Chapter 3

The technician was still talking, his voice calm and professional, but I could barely process the words.

"The session has been terminated. Do you wish to file a report or schedule a continuation at a later date?"

The question hung in the sterile air. Continuation. The thought of going back in there, back to her, sent a wave of nausea through me.

"No," I croaked, my voice raw.

I sat up, pushing his helping hand away. I fumbled with the clasps of the chair, my hands shaking.

"Just... no."

The technician looked surprised. "Sir, your account shows over three thousand logged hours on the 'Gilded Cage' module. Are you sure?"

I didn't answer. I just swung my legs over the side of the pod and stood on unsteady feet. I stumbled out of the small, private room and into the main corridor of Elysian Fields VR. The place was sleek and minimalist, all white walls and glowing blue light strips. It felt as cold and artificial as the world I had just been violently ejected from.

As I walked past the main desk, I heard two of the staff members whispering.

"Is that him? The guy who's been living in the Chloe Davis narrative?"

"Yeah. Heard he completely derailed her original plotline. Turned the villainess into some kind of tech CEO. Weird."

I kept walking, not looking at them. I knew what they thought. I was a freak. A guy who spent every waking moment, and a fortune I didn't have, to live in a fantasy. A man who fell in love with a collection of code and pixels, a character from a book.

I shoved the glass doors open and stumbled out into the real night. The air was cool and smelled of car exhaust and damp pavement. It was real. It was blessedly, painfully real.

I leaned against the wall, my mind racing. I thought about Chloe. Not the monster on the balcony, but the girl in the book. A tech prodigy from a broken home, abused by her father, desperate for affection. Her obsession with Liam Hayes, the novel's manipulative protagonist, was a direct result of that trauma. He offered her a kind word, a gentle touch, and she latched onto him like a lifeline, only for him to use her, ruin her, and cast her aside. Her villainy was born from that betrayal. She was brilliant, but emotionally fragile, a victim long before she became a villain.

That's why I had to save her.

But what she had done to me... that wasn't in her code. That wasn't part of her original character profile. The original Chloe was vengeful, yes, but her revenge was financial, social. She destroyed Liam's reputation, not his body. The cruelty, the cold, personal brutality she showed me... that was new. That was something that had grown out of my interference.

I remembered the countless hours I'd spent as 'Aiden,' a faceless mentor figure I'd coded into the simulation. I taught her to see her own worth, to hone her genius not for revenge, but for creation. I guided her away from Liam, showing her his manipulations piece by piece. I gave her the tools to build her own empire, to be her own savior.

I remembered her looking at me, her virtual eyes filled with tears of gratitude.

"I owe you everything, Aiden," she had said, her voice thick with emotion. "You're the only person who's ever believed in me."

She had once offered to sacrifice her entire company to protect my anonymous identity from a rival's probing. She had been loyal. She had been devoted.

Until she wasn't.