The cursor blinked.

  A single pulse point in a pool of dull white, like an eye, blinking as it watched him. Judging. Maybe even pitying him for failing to provide a suitable solution to the tragedy contained within the message on screen.

  Marcus Hale sat hunched at his desk in a threadbare hoodie, elbows pressed against the cold wood-effect veneer, fingers laced under his chin. The cheap office chair he’d brought home when his company had decided all staff would now work in home offices creaked whenever he shifted, which wasn’t often. He stared at the screen as though it might blink first.

  The email hadn’t changed.

  "Dear Mr Hale,

  We regret to inform you that your position as Senior Narrative Architect at Vexation Media Interactive will be formally discontinued effective immediately. This decision follows the company’s strategic transition to a fully autonomous AI-driven content generation platform, which has now achieved full deployment across all storytelling verticals.

  As VMI continues to expand its portfolio of interactive, real-time narrative experiences, including dynamic storyworlds such as Whispers of Ruin, Terminal Choice, and City of Echoes, the demand for agile, audience-responsive content has outgrown the limitations of traditional human-led development teams.

  Our latest proprietary system, VX-GEN/4, is capable of generating branching narratives, emotional dialogue arcs, and reactive world-state changes in real time, with zero downtime and full cross-platform synchronisation. After extensive internal evaluation, VX-GEN/4 has shown marked superiority in key areas, including:

  Narrative generation speed (4.6x increase over manual teams)

  Live audience engagement (21% higher retention in choice-driven content)

  Consistency across reactive plot branches

  Adaptive scripting under live-streaming conditions

  While we deeply value the two decades of dedication and creative energy you have brought to the company, roles centred around fixed-scope narrative design are no longer considered viable within VMI’s operational model.

  All outstanding holiday pay and entitlements will be processed automatically. As your position has been made redundant due to strategic automation, no severance package is applicable under current policy, in accordance with the Automation Transition and Economic Efficiency Accord (ATEEA), ratified by the Global Commercial Standards Council (GCSC).

  We acknowledge that this may be difficult news, and we sincerely thank you for your years of service. We wish you the best in your future endeavours.

  Kind regards,

  Vexation Media Interactive"

  No severance. No redundancy consultation. Just a sterilised farewell, no doubt composed by the same bastard algorithm that had replaced him. The same type of AI he had been used to train. Polite. Efficient. Emotionless.

  He scrolled to the footer. No human name. Just "Vexation Media Interactive."

  "Fuck," he muttered, his voice rasping. He needed a drink, but even getting up to achieve that goal felt like too much effort. Besides, the tap water tasted metallic and there was no beer in the fridge.

  He’d seen this coming. They all had.

  For almost a year, management had been introducing new “collaborative tools”, machine learning assistants designed to “enhance productivity” and “support creative vision.” But everyone on the narrative team knew what it really meant. They weren’t training assistants. They were training replacements. Every story they wrote, every dialogue tree they finessed, every bit of feedback they gave on autogenerated drafts, it all fed the machine. It learned their styles. Mimicked their voices. Optimised what they had long trained for.

  The job listings had changed, too. New roles with titles like “Narrative Integration Analyst” and “Human-AI Liaison” were posted right where the listings for Game Storyline Creator, Coders and Technical Writers had traditionally been posted within the company portal. No mention of actual writing any more. Just people to manage the content engine. To feed the AI beast. The writing had been on the wall, or, more accurately, on the monitor, for a while now.

  Twenty years. Two decades of building worlds, crafting character arcs and writing dialogue that players used to discuss in forum threads with words like “incredible,” “haunting,” “changed my life.” Now, the role was being taken over by a glorified word blender, stitching together tropes and calling it an improvement.

  Marcus rubbed his eyes, dry and raw from a night of staring at nothing. His fingers shook. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. Yesterday, perhaps? Maybe the day before. The radiator had gone dead two weeks ago, and condensation had begun to appear on the walls just days later. He’d taken to wearing two coats over his day-to-day clothing in a desperate attempt to stay warm - the first one clearly showing signs of being too small these days. The years of wearing an L-size shirt, jumper or jacket had long since given way to XL in order to stay comfortable, but funds were tight for new threads, so the old clothes had to last.

  Marcus took stock of his situation. Rent: three months overdue. Electric: prepaid meter limping along - just enough to keep the lights on for now. Fridge: humming with stubborn determination, its only occupant a half-used bottle of hot sauce. Eviction notice: still taped to the door, edges curled and yellowing. Five days left.

  He’d tried the council. He’d tried the food banks. The charities logged his name onto polite, hopeless waiting lists, filled with younger, louder tragedies. The world had moved on. He hadn’t.

  His employers had stopped offering yearly cost-of-living increases a long time ago. Every team meeting, every company-wide memo, had carried the same line: tightening financial conditions, reinvestment into growth, strategic alignment with futureproofing technologies. Which, of course, meant an ever-growing reliance on AI tools. They couldn’t afford to pay him more, they’d said, because they needed to spend more on the systems that would eventually take his job. The irony had sat heavy in his chest, like bad food, and now it was making him sick.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  They hadn’t even tried to hide it. Management has thrown around buzzwords and meaningless phrases. “Short-term pain, long-term vision.” “Efficiency through intelligent augmentation.” “Human creativity enhanced by automation.”

  He’d laughed when they’d said it in meetings. Then he’d gone home and updated his CV. But just like the company portal, the available jobs called for experience in managing AI systems, mapping new automation pathways or a dozen other ridiculous roles that had come to exist in the past few years. He’d applied for hundreds of jobs in the past 12 months, knowing in his heart what the response would be. No one had called.

  His knees ached. Not from anything recent. Just years of neglect and desk work. A dull, deep throb in his knees and sometimes his coccyx when he sat too long, and he always sat too long. That was the thing about working with your mind. Your body turned into an afterthought until it started fighting back with pain, throwing out warning signs that inevitably got ignored.

  He let out a breath, more of a sigh, and leaned forward, bones cracking in his back. The cheap desk wobbled beneath him. He opened a browser on his PC, fingers flowing effortlessly across the keyboard as he began another inevitably fruitless search.

  How to make money online fast

  The results weren’t inspiring. They never were. Just Clickbait. Surveys. Scams wrapped in fake testimonials. “Sign up for our course.” “Guaranteed income in 30 days.” “Passive crypto revenue using our AI bots.”

  He knew the tricks. Hell, he’d written ad copy for some of the competitors to these sites back in his freelance days; landing pages, email funnels, social blurbs. Each line crafted with just enough truth to seem legit, despite most of them being poison for an individual's bank balance. He wasn’t proud of his involvement, but survival didn’t always come with dignity. At least back then, survival had felt possible.

  Now? He was staring down the barrel of eviction, malnutrition, and the crushing silence of a world that didn’t care whether he was here or not.

  The fan in his PC wheezed, an old warhorse with dusty lungs. The machine was the last semi-valuable thing he owned, having recently pawned his tablet, sold his old guitar and even flogged his much-loved Runescape account that his father had handed down to him many years ago. The PC was next, though its current value would only buy him a few meals out, or one really decent delivery from a supermarket. Once it was gone, he’d have no connection to anything, but there was no point hanging on to it when he ended up on the streets.

  Then a video started playing as he scrolled past it on a slick-looking webpage. No permission requested. No warning. Just full-screen domination the moment he tried to scroll past.

  DO YOU HAVE WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN?

  One Game. One World. One Chance at Glory.

  The screen burst into life. Searing visuals and cinematic sound roared to life. Fireballs streaked through procedurally generated forests. Towering knights smashed creatures apart with gleaming blades. A woman stood silhouetted atop a collapsing tower, blood on her face, screaming into the sky as the building gave way beneath her.

  Magic and steel collided in a kaleidoscope of chaos and fire. Every frame was purpose-built to impress. To stun. To convert a viewer into a buyer, of sorts. It looked more like a blockbuster trailer than a casting call for an online competition.

  Then came the tagline.

  Twilight of Kings – SEASON 7

  Last Player Standing Wins ￡10,000,000.

  VR facilitation expenses covered.

  Streamed to over 80 countries.

  Auditions closing soon.

  A glowing logo faded in, elegant serif text outlined in shifting gold:

  Twilight of Kings

  Where Glory is Real.

  Then the screen transitioned smoothly into a funnel-style landing page. High-impact headers, slick parallax scrolling. Each section urged him forward - “Meet Our Past Champions!” / “See What’s Waiting For You Inside the Game” / “This Isn’t Just a Game. It’s a Legacy.”

  Near the bottom, nestled inside a gleaming collapsible FAQ section, Marcus noticed a small disclaimer:

  Q: Do contestants receive a share of Twilight of Kings’ advertising or broadcast revenue?

  A: No. All players waive the right to royalties, sponsorship earnings, and promotional appearance fees. All intellectual property and revenue generated by Twilight of Kings, including livestreams, merchandise, licensing, and sponsorships, are the sole property of World Wide Entertainment. Players will receive free lodgings and nutritional supplements while within the game centre for the duration of their play time. The main prize and bonus prizes will be paid out upon completion of the required tasks. Please message for additional information.

  Of course. The players get to risk their time and reputation for no guaranteed reward. The only way to profit was to win the main show or one of the side games. To be fair, that was pretty standard for most reality shows he’d watched, both live-action and the ones played out in the ever-popular virtual reality shows. The last one he’d watched involved couples meeting, chatting and hooking up, all while immersed in VR and wearing animated cartoon bodies. It had been deeply weird, and the reactions to their recent coupling often hilarious once the VR was turned off.

  Marcus stared at the screen. It was absurd. It was theatrical. It was probably exploitative. No, it was definitely exploitative. But it wasn’t a survey. It wasn’t a fake freelance gig. It wasn’t another crypto trap wearing a human smile.

  And if he won? Well, that seemed unlikely, but at worst, it would give him a few weeks or months of safety and thinking time. Maybe it was even a reset button on his entire life. If he could get noticed for how he played, he might get 15 minutes of fame on the panel shows, which he could milk for all they were worth.

  He knew the show. Who didn’t? It was everywhere. The streaming wars of the 2050s and 60s had been won by the total immersion VR arm of World Wide Entertainment, and their show Twilight of Kings was their current crown jewel. The illusion of a game, the brutality of reality TV, and the money to keep it all spinning.

  Each season: one game world, one core theme, and usually only one winner, though occasionally they changed the rules. Everyone else either tapped out, failed tasks, or were eliminated in the virtual reality combat with computer-controlled threats and other players.

  But while you played? You were housed. Fed. Monitored. Warm.

  The ad ended. A simple screen with two glowing words:

  APPLY NOW

  He stared at the screen. At the end of the “Apply Now” was an utterly unnecessary blinking cursor. It was an obvious ploy to encourage readers to take the bait and click the call to action.

  Marcus had always considered himself rational. A thinker. A planner. Someone who calculated risk instead of leaping blindly.

  But he was cold. Hungry. Alone, and soon to be kicked out into the streets.

  His knees popped as he stood to stretch, and he winced. Jesus, Hale, he thought to himself, you’re not twenty-five anymore. Then again, a total immersion VR games are entirely played within a player's brain, and he had always considered himself to be as nimble-minded as any younger player, even if the clicking in his body was escalating year-by-year.

  He sat back down with a grunt.

  And clicked Apply.