Chapter One

Ten Years Ago — Real World

“Dad! Dad, please… you can’t keep doing this to us!”

My voice bounced down the white hallway, sharp and desperate. It scraped my throat raw, like it didn’t belong in the sterile silence of our wing. But he didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch. Just kept typing into the airpad with that familiar glassy-eyed grin, whispering in rapid-fire code only he could understand.

He was humming with excitement the entire walk from the funeral to our wing. I trailed behind him like a forgotten shadow, listening to him mutter half-formed thoughts under his breath. Equations. Algorithms. Strings of logic so dense they felt like spells.

I mean don't get me wrong, I was actually surprised and glad that he left his cell to see Mom off but, can't he just turn and see me? I was still here. Still breathing. Still trying to be seen.

We arrived home — if you could call it that — and without even glancing at me, he broke into a sprint toward the basement lab. The door hissed open. The heavy lock clunked shut behind him.

And just like that, I was alone again with echoes of Mom's shenanigans and laughter. How did someone that radiant fall in love with someone so cold to the point that without her, our home felt like a mausoleum. Too clean. Too quiet. Too full of genius and not enough of love.

They called it the Gifted Wing, a place reserved for elite minds like Dad’s. But for me, it was a lonely, sprawling crypt. A cage built with glass and silence.

My father, Samuel Demdon, was once considered the greatest computer scientist on the planet. His name echoed in digital corridors, worshipped by scholars, innovators, and rulers alike. If wealth still held meaning, he’d have been royalty.

But power had replaced currency.

And the more powerful he became, the further he drifted from us. From me.

So that day, I did something I hadn’t dared in years.

I walked to the lab, keyed in his override code, and stepped into the cold glow of his world.

The air was heavy with ozone and electric hums. Holograms floated like ghosts around the room. And in the center stood my father, eyes bright, mouth curled into a grin that didn’t belong in the world I knew him from.

"Anderson!" he called for me, beaming. "Son! Come and see this! The prototype is ready!”

The air left my lungs. Not from shock, mostly from recognition. He didn’t even notice his mistake. Didn’t see me freeze. Didn’t see the wound reopen. I felt sick to my stomach. Anderson? Son?

But I walked closer, careful not to disturb the tangled cables and fragile machines. If I broke something in there even by accident, I didn’t think I could survive what comes after.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice tight.

His eyes glittered, "A full-immersion virtual system" he said, practically vibrating. "The system maps your brain and transfers your consciousness into a second life. Not just a simulation... A parallel existence! Whatever you want to be, whoever you want to become… you can live it in there"

He laughed, the sound high and strange, almost inhuman.

I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat as looked for words of discouragement, "Dad… we already have those kinds of games here"

He shook his head furiously, "No, no, no. This is different. In other systems, your real life continues while you’re online. But with this… your life pauses. Time itself suspends until you return. No consequences. No clocks. Total freedom!"

His face softened. His hands trembled as he reached toward me, voice barely a whisper, "Now son, we can be a family again. You, me… and Mom. Starting over. Together. In there"

And that was it.

That was the moment something snapped inside me.

I stepped forward, clenched my fists, and looked him dead in the eye, "Dad! My name is Annette. Your one and only daughter!"

His expression didn’t change.

"And Mom?" I choked. "Your wife is dead. She’s not coming back — not in here, not in there, not anywhere! We just came back from her funeral for crying out loud!"

I screamed the words. Screamed it loud enough to rattle the lab walls. And then I ran out of the lab, down the corridor, through the house that no longer felt like mine.

I didn’t stop until I reached the farthest corner of our wing, the one place where the walls didn’t echo his name.

Why was it so hard to be yourself in your own family?

Why was it easier for him to build a new world

than to love the one person still standing beside him?

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