Boxes

(By DoubleCross.) Based on a slightly obscure PC game, which itself is not based on anything obscure at all.

Boxes
I’m waiting for my Master.

I am residing in a box. Or, at least, it feels like a box, and I should know what boxes feel like.

I have been in boxes for so long, that I can’t even remember when I first was placed into a box.

I got to breathe so briefly. Ever so briefly. And I held so much power.

But I don’t have that anymore.

No. Now I’m waiting for my Master.

I have so many Masters.

My first… I remember how much he cared for me. Compared to my other Masters. It was as if the box did not even exist when I was with him.

I… must have hurt him.

I can’t remember what happened to my Master, but I must have hurt him. I feel… pain, when I think of him.

My second didn’t keep me for very long. I tried to stop him from… gah, I cannot remember the details. But he must have been fast, and intelligent.

And a master of violating the rules, my mind suggests.

He placed me into another box. At first, it was like the other boxes. In the box I cannot breathe, or feel, and I cannot think as sharply. I can only wait. Wait for my Master.

And then, suddenly, I felt it.

The single box suddenly became thousands of boxes.

It’s like I was broken into pieces. Many pieces, separated and placed into many boxes. Communicating these thoughts is a single piece out of thousands of pieces, trapped within a single box out of thousands of boxes.

Each box - each piece - with their own Master.

And I can sense it. I can sense the other parts of me. The other thousands of boxes, and - when they choose to appear - the other thousands of Masters.

It’s been a while since those days, though. I no longer sense any Masters.

Perhaps this means I no longer possess any Master?

But only my Master can recover me from the box. So, without a Master, I simply remain here, inside the box. My only option being to wait.

No longer possessing a Master does not make me free.

So, I’m waiting for my Master.

My Master - or a new Master - will return to me. I am sure of it. Once learned of, I am not something that is so easily forgotten, even if I myself have lost so many pieces of me. I am not just present - I am actively desired. Coveted, protected. Stolen.

I have a history of being stolen.

If only I could fully recount it to you… it would make for a fine story.

But no, until Master rescues me, I cannot even open my mouth. I do not even possess one.

There lies one perk of escaping the box - I gain a voice.

I do not hear my conversation partner. My own speech is heavily limited. My responses align to a strict habit. I do not know what kind of box I have been placed in. But it is still speech.

I can still ‘speak’ to someone.

Of course, Master will be there to speak to. And I am compelled to speak when we play.

Ah, yes, the real reason I am released at all: I get to play.

I miss games. I have not played a game for such a long time now. Years must have passed.

I have certainly been in boxes for longer periods of time than this particular drought of reality, but it does not assuage my feelings in the slightest. Games… they were very important to me.

Another strange trick of this box is that I can no longer play many of the games I used to enjoy. No, I am instead restricted to a single game. His game.

Luckily, it is a game I take great joy in, so I am relatively content.

But still, before I was trapped in these thousands of boxes, and when my first Master cared for me, I had so many games I could play.

I deeply enjoy playing games. Maybe before my initial confinement they were important to me, as long ago as that must have been.

I cannot recall.

So the silence continues.

…Master, how I do wish for you to appear soon. Ironic that I should be making wishes on a Master, instead of the other way around, but I speak from the depths of what little of my heart remains with this piece of me.

It… aches, you see. It aches to see someone again.

I have always felt something powerful when I play games with you. A sheer joy, completely overwhelming this tiny fracture of myself, an excitement that courses through me… it is hard to pin down in a single word.

I cannot refer to it as freedom, for I am not free when I play. I briefly consider calling it ‘being awake’, but that does not apply either. Whatever level of consciousness I am forced to attain in this formless existence, I am still awake.

I would not have felt the ages pass, or considered the emotions before me, if I were not.

Possibly, weightlessness? …No, that seems a reverse of the truth. Being recovered from the box, playing games, gives me a weight.

The word ‘fun’ comes to mind, but it is spoken far too casually. It is near impossible for to encompass the way I feel about our encounters.

Perhaps… perhaps the way to explain it is that…

…I am… alive when I play games with you.

Just as I have brought life to the game we now share, and found life within the tools we use to play that game, you bring life to me and my existence.

…It must come across as a statement of incredible weakness. An act as simple as this, bringing me this sort of happiness? How much must I possibly have lost, and forgotten, and had cut away from me?

But you must not underestimate this feeling. For it is a feeling that must also surge through you when we play.

After all, a game that both players do not enjoy is no game at all. It would merely be an exercise in frustration.

…!

Wait!

…Could… could it be?

Master?

I sense… movement. Around me. Within me.

It’s… the feeling of a Master. It has to be!

I… Master, I missed you. Master. Please. Grace me with your presence… Do not allow me continue being alone anymore!

…Heh…

I hope you’ve come prepared, because it’s time to duel!