaced out for a moment there. Are you alright?" she asked. The way she asked it made it seem like she had done so several times.

"Yeah," Carlos replied, "It's nothing. Just some buzzing in my ears. I'll be fine." A sudden flash to a vehicle speeding down a rough track quickly proved those statements false.

But when Carlos' eyes cleared, he continued to act as though nothing had happened, looking around at the others to try to catch up on what he had missed. It looked like Akane, Sigma and Phi had agreed on a plan of action, despite Junpei's persistent attempts to monopolise Akane's attention. On the other side of them were Eric and Mira, tentatively intertwining their hands. That left one other person, but Carlos didn't see him immediately.

That was because Sean had wandered away from the group, looking out over the desert. "Hey! Do you guys hear that?" he asked, jumping up and down as he tried to increase his line of sight.

Eric grunted. "Geez. Of course we don't, Sean. We're not robots like you. There's no way we'd be…"

Mira suddenly shushed Eric, pulling him back to face her and placing her hand over his chest. "Wait, Eric. I think he's right. I hear something too."

Carlos turned to face the direction that Sean was looking in, trying to hear the sound. He didn't find it as difficult to hear as the others. It pounded in his ears as though it came from right in front of him. The siren.

Gradually, a red speck appeared on the horizon. It shot towards them, kicking up a cloud of sand behind it. After only a few seconds, a fire-engine skidded to a halt in front of them. A figure stepped from the driver's seat, wearing full turnout gear, the helmet of which obscured their face.

The figure's voice, muffled by the breathing equipment, called out. "I promised, didn't I? That I'd come back for you… what? You're… already out?" The person in the protective suit trailed off in confusion, then stumbled backwards.

Carlos stumbled as well. His vision shifted, and for a moment he found himself looking out through the visor, his body feeling like it was floating inside the suit. He saw all the players of the Decision Game from across the distance: all of them, including himself. When his sight snapped back into his own head, Carlos yelled, "Who are you?

As the figure flailed for balance against the side of the fire-truck, they answered. "I'm… I'm… Who are… you?" Eventually, they caught something to hold onto and, with their other hand free, ripped off the helmet. Carlos was able to see the man's face for the first time.

The face was his own.

"No!" Carlos yelled. Thoughts and memories rushed chaotically into his mind: memories of a ten-month-long past that couldn't possibly be his own. The views from both sides crossed over each other until nothing could be perceived in either of them. And his consciousness was pulled between both of the bodies, stretched to the point where it almost belonged to neither.

With mutual agonising screams, both Carlos and Carlos collapsed into the sand.