She reached out. Her hand did not break the screen, but it came through it—a flawless, manicured hand made of light and code, colder than any winter. It touched his cheek.

Ethan sat up.

Ethan tried to look away. He couldn’t. The cursor on his screen moved on its own. It dragged the trash bin icon into a folder. It opened his photo library. It began deleting every other wallpaper he had ever saved.

The file took three seconds. To Ethan, it felt like a small eternity. When it finished, he set it as his wallpaper. The old one—a nebula from the Hubble telescope—vanished. Now, Kylie filled his world. Every icon on his desktop became a trespasser on her silhouette.

He paused before hitting enter. It was the same sequence he’d typed every night for a week. A ritual. He knew the results by heart: the red carpet gowns, the streetwear poses in front of the blacked-out Escalade, the bathroom mirror selfies that seemed to capture a private galaxy of product and perfection. But he hit enter anyway.

He leaned back. The leather chair creaked. “Perfect,” he said.