My Forty-Second Reload [Western Crossover]

You were told you had been selected to beta test a full-dive game.

Game title: City: Gotham

Setting: Modern urban life

Objective: Survive until your character reaches the end of their lifespan.

Your character: Jane Doe (84), random name

You gave a laugh. Surely surviving 84 days in a modern city would be easy?

But as soon as you entered the game, you found out it meant 84 years.

You thought it was a life-simulation game, but when you were six, you chose a special recreational activity: a circus performance. +12 happiness. First psychological test required.

But the circus performance went wrong, and you failed the psychological test. Your character, Jane Doe, died of a heart attack.

Fine, fine. So that's how you want to play?

You chose to reload for the first time, determined to fight this damn game head-on.

After successfully getting through that point, you reloaded many more times. The ways you died included, but were not limited to: running into robbers at the mall and getting shot for having too much of a sense of justice and trying to stop them; a poisoning at school on the day you ate the most; walking down the street and having a heart attack from Scarecrow's fear toxin...

Anyone who knew better would say you were playing a life-simulation survival game. Anyone who didn't would think you were playing some famous, notoriously difficult side-scrolling game.

Eighteenth reload.

Your parents were Doctors Without Borders. They were injured during a relief mission when someone stole the medicine meant for them, and they died as a result.

You thought it was just another plot point in a life-simulation game, but when you touched the corner of your eye, there was a tear there.

You decided to reload.

No matter how many times you reloaded, you couldn't save them. They died every single time.

Forty-second reload. You cried in bed, clutching your teddy bear. A 42-minute call had just ended on your phone.

This was the last chance you had to hear their voices.

Someone knocked on your window.

The urban legend Batman, the Big Blue Bird, and the Little Red Bird stood on your windowsill.

Theme: Always remain resilient in the face of adversity