probably among the more cynical works in the anthology. the name is effectively meaningless beyond "yup these sure are the bad times". look at these concept arts of yggdrasil and sealed x.
i should draw the sheep scientist at some point.
i wrote this shit well before i wrote the intermissions and when i was done with the intermissions it hit me really hard that totally by accident, x having an inferiority moment about rock lines up really cleanly with him reading a transcript where bass posthumously glazes rock
anyway i wrote x to make what i think is a good point. dr. light sure did "let him choose" but give him a gun by default.
"say the words exactly" is a halo reference.
anyway uh in case its not obvious the second part of the story is literally just x's ghost going backwards through the zero 1 intro stage.
one of the details i am EXTREMELY prideful of, and which comes up a bunch in the rest of the anthology going forward, is the concept of there being multiple resistances. in the zero series, the resistance emblem is a weird R (for resistance) with an "05" number on top of a red triangle.
some people interpret the red triangle to be in reference to x's triangular forehead gem, with its upwards direction being a challenge to him, an inversion. a lot of people take the view that the resistance symbology remained culturally relevant in the zx era because reploids would wear the red triangle where x's gem was and they probably picked it up from the resistance. none of that matters to me! i am *infinitely* more intrigued by the "05" number. for a long time, i've read into this the implication that there were 4 previous resistance movements, and ciel's resistance has a 5 in their emblem in remembrance. i do more with this later on.
anyway, this is another instance of "i hope i did a good job with the angst"