He should have felt relief. Instead, he felt like Isaac standing on the final Chest, empty-handed.
Ethan put down the controller. His thumb still twitched from the last Tainted Lost run—a muscle memory forged across four hundred hours. He’d done it. Every character, every mark, every single item on the collection page. Even the stupid Cracked Crown from the daily runs. Even Death Certificate, which he’d finally used to pick up… nothing. Because there was nothing left to pick up.
“Yeah,” Ethan lied. “Just finished the game.”
Ethan opened the third save file.
Isaac and his mother lived alone in a small house on a hill…
