A purple lava lamp on the desk glowed beside a 17-inch tube monitor, casting light into the dark room. Behind it, a blue neon Saturn sign hung on her closet. Amanda, curled up on the couch, played Shadow Run on her Super Nintendo. It was 2024, not the ’90s, but Amanda loved the simple things; they grounded her in a world growing more complex and fleeting every day.

Plus, cyberpunk games fit with her strange dreams of the future, haunting her since she was a child.

She gamed on a small camping TV she’d scored for 50 bucks on eBay. Her dad had gotten her into gaming, and she still played on the same old console with the same faded stickers of Samus Aran, Popeye, and the Looney Tunes.

I’ll never forget those hours playing with you, Dad. The way you taught me to hold a controller. How you’d read the text to me because I was too young to read it myself.

I’ll never forget you.

Her mom knocked and opened the door without waiting.

Amanda jerked out of her thoughts.

Why do parents even knock? Just to prove kids have no authority?

"Still playing?" her mom asked.

"Technically, I just hit pause, so…"

"You’ve been at it half the day, Amanda."

"You’re exaggerating, Mom. It’s only been five hours."

"Please get to bed, sweetheart," her mother said. A slender blonde, who TikTok might call a TradWife, though grief etched her face, and she wasn’t a wife but a widow.

At least officially.

What does that mean? No time to explain—Mom cuts in:

"You need your sleep, sweetheart."

"Once I beat the game, I’ll sleep. Scout’s honor."

"And when exactly will that be?"

"If I’m talking instead of playing, I might miss my flight tomorrow."

From the corner of her eye, Amanda saw her mom press her lips into a pencil-thin line.

"Tired people lose their appetite, sweetheart. And you promised we’d all have a slice of birthday cake together first thing tomorrow."

"Caffeine beats tiredness, and you said I could drink coffee at seventeen."

"Oh, you little rebellious teens," her mother sighed. "I’ll be glad when you’re over this phase."

"And at what age do you think that will happen?"

"It’s not about age. It’s when life shows you how small you are that you stop rebelling. Usually, when work starts."

"The rat race Dad always talked about? Work—humanity’s greatest enemy."

"He was lazy. But he wasn’t completely wrong."

"I love you, Mom, but I also have a will of my own, and I plan to keep it for life."

"Some manage that, but they’re rare."

"Dad managed."

"Your dad left us without saying goodbye."

"He hasn't left us," Amanda replied. "He’s missing. He’s been missing for nine years. That’s a big difference."

"Not for me."

"Dad is alive. Somewhere. And someday he’ll come back."

"Goodnight, sweetheart."

Her mom closed the door carefully, the lock clicking.

She was gone.

The good mood was gone, too.

Her German shepherd puppy, Ranger, thankfully hadn’t noticed any of it. He lay beside her on her pillow, peacefully rising and falling with each breath. He yawned in the flickering TV light, which glowed over a pixelated, rundown bar with a pixel dance floor where characters danced like jerky GIFs as Maria Mercurial headbanged on stage. Pixel graphics had an advantage over realistic graphics—they gave imagination something to do, kept it alive, trained it.

Amanda froze.

The way her mom had walked in. The way Ranger was sleeping, yawning. Then the colorful disco scene in Shadowrun and her thoughts on the graphics... even how she was lying on the couch, thinking about it. It all fit together in an eerie déjà vu. But this time, there was one key difference: she didn’t wonder where she’d experienced this before.

No, she knew.

It was in a dream, where every detail—exactly like this, down to the last bit—had already happened.

Those damned dreams.

They showed her glimpses of the future.

But always trivial ones like this.

This strange phenomenon had been a thread running through her life. It used to happen once a year, maybe, but as she grew older, these experiences multiplied, knocking her out of sync and rattling her sense of reality each time.

She breathed deeply.

Whatever these déjà vu moments were, there had to be a scientific explanation.

They were trivial, yes. Just a small glitch in the brain.

She looked at the black-framed Diddl clock on her wall. Diddl was sucking on a pacifier, pulling a wooden duck.

Her heartbeat slowed.

Four hours until midnight.

Ranger whimpered briefly in his sleep. Maybe he was catching a tennis ball in the air, on a lush green field in the sunlight.

Was there anything more peaceful than a baby sleeping beside you? Dog or human, without knowledge of the world, a living being was the picture of bliss, Amanda thought. She, on the other hand, knew far too much about the world.

But little did she know.

Stretching out on the couch, controller in hand, she was slender, with long, flawless legs. She wore a bright white, freshly laundered spaghetti strap top with cotton shorts and fuzzy socks, the heater cranked up. Heating costs? Not a teen’s problem.

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Her only concern at the moment: the playthrough, her own countdown to midnight.

Let’s go, Amanda. You’ve got this. You’ve totally got this.

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It was ten minutes to midnight when Amanda sent Jake, the MC of Shadowrun, into Aneki Corp’s HQ. The shadowrunner hacked into the main computer, destroying the Guard IC and downloading the compromising files. Just 20 seconds left. The final hack was ridiculously easy, but the game was still epic. The whole building exploded as Jake made his escape. Bam, bam, bam—the last bad guys hit the floor, and Jake took off in the infamous Black Helicopter, shrouded in real-life mystery.

The credits rolled: a close-up of augmented Jake high above a dystopian city. His goal? Unknown.

Damn, she thought.

No satisfaction at completing the playthrough.

Just a restless thrill... and fear... and the urge to start a new game, even though she was endlessly tired.

There was one more: Ghost in the Shell. A game from 1997, long before she was born. But people had always dreamed of the future. They always would. But who really knew what the future would be?

Ghost in the Shell.

She loved the simple gameplay, the pixel graphics. She loved the developers’ passion. The way they’d done so much with so little compared to today’s big-budget AAAAA+ titles.

Old games had something modern ones didn’t: love.

Love for the game over profit.

Ghost in the Shell.

No, not tonight.

If she came back.

Then, yes.

She’d spent the last few days gaming for a reason: she was terrified of the trip. She was a total coward.

"Go to bed," a voice suddenly said from the TV.

She threw the controller aside, startling Ranger.

What was that?

Crap, had the voice really come from the TV?

Her heart was pounding.

The end credits flashed back to some boss scenes. Same as always.

Then the TV went dark. All the lights in the room went out.

"Okay, crap, Ranger, what’s happening?"

She blindly fumbled for her smartphone on the table and shone the screen into the darkness.

Suddenly, a face appeared right in front of her!

Okay, just Ranger, with his wet nose, licking her face.

"Holy crap, that was... just a power outage."

The Saturn glowed neon blue again. The old camping TV blinked to life, its small red indicator like a demonic eye in the darkness, staring back at her without lids.

An era where information is power. Information that flows through a global network known as the MATRIX. That’s what the game’s prologue said, and Amanda wondered how much its creators had known about the secrets that surround us—or how much we all subconsciously sense.

"I’m already hearing voices. It’s definitely time for bed, Ranger," she said. "It’s almost witching hour. What do you think? Gotta pee? Sorry, Ranger, can’t offer you a lush meadow like in your dreams. Just a sad city tree where a hundred other dogs have already peed. But it’s better than nothing, right? I wish you could come with me."

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There was something strange about that night, a quarter hour before midnight.

She felt no joy for her birthday. None at all.

Only an uneasy dread.

Was it just the trip tomorrow making her stomach turn?

And despite the inner tension, an overwhelming drowsiness washed over her, tempting her with sweet promises... the biggest one: screw brushing your teeth, just go to sleep.

She stumbled through her parents’ apartment, feeling flooded by a sea of dark emotions. A wave of longing and sorrow. Ranger would wither here in New York. A lonely dog’s life, with no adventure. Just three walks a day to a small patch of grass, doing his business, then spending the rest of the day stuck in the apartment. And her? She’d get to see the world. Explore an unfamiliar part of it. Was that fair?

She took off her jacket and sweatpants. Ranger lay beside her on the bed. She stroked his soft fur, wondering if she could simply bring him along.

Simply.

As if.

As if anything in life were simple.

She managed to put on her gaming headphones—yes, the ones with playful cat ears, and yes, of course, with blinking LEDs. Tacky, but damn cool.

As always before bed, she connected her magic "Escape Reality" playlist via Bluetooth and snuggled under the blanket, a hand resting on Ranger’s warm, soft fur. Puppies needed their sleep. Teens didn’t. With four hours left until her alarm, Amanda closed her eyes and was instantly on a park bench under the branches of an elm, in the heart of golden autumn. It was always the same cemetery when one of her nightmares began, and she’d hoped tonight she might finally have a peaceful dream.

Sunlight streamed through the autumn leaves, dancing in the cool evening air. The scene faded, and with it, the comforting atmosphere died.

She knew right away: with the sunlight gone, this dream had turned into a nightmare.

All her lucid dreams were nightmares.

Trapped in this strange world, one that obeyed no laws or constants.

[Hamold] whispers: The life you know, everything you believe about the world, is just the tip of the iceberg, Veela. You see the branches and leaves of a tree, but the true life is beneath, growing unseen, and you have no idea it even exists.

Amanda froze. That voice. She wasn’t surprised to hear it directly in her mind... after all, this was just a dream. But she was shaken because it was her father’s voice, one she hadn’t heard since he’d left her nine years ago.

She focused, frowning deeply, closing her eyes.

To [Hamold]: Is it you? Father? Could it be?

No answer.

Did he hear her?

Why wasn’t he replying?

And what had he said about the world? It sounded so much like his words from back then. Dad always insisted humanity was blind to the truth of its own existence. Science was just theories; no one knew the one truth.

Veela.

The name was unfamiliar, but somehow, she didn’t question why he’d called her that. In a dream, feelings run deeper than sight. She knew she was Veela. What we see in a dream holds little meaning. Everything shifts around you. Friends turn into monsters, the kind-hearted betray you, and the dead live again. You have no wings, but you can fly. You have no gills, but you can breathe underwater, and nothing feels strange.... because you know it’s real. In this world, made of your very self.

Amanda wandered down a path that seemed safe, as though stepping off it would lead to horrible places where evil things lurked.

Dammit. She shouldn’t have thought about that.

In dreams, thoughts become reality. Especially in nightmares.

She sensed a monster’s presence lurking in the shadows, stalking her through the underbrush.

Then, suddenly, a lantern light flared up, about twenty or thirty meters ahead. The gaslight had ignited on its own, and she somehow knew her father wanted to guide her to safety.

Then, the monster appeared. It leapt from the shadows onto the path she struggled to follow.

She tried to run, but the more she ran, the slower she felt.

The harder she tried, the heavier her limbs grew.

Of course.

A classic in every nightmare.

[Hamold] whispers: Don’t give up! Run to the light! You think this is a dream. But you’re wrong. This is really happening. On another plane of reality.

Her heart raced wildly, and she felt sure, in reality she was thrashing in her bed, squealing with fear like a piglet, probably sweating through her sheets. What did he mean, this isn’t a dream?

To [Hamold]: If you can hear me, Dad, that’s not comforting!

The monster tore down the path, gaining on her. A horror with long, thin limbs, both insect-like and human, a gruesome creature that could only spring from a nightmare! Not reality! Impossible!

The monster was right behind her.

No chance.

It would rip her to shreds.

Amanda screamed.

She gathered all her strength. Then suddenly, a massive force propelled her forward. It was as if she’d taken an enormous leap into the light under the lantern.

The monster halted before the circle of light, circling around like a predator stalking its prey.

Amanda was horribly out of breath.

She bent over, hands on her knees, gasping.

[Hamold] whispers: The creature is returning to the shadows. You don’t have much time, baby. I can’t keep the light going. Come to me, to the realm beyond worlds, where I’m trapped. The ancient, centuries-old oak. Hurry!

Suddenly, the light above Amanda flickered. Then it went out. The glass shattered, as though some unseen force had overloaded the bulb.

Darkness.

The monster’s presence loomed over her once more.

Where was she supposed to go?

The centuries-old oak?

Everything looked the same, yet everything was different.

Amanda ran. But in this haunting dreamscape, where everything constantly shifted, she barely took ten steps before finding herself in a new place—now a dark, overgrown forest, trees swaying around her in a ceaseless wind. An unpaved path led down to a swamp, where she waded through the knee-deep water.

Where am I? How am I supposed to find my father?

I want to wake up.

Just wake up.

Usually, she could. Why not now?

She sensed she wasn’t alone.

The monster had followed her into the swamp.

The wind carried rattling sounds from the reeds, just a sprint away, a warning of impending doom.

To [Hamold]: Can you hear me, Dad? Are you here somewhere?

No answer.

No damn answer.

But she needed him.

His help.

His embrace.

Then suddenly, the ground trembled beneath her feet.

From the swamp water, the monster began to rise.

It was back.

She was completely exposed. She was lost.

And this time, her father’s voice echoed in her mind: This isn’t a dream. Isn't a dream.

Wake up, Amanda, wake up! she thought.

But she remained trapped in this strange world.

The monster charged toward her.