“Leo? Why is it so dark? I can’t find the switch.”

He pressed ‘Y’.

The world stopped. The grief curdled into a cold, familiar fury. A paywall. For his mother’s ghost.

He jolted in his chair. The detail was impossible. The crack in the baseboard he’d been meaning to fix. The coffee stain on his desk mat shaped like a bunny. The game hadn’t rendered a generic room—it had scanned his environment through the webcam. His hand flew to the camera cover. It was still on.

A soft chime came from his phone. A text from an unknown number. No words. Just a link.

The game wasn’t scanning his room. It was scanning him .