That was not real. I did not just see that. It’s just my brain trying to reorient after being in the simulation for so long. It’s like when you marathon play and start seeing Tetris blocks or Candy Crush figures or Civ6 hexes whenever you blink.

Real life does not have [ACHIEVEMENTS].

It especially doesn’t have weird, corrupted [ACHIEVEMENTS].

I know it’s a little stupid, but I try to pull up my [Interface] anyway. No go, which is expected and probably a good thing.

Bracing myself on the bathroom counter I close my eyes and force myself to breathe slowly. I dip one hand under the running faucet and hold it there as a way to ground myself a little more. The water is actually cold for once, which is a blessing. Typically, the best I can hope for is lukewarm—and often, I have to settle for slightly cooler than the actual hot water. It’s some kind of pipe issue and my downstairs neighbor and I have both been trying to get the Association to fix it since I moved in, but it would probably be easier to get Tyrus to ignore shiny loot than to get my HOA to do anything that might actually, I don’t know, help the residents.

My heart pangs at the thought of Tyrus.

He’s a fictional character. Light and polygons or whatever. That’s all.

I splash more water on my face and turn off the sink, then reach blindly for a hand towel, which I can’t find, so I use the sleeve of my hoodie.

The reflection staring back through my dirty bathroom mirror is jarring. It’s me. It’s obviously me. But I look tired and definitely on the unavoidable approach to forty, with smile lines around my thinnish lips and the faint creases between my eyebrows. Then there’s that trace of adult acne (aging sucks) and the light weave of silver along the part of my frizzy otherwise dark brown hair.

It’s me. It’s obviously me. It just doesn’t feel like me. The game definitely tugged hard at the remnants of my body dysmorphia.

Pull it together, Keira. You didn’t have this reaction when you thought you might’ve been transported into a goddamn videogame.

“You’re in serious need of a life, you know that?” I ask my reflection.

The stupid ears still look really good, though. They’re clearly high quality and Tasha had been right that the complexion match is spot-on. I imagine they’ll last a while, too, providing I can get them off without damaging them. Though with the way they’re stuck down, it might be more likely that I’ll damage my real ear.

I reach up and try to pick again at the next to invisible seam at the lobe where the latex all but blends into my skin. I can feel it with my stub of a fingernail—which, gross, why is there dirt?—but it hurts an unignorable amount when I try to peel it up. Somewhere I have to have some Spirit Gum remover left over from Halloween a couple years back, but it’s definitely in one of the still packed-up boxes from my move, and it’s probably too old to be useful anyway.

How the hell am I going to get these off without some tissue damage? Going to have to Google, though I have vague memories of that not being especially fruitful in the past.

There’s probably another elf-ified excursion in my future.

Sighing, I meet my own eyes through the mirror.

Okay then.

Venturing back into my living room, the swag bag is still where I left it on my couch. The round green object—paperweight, maybe, though who actually uses paperweights?—still sits there on the open flap, glimmering in the gray light that makes its way through my windows. I nearly trip over my grocery bags (come on, Keira) on my approach, but I ignore them and I crouch down a little to peer at the unexpected souvenir, hands on my knees.

It’s actually quite pretty. There’s a depth to it that seems like it would be difficult to achieve with simple plastic, so maybe it’s made of resin or something.

I don’t remember seeing it in there during character creation, though I’m not sure I would have clocked it if I had. I definitely didn’t see it in my in-game [Inventory], not that I can really assume that to be meaningful because, what I think I remember from in the game itself couldn’t actually have really taken place, so.

Why is this thing so unnerving? What is wrong with me? There’s absolutely no logical reason. And yet, just looking at it pricks at the hairs on the back of my neck and makes me feel… not lost, but like I’ve forgotten something important.

Groceries.

Forcing myself to blink away from it, I drag my pair of grocery bags into the kitchen to put away my entirely reasonable selection like the adult I am. It’s well into the afternoon, so I throw one of the frozen curries into the microwave for lunch, but it won’t turn on. I press at the buttons in increasingly annoyed stabs before I realize that it doesn’t seem to be getting any power.

Cursing, I grab my phone so I have a light to go down to check the breaker in the basement, but the battery is in the red, and it powers down before I can even flip to the flashlight app. I curse again, slamming it harder than I mean to onto the countertop of my small kitchen island. The fridge—which is on a different circuit from the microwave—is silent as well (which, why didn’t I notice that when I was putting away my groceries?), so the breaker’s not going to help anyway. I try the lights, and sure enough, the power is completely out.

Which makes an annoying amount of sense. It is raining in Los Angeles, after all. The power always goes out when it rains more than a light drizzle.

Though, being fair to the Department of Water and Power, as I look up, it’s far more than a light drizzle. The tree outside my living room’s front-facing bay window looks like it’s set dressing in an environmental disaster movie. The houses across the street are a blur through the streaking sheets of water coming down.

When did that start?

I stand there at my kitchen island in my cold, cluttered, dim little condo, listening to the crashing torrent outside. Beyond the rain, though, everything else is still and silent, which is… odd. Odd and definitely creepy.

I don’t consider myself a lonely person, not really. There’s a solace to being alone, a sort of freedom that I usually appreciate. At the same time, though, I like the feeling of life around me: the mumble of voices in the hall, the skitter of Molly, the dog downstairs, and the general, vague sense of movement and lives being lived that a building like this just has, even in the dead of night.

It’s not there right now. It’s like something came and sucked away my building’s soul. The structure is here, the pieces, but it all seems… wrong.

Not just the building, either.

I look around at my condo interior. The colors are all desaturated shades of almost gray in the dim storm light. The details all seem fuzzy.

My space might best be described as Ariel’s grotto run amok. But while there may be the odd doom pile of miscellaneous crap, it’s not a hoarder’s den. My little collections of books and figures and artwork and otherwise may seem strange if a bit disconnected, but they’re all carefully and lovingly arranged.

And yes, I mean, I know that it’s all just objects in the great scheme of things—objects inevitably destined for landfills or dusty basements or my niece’s future storage unit as she tries to figure out what, exactly, she’s supposed to do with all of Auntie Keira’s shit—but right now, to me, my random little things are expressions of joy. It’s not necessarily the object itself, but what it represents: a passion, an experience, a person in my life, a moment in time. It’s sentiment, but also something more that I’ve always struggled to put into words.

At the moment, though, I see what other people might, especially if they don’t know me. It all just feels like… shapes. Stuff. I know what should be there. I know every object and how it should feel. But it’s all just cold—cold, fuzzy, and gray. As if someone took a snapshot of my space, of my life, and tried to recreate it without any understanding of it. There’s no emotion here, no life, no spark, no passion.

Goosebumps crawl up my arms, making me shudder. My gaze drifts back over to my sofa, which I can only see from the back at this angle. I move around the island and into the living room, finding the unfamiliar paperweight right where I left it. Its green is still strangely vibrant even in the dimness. It does that flash thing again, more blinding this time, a bright light right into my eyes that causes me to wince away.

“Keira?”

I startle at the echo of a vaguely familiar voice and look around, blinking away the ghost of the light seared into my retinas, listening hard, though I’m just met with a dull roll of thunder. I shake my head and pull myself back into focus.

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“Just pick it up,” I murmur. “Just pick it up, Keira. what’s the worst that could happen? It’s just a stupid promotional giveaway. That’s all. Promotional giveaways are not malevolent, curses don’t exist. It probably has the stupid Q engraved on the bottom. No big deal. I bet you could get a hundred bucks for it. But you gotta pick it up first. Just pick it up.”

Drawing a slow, deep breath I settle on the couch. My weight causes the cushion to depress slightly, enough that the object in question rolls down to get caught on the lip of the bag. The bag itself looks oddly deflated. I didn’t unpack anything, did I? No. No, I know I didn’t. There should be a whole hoodie stuffed in there, not to mention a tablet, a glass tumbler, and how many other things?

No. That makes no sense.

“This isn’t Black Mirror. Grow up. Just… look.”

Before I can rethink it, I hold a deep breath and grab for the bag, jostling it enough that the weird green object falls inside as I lift it up.

The supposedly full, all-leather messenger bag is light.

It’s too fucking light.

My pulse speeds up. My hands shake as I angle the bag and peer in. I know what should be there—just as I know before I even look what actually is.

Nothing but empty darkness.

As I stare, I experience this disconnected realization that I don’t even see the inside of the bag. It’s just dark, like I’m looking out into the void of space, into a black hole. A wave of vertigo pulls at me. I feel a little sick. The only way I know I’m still breathing is because I scream as I throw it from me and bolt to my feet, backing up fast until I fall over my filled grocery bags and land hard on my ass, hard enough to hurt. I sit there, staring at them, trying to reorient myself, my heart pounding.

Didn’t I put the groceries away? Did I just mean to? Thinking I did something I didn’t is not necessarily that far outside my norm, but I really could have sworn…

“What is happening.”

A knocking at my door startles me and I muffle a shout.

“Sweetheart? Are you alright?”

I don’t recognize this voice but scramble to push myself up anyway, stumbling toward the door and falling against it a little harder than I mean to as I look through the peephole.

It takes a moment for my brain to compute as I fumble with the lock. A snap of static electricity bites at my fingertips from the metal deadbolt, but I pull open the door and study my visitor, vaguely aware of how odd I have to look to anyone right now.

She’s a tiny, wiry, elderly woman who is easily more than a foot shorter than I am—the type of eccentric septuagenarian who wears chunky, artistic jewelry, loose clothing, and who likes to try to shock people by coloring her hair unusual colors like cotton candy pink. She holds what looks like a teapot in a hand-knit green cozy.

The woman looks vaguely familiar, but I have no idea who she is. At least, I don’t think I do.

The language center of my brain seems to disagree though as I say, “Hi Mrs. Blum.”

I force a smile as a handful of vague memories rise to the surface. She moved into the unit downstairs just a couple weeks ago. We met when I literally ran into her and caused her to drop a box of… what was it…

She offers a sympathetic look up at me. “How are you, Sweetheart? I heard some shouting and a thump.”

Didn’t that just happen? How did she get up the stairs that fast?

“Oh. I, um, I tripped over something. Sorry about that.”

“You look upset.”

“No, it’s nothing. I’ve just had a strange day, and I don’t think I slept very well last night. Then I was trying to make lunch, and the electricity went out.” Though as I tell her all this, I realize the hall lights are on—dimmer than usual, but still, clearly working—and it’s dark outside the window at the far end of the hall. I don’t hear the rain anymore. “It… threw me off.”

I frown, glancing back over my shoulder into my condo. I can’t see around the corner into the living room itself, but I can see the same dim gray natural light, and I can still hear the rain if I listen for it, which on the one hand is good—at least I’m not skipping time—but on the other hand, what is happening in the hallway?

Mrs. Blum still has that concerned, grandmotherly smile plastered on her face when I look back at her, then down the hall again. The lights are off. The trees beyond the window are blowing in a strong wind as the rain continues to fall, which, of course it does. If it’s raining outside my window, it would almost certainly be raining outside the one in the hallway. Right? That makes sense.

Still. It feels strange. Why is it strange?

A sharp pang between my eyebrows makes me wince, and I press a pair of fingertips there, rubbing gently at the sudden stabbing headache.

“Sorry. I really didn’t sleep well last night. I feel a little off.”

“Oh, I wondered if it might be something like that. The weather, you know. Maybe a little bit of tea will help?” She holds up the pot. “My favorite blend. A black rose tea with a lovely little bit of natural sweetness. May I come in?”

A wave of absolute no crashes over me so hard that it’s all I can do not to slam the door in her face and run to dive under my bed. It feels like a total overreaction. She’s just a little old lady with a teapot and a smile. She didn’t make a move toward me or my door, didn’t even gesture. And yet, every nerve in my body is on edge and screaming danger. A cold bead of sweat rolls down my back, causing goosebumps so intense they feel sharp.

Despite that, though, there’s a strange tingling in my brain as my mouth seems to want to do what she suggests. Yes of course, my internal monologue prompts, please come in.

But that’s not my internal monologue. It’s too… slow? Defined? Completely at odds with everything else happening in my body?

Yes of course, please come in.

I bite it back, physically, and push it away. That sharp pain strikes between my eyebrows again, like those sudden stress headaches I used to get in school, and again, I can’t but wince. I clear my throat.

“It’s a kind offer, Mrs. Blum, I appreciate it, but my place isn’t company ready and I’m really not feeling well. I wouldn’t want to get you sick.”

“Oh, that’s not a worry, Sweetheart, you won’t. And there’s nothing like a bit of tea to set you right. You’ll see.”

Yes, tea sounds lovely, please come in.

It almost gets through. It would be so easy to just let it through.

Step aside. Open the door. Invite her in. Have some tea.

Easy.

I shake my head, trying to clear it. “I’m very sorry you came all the way upstairs, but maybe some other time, when I’m feeling better.”

Her face retains that fixed, grandmotherly smile, but something ugly flashes in her eyes and her little body shifts just a bit. It’s just a quirk of her shoulders, I think, but I have to suppress a shudder.

“Did you find that little knick-knack you were telling me about the other day?”

“I’m sorry? I don’t remember.” My voice trembles slightly.

“That green stone, you remember. You saw the one I have, when you helped me move in. We wanted to see if they were a match.”

The back of my brain goes cold as a stinging hand of anxiety seems to grab hold of my scalp. I swallow back the panic, even though I don’t know where it’s coming from. I remember talking to her about it, the round green stone she had, the internal glow. She said she found it on one of her travels when she was much younger. I have one too, I said, my grandmother gave it to me.

Wasn’t I just thinking about something that…

That’s not right. It’s not. None of this is right. That’s not how it happened.

My thoughts jumble together, and I edge a little bit away from the woman, who hasn’t moved from her place about a foot and a half from the edge of my threshold. Her toes are perfectly aligned, just shy of my welcome mat, not quite touching it. She cocks her head to one side, smile still in place: concerned, grandmotherly. The smile itself is sweet and kind. Her eyes don’t match it though. Not at all.

Please come in.

I shove my hands into the pockets of my hoodie as I try to collect myself and sort through the noise in my head. The knuckles of my right hand collide with something hard, smooth, and chilled. It snaps at me, leaving that slightly sweet taste in the back of my throat—less like a static shock, and more like when I touched magic back in the game.

When did I pick it up? I hadn’t wanted to pick it up.

My hand closes around the object: round but not perfectly about the size of a tennis ball—actually a little smaller, now that I hold it. It doesn’t feel as ominous as it did just sitting there, unexpected, on the flap of my bag. I know exactly what it is. I know exactly where I found it. I have no idea how it is here, though. And I don’t know what it does.

It does something though. And as I hold it, a haze I hadn’t noticed starts to lift. The pressure in my head lessens, the chaos of competing thoughts peters away. I notice more and more that things around me are just wrong: my welcome mat is a conceptual blur without any letters, just dark smudges where they would be; my hoodie is made of heavy wool and has buttons instead of a zipper, which seemed perfectly normal a moment ago; Mrs. Blum ostensibly looks the same—small, elderly, pink hair—but she wears robes, and her ears come to short but pronounced points.

I actually do recognize the woman, but she’s definitely not my downstairs neighbor. My downstairs neighbor is a young twenty-something Japanese woman named Yuko who likes to blast Taylor Swift on Monday mornings and never goes anywhere without her itty-bitty Cavalier King Charles.

Mrs. Blum is from Qeth. She was the very first person I spoke to. Embry. The little woman who hit me with her spent wand.

Holding the object tighter I kick my door closed before the figure on the other side can react, and I back away toward the living room. Like my welcome mat, the artwork on the walls of my short entryway hall is all just a blur, an impression of art, just an acknowledgement it should be there.

There’s a horrible shrieking noise on the other side and the front door seems to jump in its frame and begins to blur, but it holds, it stays closed even as it starts to darken, the darkness beginning to bleed inward, creeping along the entryway, cracking as it moves.

I pull the Stone of Ylaura from the pocket on my weird wool hoodie and clasp it to my chest.

> [SPECIAL ACHIEVEMENT: Survival Bonds]

>

> [Quest Accepted: Listen Up]

There’s no glitch this time.

This is not my condo. This is not LA. I am still in Qeth, and while I’m not fully committed on what Qeth itself actually is, I know for sure that none of my immediate situation is true—except maybe the danger part.

Shaking and at a total loss of what to do next, I turn away from the front door and the encroaching darkness to step into what would be my living room.

Instead, I find myself in a clean, quiet parlor. Sunshine streaks through the windows, catching dust motes in its beams. The walls are a soft cornflower blue with white wainscoting, and there’s a pair of built-in bookshelves across the room from me—though like with my condo, the details are vague, a memory of a place rather than an actual location. Glancing behind me, my entryway hall has been replaced with a door that matches the rest of the decor.

The room is only lightly furnished with a polished wood desk under one of the front windows, a plush round rug with impressions of white, cream, yellow, and the same cornflower blue as the walls, and two antique looking sofas upholstered in a white jacquard are arranged in the room’s center. On one sits a woman I’ve never seen before, though her bearing and even general look reminds me instantly of Selene.

She sits there with perfect posture: back straight, legs crossed at the ankles with her feet tucked slightly back, and her hands are folded lightly in her lap. She’s slender, draped in dark blue clothing that compliments the pink undertones of her pale skin. Her features are delicate and ageless, and her ears have the same gently pointed tips as most Qethian elves. Her hair is snow white, and the irises of her eyes are such a pale ice blue that they’re almost difficult to take in. She peers at me, then gestures to the other sofa.

“Keira, we don’t have a lot of time,” she says, “but we should talk.”