Kyla’s nightly ritual began with the faint hum of Ethereal Echoes loading, filling the silence. The game always took a moment longer to start than she liked, the old device struggling to handle its hyper-realistic graphics. Her fingers hovered over the screen, Kyla exhaled slowly, her hand resting on the edge of the edge of the bed.

Within the immersive online game, her avatar, Charis, stood amidst glowing forests and endless starlit skies, waiting. Always waiting—for Daemon, the enigmatic figure she had met years ago in this virtual world. Their conversations danced between teasing banter and confessions too raw for reality. Here, Kyla could pretend she wasn’t a woman tethered to the ticking clock of a terminal illness.

As the game finally loaded, the main screen appeared: the glowing signal of an ancient tree that symbolised the game’s central world. Its roots extended into a sea of stars, its branches alive with swirls of light. It was beautiful, hypnotic even. But Kyla barely noticed. Her fingers moved instinctively, logging in. In a moment, her avatar materialised in a clearing beneath the tree’s luminous canopy.

Charis, her in-game persona, was similar to Kyla in real life, or what she used to be before the illness took over, vibrant, glowing with an otherworldly light. Dressed in silken robes that caught the faint starlight, she stood confidently in the centre of the world, a place where time didn’t exist.

She waited.

Every night, she logged on at this time, hoping Daemon would appear. She hadn’t seen him in almost a week. Six days, to be exact. Not that she was counting.

The soft chime of a notification interrupted her thoughts. Someone had entered the clearing. Her heart jumped, but it wasn’t him. Another player passed by, their avatar’s name barely registering in her mind. Charis waved automatically, a motion Kyla had programmed her character to perform whenever approached, but she made no attempt to interact further. Her gaze remained fixed on the edge of the clearing.

“Hey you,” the message brightened her heart the same way a sunflower would.

“Hey Daemon.” She had learnt his real name—Jasper—a few months after they’d started seeing each other regularly in the game. But Kyla always greeted him with his avatar’s name instead. She had tried to address him by his true name when she’d first been granted the gift, but Jasper seemed to pull back quite abruptly. From the way he gave curt replies in that conversation, it seemed he didn’t like to be called by his real name on the platform, as though hearing his real name in the game broke some unspoken rule. He said he preferred to be addressed as Daemon in-game much more and that he had shared the secret of his real name with her only in exchange for hers.

Since then, Kyla always called him Daemon, and their conversations flowed just as fluidly as it had before. That is, whenever Daemon wasn’t too overwhelmed with work. It was evident he had workaholic tendencies. Recently, he seemed a little disconnected.

”How was your day? Anything interesting happened?” asked Jasper.

”Not really,” Kyla typed. “But I was reading a book and found a passage I thought you might enjoy.” She scrolled through her photo gallery and sent the image when she found it. There was a clever word pun which she had highlighted in green for him.

“Nice,” followed by a laughing emoji.

”How was your day? Still drowning in backlog?”

“Busy as ever. You know how it is.”

That meant Jasper rarely logged on anymore. But when he did, Kyla clung to his presence like a lifeline.

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“Don’t drown.”

He replied with a smile. And then a sticker with a bear pushing out a heart.

“What does that mean?” she teased

“Just… Thank you. Appreciate your well wishes.”

A twinge of pain twisted in her chest. She chided herself silently:

Look Kyla, you’re being delusional again. He doesn’t love you and he’ll never choose you. It’ll do you good to remember that. It’s your choice to love him. You shouldn’t expect him to love you back. He has given you so much already. You’re lucky enough. You have to be content with this. You should be. You are.

“How did that pitch go?” Kyla asked, changing the subject. “You’ve been prepping for it for weeks.”

“Not great. Got shot down by a few tough questions. I’d rather not talk about it.”

A stream of sparkles surrounded the two figures as they stood close together in the empty clearing.

Kyla typed quickly, trying to lift his spirits.

“Chin up. Tomorrow will be better. Keep afloat.” She sent him a heart.

“Thanks. You always know what to say to make me feel better.”

Her heart swelled. She genuinely believed she was lucky and that she could live like this. She could die happy. Even if their connection was fleeting, even if it existed only in this virtual world, it was enough.

Love transcends the physical realm, she thought. It’s intangible to begin with. Their chats disappear after every session. Sometimes they lasted minutes, sometimes hours, but never more than a day. Once the chatroom is closed, the contents are lost forever. We don’t exist outside of the currently open space. All we have are memories of the moments we shared. And as we know, memory tends to fade.

Outside the game, reality pressed in—the IV drip beside her bed gurgled softly. The painkillers dulled the ache but couldn’t erase it. She shifted slightly, careful not to disturb the needle in her arm. The doctor had increased the dosage again today, his face carefully neutral as he explained the reasons.

“Just to keep you comfortable,” he said. She nodded, too tired to argue. Then she squinted at her phone and continued typing.

“It’s lights out, Kyla, get some rest,” said the nurse, her voice soft but firm. “Besides, the blue light isn't good for your sleep.”

”Okay, I’ll sleep soon,” she replied obediently. Then after a moment, she typed.

“I miss you. When I found you, I finally found someone I want to live for.” When people are reaching the final moments of their life, they discover an immense desire to let the people they love know that they love them. They deserve to be reminded again. Even if they already know it.

”I’m here.”

”Thanks for being here.” She put a finger to the screen and stroked it gently. Wishing he could jump right out of it.

What do people feel when they find out they have terminal-stage cancer?

I know I was happy when I heard the news. I never thought I’d be glad to hear something like that, but I was. I thought, Now I have a legitimate excuse to ask you to come see me. You won’t choose me.

You’ve never chosen me. You never had a reason to. But what kind of person would you be if you refused a dying girl’s wish to meet you?

Luckily for you, I won’t let you become that person because I’ll never tell you.

“Do you have time to see me?” Kyla asked.

”You know I can’t,” came his reply. “It’s difficult.”

”I want to see you.”

”I could try to squeeze in a bit of time in December,” he typed. “Maybe.”

”Okay,” she typed. “Thank you.”

”It’s getting late. Gotta sleep or risk vertigo kicking me in the morning.”

”Good thinking. Health first.”

”Nights Kyla.”

”Nights Jasper.” Then she added, “Have a good day at work tomorrow.”

A thumbs up. Then Jasper logged off.

As her strength waned, Kyla whispered a final message into the void of their chat:

“I’ll always be waiting for you, Daemon. Don’t forget me.”

And then, there was silence.