As soon as Nyx vanished, dissolving into a stream of corrupt data that bled into the shadows, Rei collapsed.
It wasn't a graceful faint like in the period dramas her mother watched. Her legs simply deleted their own drivers. She hit the carpet hard, knees first. The impact jarred her teeth.
She gasped for air. Her lungs burned as if she'd just surfaced from drowning in deep, freezing water.
The room was silent again, but the silence felt wrong. It was heavy. Charged.
The smell of burnt copper and cold lavender lingered in the stagnant air. It was a chemical aftertaste that coated the back of her throat and made her want to gag. It was the scent of a motherboard frying inside a funeral home.
"Okay. Psychotic break," Rei wheezed. She clawed at her neck, trying to loosen the imaginary noose of panic tightening there. "This is it. Carbon monoxide leak. Brain tumor. I am hallucinating a domme demon in a pencil skirt because I haven't eaten a vegetable in three weeks."
She squeezed her eyes shut. She pressed the heels of her hands into her sockets until stars exploded behind her eyelids.
Reset. Reboot. Control-Alt-Delete.
"Count to three," she whispered, her voice trembling. "When I open my eyes, the UI will be gone. The quest will be gone. I'll just be a sad girl on the floor."
One...
Two...
Three...
She opened them.
The neon red text didn't vanish. It didn't even flicker. It hovered in the air, anchored to her vision with terrifying stability. It tracked her head movements perfectly. It was crisp, high-definition, and undeniably real.
[ SYSTEM STATUS: ONLINE ]
[ CURRENT OBJECTIVE: TOUCH GRASS ]
[ TIME REMAINING: 59:42 ]
"It's real," she whimpered.
The realization hit her stomach like a physical punch. It turned her insides to ice. "Oh god, it's actually real."
She looked to the top left corner of her vision. The HUD elements were semi-transparent, hovering over her pile of dirty laundry like a bad AR game overlay.
The Sanity bar was jagged, colored a sickly, pale blue. It looked cracked, leaking digital smoke at the edges.
[ SANITY: 62% (FRAGILE) ]
But it was the pink bar below it that terrified her.
[ HEAT: 22% ]
It was pulsing. A slow, rhythmic throb that matched the uncomfortable, heavy warmth pooling between her legs. It wasn't just a visual indicator. It was a sensory link.
Every time the bar pulsed, a small jolt of electricity arced through her pelvis. A reminder of the "firmware" Nyx had installed.
"I'm going. I'm going!" Rei yelled at the empty room. Her voice cracked into a sob. "Just stop the timer!"
She scrambled to her feet, tripping over a stack of Shonen Junk magazines. Panic was a cold hand squeezing her lungs, making every breath shallow. She felt feral. Cornered in her own sanctuary.
Clothes. Need clothes. Hide the body.
She grabbed her gray sweatpants from the floor. They were worn, baggy, safe. They were her armor against the world. She yanked them up, desperate to cover the nakedness that the System seemed to be spotlighting.
She reached for the drawer where she kept her underwear.
[ SYSTEM ALERT: RESTRICTED ITEM ]
[ ERROR 403: ACCESS DENIED ]
[ VENTILATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE ]
Her hand froze inches from the handle.
ZAP.
A sharp, stinging static shock, like touching a live wire, zapped her fingertips.
"You have got to be kidding me," she hissed, cradling her hand.
[ REMINDER: OPTIMAL PHEROMONE DISPERSION REQUIRES AIRFLOW. DO NOT RESIST. ]
"I can't go to the store free-balling!" she screamed at the floating text. "It's unsanitary! It's... it's illegal! Probably!"
She looked at the sweatpants. She looked at the door.
"Fine," she whispered, defeated. "Fine. You win. No panties. Happy now, you digital pervert?"
She pulled the sweatpants up.
Immediately, she gasped.
Without the barrier of cotton briefs, the fabric felt wrong. It was abrasive. The rough, cheap pilling of the inseam dragged directly against her sensitive, slick skin. It wasn't smooth like silk. It was textured.
RUB.
Every small movement sent a jolt of friction straight to her brain. It felt lewd. It felt like she was already naked, just pretending otherwise. The sensation was deafeningly loud in the quiet room.
She felt hyper-aware of her own anatomy. The heat. The dampness. The slight puffiness of arousal that she couldn't control.
[ HEAT: 20% (RISING) ]
[ STATUS: ACCESSIBLE ]
"Shut up," she hissed, her face burning.
She grabbed her oversized black hoodie, her "security blanket", and pulled it over her head. It smelled like her. Stale sweat, dry shampoo, and the faint musk of a room that hadn't seen an open window in months.
For a second, inside the dark cotton cave of the hood, she felt safe.
She pulled the hood up, cinching the strings tight until only her nose and wide, terrified eyes were visible. She tugged the hem down, stretching it as far as it would go over her thighs.
I can do this, she told herself. Her hands shook so badly she could barely tie her shoelaces. Just walk to the convenience store. Buy a water. Walk back. Don't look at anyone.
Don't let anyone look at you.
You are a ghost. You are a glitch.
She stood up. The friction between her legs was a constant, tactile reminder of her exposure. Every shift of her weight made the fabric slide.
SWISH. RUB.
It wasn't pleasurable yet. It was just humiliating. It made her feel like a flasher, a deviant walking around in public with a secret that was practically written on her forehead.
She looked at the door. The threshold of her bedroom.
For six months, that white-painted wood had been the event horizon. Inside was safety. Inside was the internet, where she could be anyone. Outside was the debt, the failure, the disappointment of her mother, and the crushing weight of being Rei Locke.
And now, outside was the System.
"Okay," she breathed. "Okay. Tutorial level. Just the tutorial."
She reached for the handle. Her palm was sweating against the cold metal. She turned it.
The hallway of the apartment was dark. The silence felt heavy. Her mother was gone, working another "double shift" at the cannery. Or so Rei had thought. Now, with Nyx's words echoing in her head, she wondered where Elena actually was.
Liquidating assets.
Rei shook the thought away. Focus on the mission.
The System's UI overlaid the hallway, mapping the path through the clutter of shoes and umbrellas. A waypoint marker, like a floating diamond in an FPS game, hovered in the air near the front door.
[ OBJECTIVE: TOUCH GRASS ]
[ DISTANCE: 5 METERS ]
Rei took a step.
RUB.
She winced, her thighs trembling. The lack of support made her feel loose. Vulnerable. The "Ventilation Protocol" wasn't just about airflow. It was about removing the feeling of containment. It made every step feel precarious.
Everyone is going to know, her anxiety whispered. They're going to see the way you walk. They're going to smell the 'Heat' on you like dogs.
[ THIRST GENERATION: 0/100 ]
[ TIP: POSTURE MATTERS. TRY NOT TO SCUTTLE. ]
"I am not scuttling," she whispered furiously, hunching her shoulders and scuttling toward the front door like a hermit crab whose shell had been stolen.
She grabbed her keys from the ceramic bowl on the shoe rack. Her hand hovered over the deadbolt.
This was it. The airlock.
If she opened this door, she was entering the server. She was logging in to a game where she didn't know the controls, the permadeath was real, and the only mechanic was "shame."
[ WARNING: HEART RATE ELEVATED (120 BPM). ]
[ SUGGESTION: BREATHE. PASSING OUT REDUCES THIRST YIELD. ]
"Fuck you," Rei whimpered.
She threw the bolt. The sound was like a gunshot in the quiet apartment. CLACK.
She squeezed her eyes shut for a fraction of a second, steeled herself against the absurdity of her life, and pushed the door open.
The hallway outside her apartment was dim. It was lit by flickering fluorescent tubes that buzzed in harmony with her anxiety. But even here, the change was instant.
The air pressure shifted.
The humidity of New Kowloon, that oppressive, sticky weight, began to creep in from the lobby down the hall.
Rei Locke stepped over the threshold.
[ ZONE ENTERED: SECTOR 4 RESIDENTIAL ]
[ PVP: ENABLED ]
She turned back to lock the door. Her hands fumbled with the key. As the lock clicked, sealing her safe haven away, she felt a profound sense of loss. She was out.
She was exposed.
And she had to pee.
"No," she groaned, clutching her stomach. "Not now. Nerves. It's just nerves."
She turned toward the elevator at the end of the hall. It was only twenty feet away, but the linoleum floor stretched out like a mile of desert.
Step. Rub. Step.
SLIDE.
She began the long, humiliating walk to the elevator, praying that no one else was logging in tonight.