At the tower’s midpoint, a boss appeared—a faceless figure made of static, throwing old regrets like shards. It assaulted Jamal with taunts: You should’ve been braver. You missed your chance. The controls felt heavier. As the battle progressed, the taunts echoed past memories in distorted loops, but when Jamal performed a new action—saying “I’m sorry” in the game’s chat window, typed clumsily because the dorm had a strict policy against voice—the boss staggered. Apologies in the tower were more than game gestures; they were a way of acknowledging the truth of his mistakes. When he persisted, the boss dispersed into harmless pixels that rained down and turned into tiny lily pads. Each lily pad labeled a small victory—a returned smile, a text answered, a practice resumed.