Delusionville
Delusionville wasn’t on any map. No GPS pinged it. Ask five people where it was, and you’d get five different answers: “Somewhere near Reno,” “outside Prague,” “at the bottom of a bottle of tequila,” “in your head,” or “everywhere all at once.” But if you stumbled in—and only the unlucky or the insane ever did—you didn’t stumble out. Delusionville was a trapdoor reality, and once you dropped through, you were in the carnival of crime where the streets hummed with paranoia and every corner had a story drenched in sweat, gasoline, and bad decisions.
It all started on a Tuesday—because disasters prefer weekdays.
The Arrival
Joey “Fasthands” Marquez barreled into town on a rusted motorcycle, the engine coughing like a dying god. He wasn’t looking for trouble. Trouble was looking for him. Behind him, three black SUVs tore through the desert highway, headlights cutting through the dust storm. Each SUV carried six men in tailored suits, each armed with submachine guns, and all of them had orders to kill.
Joey didn’t even know why.
The bike screamed into Delusionville just as his fuel needle hit empty. He slid sideways, sparks flying, into the cracked asphalt of Main Street, which was less “Main” and more “apocalyptic landfill of dreams gone wrong.” Neon signs buzzed overhead. “CHEAP TATTOOS” blinked next to “DEEP FRIED LOVE.” A one-eyed street preacher screamed about lizard kings from Saturn. A pack of feral dogs chased a mime.
And then the SUVs arrived.
Bullets erupted like fireworks. Shop windows shattered. A pawn shop owner ducked behind his counter, only to re-emerge with a shotgun and join the firefight—because in Delusionville, you never pass up a good shootout.
Joey darted into an alley, heart pounding like a war drum. Somewhere behind him, a rocket launcher roared, and half the block went up in a ball of fire. A sign spun through the air, flaming letters crashing to the ground:
WELCOME TO DELUSIONVILLE.
The Mayor
The thing about Delusionville was: it had no cops. It had “The Mayor.” And The Mayor wasn’t elected. He was feared into existence.
Mayor Crankshaft was seven feet tall, scarred from head to toe, and allegedly ate a rival’s heart in front of a city council meeting. He ruled Delusionville with iron fists—literally, since both hands were plated with steel knuckles implanted into his bones. His office? A strip club called “The Legislative Branch.”
When Joey stumbled in, clothes torn, blood streaking down his arm, Crankshaft was on stage, strangling a man with his own necktie while the crowd cheered.
“New face,” Crankshaft growled, tossing the unconscious body into a pile of beer bottles. “What brings you crawling into my circus, stranger?”
“I’m being hunted,” Joey wheezed.
Crankshaft’s grin revealed gold teeth. “Good. In Delusionville, hunted men make the best entertainment.”
The Heist
Delusionville didn’t let you hide. It pushed you forward. Within hours, Joey found himself roped into a casino heist with a crew of maniacs:
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Velvet Roxy, a femme fatale in a sequined jacket who kept grenades in her purse next to lipstick.
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Needles Malone, a jittery safecracker with more scars than skin and a laugh like broken glass.
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Doc Holidaye, a disgraced surgeon turned getaway driver who operated better drunk than sober.
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And The Twins, two mute brothers who only communicated by shooting things.
The target: The Mirage Inferno Casino, owned by Don Vesperelli, the most feared mob boss west of the Mississippi. His slot machines didn’t pay in quarters. They paid in blood.
The plan was simple, which in Delusionville meant: doomed.
Explosives under the blackjack tables. Diversion at the craps pit. Grab the vault, grab the cash, grab your last shot of whiskey before the walls collapse.
It worked—until it didn’t.
The Twins went full berserk, mowing down guards. Roxy set off fireworks instead of smoke bombs, filling the casino with pink sparks and chaos. Doc Holidaye drove the getaway car through the lobby before they had the money. And Joey—poor Joey—found himself staring down Don Vesperelli himself, a man with cold eyes and a suit stitched from sharkskin.
“You’ve made a bad bet,” Vesperelli whispered, pulling out a golden revolver.
Joey dove, table flipping, bullets shattering martini glasses. He grabbed a croupier’s cane, smashed it across Vesperelli’s jaw, and bolted with a duffel bag stuffed with more cash than he’d ever seen.
The problem was: in Delusionville, money was worth less than bullets.
The Chase
The next 48 hours were pure fever dream. Joey ran. Through back alleys where junkies swung chains. Across rooftops where snipers played Russian roulette with real rifles. Down subway tunnels lit only by burning trash.
Everywhere he turned, the city itself tried to kill him.
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A bar fight spilled into the street, and Joey barely dodged a bottle that split a man’s skull.
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An underground boxing match collapsed when the fighters realized they could make more money beating the audience.
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A biker gang called The Flaming Eunuchs (don’t ask) cornered him, only for a rival gang of nuns with switchblades to intervene.
By the time Joey reached the bridge out of town, his body was held together by adrenaline and duct tape. His duffel bag? Stolen twice, won back once, and now soaked in blood.
And waiting at the bridge was Mayor Crankshaft.
“You think you can leave Delusionville?” the Mayor boomed, cracking his metal fists together. “Nobody leaves. You stay, you fight, you die—or you become legend.”
The Showdown
The showdown wasn’t just a fight. It was an event. Word spread across the city like wildfire. At midnight, the bridge filled with thousands: gamblers, junkies, killers, clowns, hookers, war vets, and even the one-eyed preacher with his Saturn gospel.
They wanted blood. They wanted spectacle.
Crankshaft towered over Joey, chains wrapped around his arms, each step shaking the pavement.
Joey had nothing left but desperation. He ripped a flare from his pocket—stolen earlier from a street magician—and lit it, holding the red flame like a sword.
The battle was brutal. Crankshaft swung chains like wrecking balls, smashing cars, denting steel. Joey ducked, weaved, bleeding from a dozen cuts, using the flare to blind him, jabbing it into his ribs, kicking with every ounce of survival madness left in him.
At the climax, Crankshaft roared, lifted Joey by the throat, and prepared to snap his neck like a twig.
Joey did the only thing that made sense in Delusionville.
He laughed.
He laughed so hard the crowd went silent. In that laugh was defiance, hysteria, and the madness of a man who’d already died ten times and kept coming back. And in that distraction, Joey drove the flare into Crankshaft’s eye.
The Mayor screamed, stumbled back, and fell off the bridge into the black river below.
The crowd exploded. Cheers. Gunfire into the air. A thousand voices screaming Joey’s name.
In Delusionville, he was no longer prey. He was king.
Epilogue: The Cycle
But kings don’t last in Delusionville.
The next morning, Joey sat on the roof of a diner, staring at the horizon. He was alive. He was rich. He was legendary.
And then he heard it. Engines. Dozens of them. Black SUVs, rolling in. More men in suits. More guns.
Because Delusionville wasn’t a place. It was a loop. A fever dream of crime and chaos that never ended.
Joey grinned, tightened his bloody jacket, and whispered to himself:
“Round two.”
And he dove straight into the firestorm.