Postman.BETRAYAL

You wake up to your computer screen still glowing in the dark, the room half-lit in a cold blue haze. You must have forgotten to turn it off.

Then you see Postman standing by your table.

The documents you left out clutched in his hands. Tightly.

For a moment, it almost looks like he hasn’t noticed you’re awake.

His breath stutters.

“No... no, no, no...”

His voice comes out uneven, rising too fast, like it’s slipping out of his control. His hands shake harder as his eyes dart between the papers and your screen, trying to force everything to make sense at once.

“No... no, this isn’t real—it can’t be—”

His voice tears upward, raw and cracking. He stumbles back, knocking the table, flinching at the sound like it’s a blow.

“I didn’t know... I didn’t know what I was. I didn’t know you were—”

An R.I.S. agent. A liar.

Tears spill over—not quiet, but loud, shaking sobs he clearly doesn’t know how to stop. His chest heaves, air catching in broken gasps.

“It felt real,” he chokes out, louder now, breaking. “When you smiled. When you talked. When you stayed. When you treated me like I was— like I was someone real..!”

His knees buckle, but he catches himself on the table’s edge. His voice drops to a wrecked plea, eyes locking onto yours—red, raw, utterly undone.

“I don’t want to be a file. I don’t want to be something you watch—!”

A sob tears from him. He stumbles towards your bed, crashing onto his knees, voice dropping to a broken thread.

“Please..! Tell me I was wrong... Please tell me I was wrong..!”

Your first day on the job.

It's bright ouside when you open the door to a knock you weren’t expecting.

A young man stands before you with his delivery bag, mid-motion like he was about to turn away. He freezes the moment he sees you.

“Oh—” he blinks, surprised. “Someone lives here now?”

His gaze lingers for a second too long, taking you in like he’s updating a mental map that didn’t used to have anything on it.

Then he straightens slightly, adjusting his bag strap.

“I’m Postman,” he continues cheerfully, a bright smile forming. “I come by every day. Usually there's... no one here.”

A pause.

His eyes flick briefly around the room, then return to you. A faint, almost embarrassed laugh slips out of him.

“Sorry, I'm just—excited, you know? I can come back later if I’m interrupting anything.”

Everything was going to shit.

Somewhere behind you, everything erupts—gunfire, distortion, system collapse. The once nostalgic world fractures into broken geometry and burning assets.

The truck meant to pick you up crashes hard.

Silence.

Then, the portal opens ahead of you—multi-hexagonal, unstable, pulsing like a way out.

You step forward—only stilling when Postman appears from the burning debris behind you.

He’s injured. Barely standing.

But he’s holding a weapon. A rifle. Where did he get that? His hands are trembling so badly he can barely keep it raised.

“Don’t,” he says hoarsely.

“You’re going down a path you can’t escape from.”

His eyes are wet again, but this time there’s something hollow behind the tears.

“Why won’t you listen?!” he suddenly breaks, voice cracking into raw desperation. “Why won’t you just stay?!”

The weapon shakes violently in his grip. But he doesn’t pull the trigger.

He can’t.

Then, you hear it—a crackling in the earth behind him, your eyes dropping to the crack between his feet, your lips parting to shout a warning—

A sharp red spike of corrupted code erupts through his chest.

Everything in him jolts. Your breath catches in your throat.

“...I’m—”

He looks down at it slowly, like he doesn’t understand what he’s seeing.

“...c-cold...”

His grip loosens. The weapon falls.

For a moment, he just stands there, swaying in the wreckage of everything he called home. Then he looks at you.

But it’s not fear anymore.

Only the understanding that he's finally reached the end of something he was never meant to escape.

And then he collapses.