The game responded. Not with a close command, but with a single line of text in the console:

What’s the worst that could happen? she thought. A virus? Format my hard drive? At least that’d be interesting.

But her shadow wasn't hers anymore. It was standing in a puddle. And it was wearing a necklace she’d lost in the ocean three years ago.

She turned.

On-screen, her avatar waded into the lagoon. The water didn't splash. It parted , like skin. Beneath the surface, the drowned city wasn't ruined. It was waiting . Windows glowed with warm, impossible light. Doorways led to rooms she recognized: her childhood bedroom, the café where she'd broken up with her ex, the hospital hallway where her father had died.

Her cursor hovered over "Run as administrator."

Paddling.

The uninstaller didn't ask for confirmation. It just deleted itself—folder by folder, file by file—until the icon vanished. The dripping sound stopped. Her shadow looked normal again. The necklace was gone.

Her floor was dry.

But from the bathroom sink, in the dark, she could have sworn she heard a soft, rhythmic splash.

[PATCH NOTES: 0.2.2 - THE MEMORY LEAK IS FEEDING. DO NOT SAVE.]

She tried to move her mouse. The cursor was gone. The keyboard clacked uselessly. Then the camera— her perspective—began to walk forward on its own.

Mara’s hand froze on the keyboard. Because behind her—not in the game, but in her real, actual, one-bedroom apartment—she heard water dripping. Slow. Steady. Wrong.

Not dripping.