Delusionville:
Scene One: Blackout
Darkness.
Not silence—never silence in Delusionville—but a choking, living darkness. The vault walls groaned like they were breathing. Neon glyphs flickered in the black, symbols rearranging themselves into shifting constellations. Somewhere, the casino floor roared with screams, gunfire, and the slow collapse of physics itself.
Joey staggered forward, chest glowing faintly. The cube had dissolved into his bloodstream, running circuits through his veins. His pulse echoed in the chamber—thump, thump, thump—and every beat drew sacred shapes into the air.
Roxy lit a flare. The red light burned, throwing shadows into impossible angles. Her sequined jacket glittered like a war banner.
“Sweetheart,” she said, calm even in the apocalypse, “what the hell did you just swallow?”
Joey didn’t answer. Couldn’t. His tongue spoke in three voices at once, one human, two alien.
Needles was on the floor, laughing, crying, scratching equations into the concrete with his own nails. “It’s in him now,” he whispered, voice trembling. “The lock and the key. He’s geometry incarnate.”
Doc Holidaye vomited whiskey and bile, wiping his mouth with a bloody rag. “Then we’re already dead. Seen it before. Patients glow like that right before their hearts explode.”
The Twins stood silently at the edges, knives still, eyes locked on Joey. For the first time, their lips moved in perfect unison. One word:
“Fracture.”
Scene Two: Don Vesperelli
The flare lit the doorway, and Don Vesperelli stepped through.
Immaculate sharkskin suit. Meteorite-plated revolver glinting in hand. And behind him—bodyguards whose disguises finally peeled away. Skin rippled into scales. Eyes slit into vertical fire. Tongues flicked forked, tasting blood in the air.
Vesperelli’s smile was calm, patient, inevitable.
“Congratulations,” he said, his voice dripping venom. “You’ve opened what no man should. And you—” his gaze cut into Joey, dissecting him with predator precision, “—you’ve made yourself useful.”
Roxy raised her grenade, pin already loose. “Step closer, Vesperelli, and I turn this vault into confetti.”
The Don chuckled. “Oh, my darling Roxy. Do you really think geometry cares about explosives? Drop your toys. You’re in my house.”
The vault itself groaned, geometry writhing. The revolver in Vesperelli’s hand pulsed—not just a weapon, but alive, its barrel glowing with runes older than Earth.
Needles shrieked, pressing his forehead to the floor. “The gun! Oh gods—the gun is a coordinate! A map!”
Vesperelli pointed it at Joey. “Now hand me what you’ve stolen.”
Joey’s voice split into layers, human and inhuman overlapping: “It’s not stolen. It chose me.”
Vesperelli’s smile faltered for the first time.
Scene Three: The Betrayal
The tension snapped like a guillotine.
One of the Twins moved first. Knife flashing, silent as a serpent, he lunged—not at Vesperelli, but at Joey. The blade sank into Joey’s side. Blood sprayed in fractal patterns, glowing neon before hitting the ground.
Joey collapsed, gasping, eyes flashing with alien light.
The other Twin pinned Roxy’s arm before she could throw the grenade. Doc tried to intervene, but his scalpel was swatted away, and a reptilian bodyguard smashed his face into the vault wall.
Needles only laughed, rocking on his knees, watching geometry spin in the blood mist.
Vesperelli clapped once. “Excellent. Loyalty always finds its level. My pets know where true power lies.”
Roxy spat blood at him. “You smug lizard son of a—”
But Joey wasn’t done.
Scene Four: The Fracture
The wound in Joey’s side didn’t bleed out. It bled light. Neon rivers poured across the floor, carving sacred symbols into the concrete. Triangles nested in circles. Circles nested in cubes.
The vault screamed.
Literally screamed—walls shuddering, sound ripping like metal in heat. Geometry bent inward, and reality folded like paper. Everyone staggered as the floor tilted, casino tables and slot machines falling into a whirlpool of neon void.
Joey stood. His face split between agony and ecstasy, eyes glowing like suns.
“I am the fracture,” he whispered, or maybe shouted, or maybe thought, because everyone heard it. “I am the lock. I am the thief. I am the door.”
The vault opened wider.
Behind it—no treasure, no jewels—just an endless expanse of alien cityscape. Towers of crystal spiraled into skies that weren’t skies. Beings made of geometry itself walked streets paved with light. Jesters danced between dimensions, juggling stars.
Delusionville wasn’t just a city. It was the tip of this place. A leak from the beyond.
Scene Five: Shootout in Infinity
Vesperelli fired.
The meteorite revolver roared with a sound like collapsing planets. A bullet of molten geometry cut through the vault’s air, tearing holes in dimensions.
Joey raised his glowing hand. The bullet stopped, suspended, spinning. His veins screamed as he redirected it—hurling it back through the chamber. It ripped a reptilian guard in half, folding him inside out, scales bursting into confetti.
Roxy finally freed her arm. Grenade pulled, tossed. It exploded in perfect symmetry, shockwave blooming into a Flower of Life pattern that shredded three guards into ribbons.
Doc staggered to his feet, surgical saw revving. He plunged it into another guard’s throat, laughing like a madman. “Doctor’s orders, you scaley bastard!”
Needles shrieked joy, crawling on the floor, licking Joey’s glowing blood. “Give me the equations! GIVE ME THE GODDAMN EQUATIONS!”
And the Twins—one loyal to Joey now, one to Vesperelli—turned on each other, blades clashing in mirrored fury.
The vault was chaos.
Scene Six: Joey’s Death (Almost)
But chaos has a price.
Vesperelli fired again. This time Joey was too slow. The bullet ripped through his chest. Light exploded, spraying sacred geometry into the air. Joey fell backward into the portal, choking, bleeding light instead of blood.
Roxy screamed.
Needles cackled.
Doc tried to drag Joey back, but the portal sucked him deeper. His body dangled between worlds: half in Delusionville, half in the alien city of impossible angles.
The beings beyond turned their faceless heads. They had noticed him.
Scene Seven: The Bargain
As Joey’s consciousness faded, he found himself standing on a bridge of fractals over an infinite abyss. The jester-elves surrounded him, faces splitting into prisms, voices echoing in chords.
“You are fracture. You are thief. You are door.”
“I’m dying,” Joey gasped.
They laughed. “Death is just a corner turned. The cube is inside you. You belong to geometry now.”
Joey’s eyes burned. “Then save me.”
One jester leaned close, whispering with a thousand mouths. “Only if you promise: Delusionville must fall. The Mayor, the Don, the gangs, the cycle—it must burn. You are the fire.”
Joey had no choice. “Deal.”
Scene Eight: Resurrection
Back in the vault, Joey’s corpse convulsed. Light exploded from his wounds, blasting Vesperelli and his guards backward. His heart restarted with a shockwave that cracked the floor.
He stood, chest hole glowing, alive but no longer human.
The crew froze. Vesperelli hissed, eyes narrowing. “What… are you?”
Joey grinned, teeth glowing neon. “Delusionville’s new problem.”
And then he charged.
(to be continued in Chapter Four…)