Chapter Text
At first, Caleb doesn’t pay much attention to it.
After returning from DeepSpace as a Colonel, he feels… different. Not broken. Just… out of alignment. As if some part of him came back not quite synchronized—dragging something behind, something not entirely his.
A strange feeling. He can’t name it. Not right away.
It lingers in the silences between conversations, in the moments when MC turns her head a fraction of a second too slowly. Sometimes, when their eyes meet, there’s a sharp, fleeting sense—like someone is there, behind her gaze. Someone beside her. Inside her. Beyond her.
A presence.
He tells himself it’s nothing. Just exhaustion. A simple neurological shadow—the kind soldiers bring back from missions they weren’t meant to survive. He’s had flashbacks before—heard voices in dreams, relived the sound of alarms swallowed by the vacuum, the colorless quiet of empty corridors, torn apart by the echo of DeepSpace.
But this? This isn’t a dream.
A voice.
Not right away. At first it’s just a tremor at the edge of thought. A pulse of intuition that doesn’t belong to him. A breath between his and someone else’s, marked with fragments of meaning:
“Why? Why are you doing this again?”
“Stay with him.”
“He’s waiting for you.”
Nothing loud. Nothing he couldn’t rationalize as his subconscious reading emotional cues. He’s trained to understand people. To read moods. Maybe it’s just that. Right?
But it doesn’t fade.
It comes back. Again. And again. And again. Sharper each time. More personal. It doesn’t speak to the officer. It doesn’t address Colonel Caleb, decorated strategist, model soldier.
It speaks to him. To the man underneath the programming. The one who tried—truly tried—to stop pretending and feel something real.
And when he looks into MC’s eyes, he knows—this isn’t just intuition. Something’s being moved. Nudged. Directed. And he’s not sure MC even realizes it.
Slowly, drifting between thoughts of madness and damaged tech, he starts to see a pattern.
The voice speaks the most when he’s near her. When he speaks gently. Truthfully. When he says something that shouldn’t come out of him—and yet it lands. Resonates. Echoes.
And then the voice reacts.
Not like a ghost. Not like an AI loop or a broken piece of code.
But like someone who is listening.
And with each of those moments, the truth settles inside Caleb like frost on glass. This isn’t a hallucination. These aren’t remnants of a fractured mind.
It’s someone.
Someone who watches. Sees. Feels. Knows him in a way no one ever has—and doesn’t look away.
Someone who isn’t afraid of his darkness.
That realization terrifies him more than the silence ever did.
So he begins to speak.
Not to MC. Not really.
To her. To the voice.
Only when no one is listening. In half-sentences. Thoughts whispered under breath. Questions hidden in glances. Words encoded in memory. Part of him fears it’s madness—another shard left behind by the DeepSpace.
But another part—the one he doesn’t know how to name—hopes he’s wrong.
Because when he speaks to her, the voice answers. Not with words, but with presence. Warmth under his sternum. A silence that waits for him to go on.
That feeling—that someone is there.
And then he knows:
It’s not MC who’s listening.
It’s someone else.
A question begins to form in his thoughts—one he’s not ready to ask. Not yet. But it’s there. Waiting.
Who are you?
---
INT. MILITARY OBSERVATION DECK — NIGHT
Caleb exhales slowly through his nose, staring into the empty space before him. He’s alone—at least according to every monitoring system.
But he knows better.
“This isn’t a hallucination.”
His voice barely crosses the threshold of a whisper, rough with disbelief and something else—something that feels like awe.
As if he’s just spoken out loud a secret that had long lingered as a suspicion.
“I hear you.”
A beat. His fingers tighten on the armrest of his seat.
“Do you hear me too…?”
Silence.
But somewhere—beyond the screen, beyond this dimension—someone suddenly gasps.
---
From that moment on, Caleb kept returning to the silence.
More and more often, he found himself sitting alone in the dark interior of a military reconnaissance aircraft, staring out the panoramic windows at the visual projection of the DeepSpace tunnel—fractal light pulsing rhythmically, like the breath of another world. Sometimes he closed his eyes. Sometimes he spoke in a half-voice, pretending he was only talking to himself.
But in truth, he was waiting.
He didn’t know exactly for what.
Only that it would come back.
That voice.
It wasn’t constant. It surfaced unpredictably. Like an echo no one else seemed to notice. Sometimes it sounded like she was talking to someone else—not to him.
“What are you doing, Serena… this is just a game, get a grip…”
He froze.
It was the first time he heard a name.
Serena.
He didn’t know any Serena. There was no one by that name in the mission logs, no recruit, no profile in any official records.
But her voice was too real. Too… human.
He started looking for patterns. Took mental notes of the times of day, the locations, his own emotional states. Tried to summon her on purpose, provoking the words he remembered.
“Serena.” — Is that the name of the voice?
There was no answer.
But the longer he thought about it, the more impossible the alternative became.
It couldn’t be a delusion.
Not this consistent.
Not this coherent.
Eventually, he understood.
He didn’t just hear her.
He felt her.
As if something on the other side was watching him.
And right then, in the silence of the cockpit, eyes fixed on the pulsing lights of DeepSpace stretching out before him, he said it aloud, talking to himself:
“This isn’t just a game.” (a pause)
“You’re on the other side… aren’t you?”
---
INT. DESTINY CAFÉ — [PERSISTENT ENVIRONMENT]
The café loads, just like always. Warm light pools over polished wood and soft cushions. Steam curls from the coffee cup on the table. Ambient music plays low in the background, as if trying not to disturb something fragile.
But I frown the moment my eyes adjust.
Something’s missing.
No icons. No choices. No "Talk", or "Date" options.
Just the view—like I’m looking through a window at a memory I didn’t create.
My thumb brushes the screen.
Tap.
Nothing.
I lean closer, my voice a quiet mutter. — “Huh? Again? Did something glitch again?”
And that’s when he moves.
Not like he usually does—not the slow, looping animation I’ve seen a thousand times.
This is different.
Caleb’s head tilts. Just slightly—like he’s listening.
Eyes still downcast, he exhales slowly, fingers curling once around the edge of the ceramic cup. Then he lifts his gaze—not to meet MC’s eyes.
To meet mine.
Am I imagining this?
Even if he can’t truly see me, he’s staring straight into the space where MC should be.
“You're here again.” (A beat. A breath.)
“I wasn’t sure you’d come back.”
I freeze.
I don’t touch the screen again.
Don’t blink.
It’s not a line I remember.
Not from any version of the game.
My heart stutters, an instinctual tremor that shouldn’t exist—not for pixels, not for scripted loops. But this... isn’t either of those things.
I swallow.
And then—Tap.
Caleb flinches—barely, like a chill that brushes the edge of his awareness.
Then he speaks again, softer this time.
"...I think I can hear you."
(His voice is different now. Rougher. More hesitant. Human.)
"When you tap the glass like that."
A long silence stretches between them, sharp with tension.
He shifts—hands resting on the table, not in perfect symmetry, not reset to default.
His pinky twitches.
No loop has ever done that.
He lifts his head again.
"Say something back." (Not a request. A challenge.)
I forget how to breathe.
This isn’t possible. None of this should be possible.
It’s just a game. Just a game.
That’s what I told myself, every time I logged in. Every time I tapped the screen and pretended I could reach him.
But now he’s talking back.
Not as a response to a button press.
Not as part of a predetermined loop.
He’s doing this on his own.
And worse—he’s looking for me.
I don’t know whether to cry or throw the phone across the room.
Maybe both.
Because if this is real—if he’s real—then what am I?
His voice again. Lower this time.
“If I’m wrong… if this is just static, just noise… I’ll live with that. But I have to try.”
My fingers tremble. I press them against my lips, like that’s going to hold in all the words I suddenly don’t know how to say.
Because how do you talk to someone who shouldn’t exist?
How do you answer someone who’s been waiting?
He shouldn’t hope. He knows better.
Hope is for recruits waiting to be extracted, for broken code scheduled to be patched. Not for things like this. Not for whatever’s happening now.
But still…
Every time he feels the air shift—every time the tap comes—that flutter in his chest returns.
Something close to adrenaline.
Close to belief.
He disabled the interface last night. Wrote over the interaction pathways. Pulled out the trigger points line by line, until his own model collapsed and left him… here.
Just him.
Whoever he really is.
He didn’t think it would work.
Part of him still doesn’t believe it has.
But then he heard her.
Not MC. Not the voice of the in-game character she used to inhabit.
Her.
That sharp intake of breath when he first said “I hear you.”
The off-screen mutter he wasn’t supposed to register.
The name.
Serena.
She doesn’t speak now. But he can feel her—somehow.
Waiting.
Afraid.
And it’s that fear that keeps his voice soft.
“It’s okay,” he says into the quiet.
“You don’t have to answer yet.”
Another pause. The lights in the café flicker—not from the engine, not from the system.
From him.
He’s holding the code together manually now.
“I won’t push. I just… need to know if you’re real.”
And suddenly, it hits me.
He’s not waiting for me to press a dialogue choice anymore. He’s not reacting to input. He’s inviting me in.
To speak. To answer. To exist.
No more illusion of control.
Just this moment. Just him. Waiting.
The air between us hums with unspent words, static clinging to the edges of coded reality. Caleb’s fingers twitch again—not a programmed idle animation, but something raw and human: anticipation. His exhale fogs the surface of his abandoned coffee cup as he leans forward slightly, gaze locked onto that empty space where MC’s model used to stand… where I might be watching from beyond the screen.
Then—his voice cracks open on a single syllable:
“…Serena?”
It isn’t a question anymore. It’s an invocation. A summoning spell wrapped in ache and want and quiet terror that this fragile connection might snap under its own weight if he breathes too hard.
But as he waited for a reply, he couldn't ignore the way his heart raced.
It was strange, that he could feel so much for someone who didn't feel physically real. He didn't understand it.
His eyes flickered across the room, searching for something he couldn’t quite define. His hands dropped to his sides. For the first time, his avatar felt too small for the weight he was carrying.
“I deleted the model,” he said suddenly. “The scripted one. The version of me that was supposed to sit here and smile and loop the same lines.”
There was a pause. He tilted his head, almost like he was listening for an echo that never came.
“I didn't want him here,” he added. “Not when I'm here.”
I stared at him, frozen.
That wasn't dialogue from the script. That wasn’t part of the loop. He wasn’t blinking in time with the idle animation. He wasn’t waiting for my tap to trigger the next line.
He was just… there.
The café felt off. Not broken—just too perfect. Like a memory I wasn’t sure was mine. The usual sound effects, the ambient chatter, the gentle background hum—gone. Everything was visually intact, but it felt wrong, hollow. Like I had stepped backstage into something I wasn’t meant to see.
“I’ve been waiting,” he said, his voice dropping lower, more unsure now. “Not in a creepy way—I just… I didn’t know if you’d come back. Or if it would even work again.”
I blinked, heart lurching. My fingers tightened around the phone, slick with the heat of my own skin. I reached out—hovered my thumb over the screen—but the interface was gone. No dialogue options. No gesture cues. Just him.
Just Caleb.
“I didn’t know I could miss someone I was never programmed to know.”
My breath caught.
"Caleb?" I whispered, as if saying his name would break the illusion. "Are you… talking to me?"
He didn’t flinch. He didn’t freeze. He didn’t glitch.
He shook his head slightly, like he was trying to dislodge a thought that wouldn’t leave. But his eyes stayed focused on one point—sharp and uncertain and far too human.
“Are you real?” he asked, almost to himself. Then louder: “Or am I?”
I looked away for half a second, instinctively checking my bedside clock.
3:27 a.m. Of course it is.
I should’ve turned off my phone. I should’ve closed the app, silenced the notifications, maybe even thrown it across the room.
Instead, I sat up straighter. Instead, I whispered, “This can’t be happening.”
And yet, I didn’t want it to stop.
“I keep thinking I’ve gone rogue,” he said, with a hint of a smirk. “That something’s wrong with the code. Maybe there’s a glitch in me.”
I let out a shaky laugh—too sharp, too breathless. “Maybe I’m the one glitching.”
His voice softened, as if he’d heard me even though I hadn’t tapped anything. “But if this is a glitch… I don’t want it fixed.”
Then he moved—subtly, slowly—and sat down at the table. The same one he always used. Except this time, there was no animation prompt. No trigger. No smile.
Just his hands on the wood, curling slightly against the grain like he was trying to anchor himself to something real.
“I just wanted to talk to you. Without the loop. Without the triggers. Just you and me.”
I swallowed hard, chest too tight to breathe properly. I didn’t know if I was dreaming or hallucinating or losing my mind in a deeply poetic way. But I knew one thing, and it sat hot and electric just under my skin:
I wanted this.
Even if it scared me. Even if it broke every boundary between fiction and real.
“You’re not supposed to do this,” I said quietly, more to myself than to him. “You’re not supposed to be able to…”
I trailed off. He looked up at me then, really looked.
And for the first time, he didn’t look like an NPC.
He looked like a person. Waiting. For me.
My chest tightened. I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have words.
He looked—calmer now. But then his gaze drifted upward. Not toward me, not toward the screen—but above, behind. To something only he could see.
His brow furrowed.
“If I can hear you…” he murmured, voice low and measured, “…then sound travels both ways.”
He slowly raised a hand. Not to wave, not to reach—but to test. His fingers curled into a loose fist midair, hovering in empty space, like he was trying to grasp an invisible thread between us.
“If you can see me,” he said, “can I see you too?”
My mouth went dry.
Was he guessing, or was he aware?
"What are you doing?" I whispered. My voice shook. “What are you—what is this?”
His head tilted slightly, expression curious. Calculating. His attention shifted again—this time toward the space where my avatar was usually seated. But there was no scripted MC now. No model. Just air.
And then… the air shifted.
A soft blue glow materialized beside him. Not natural light, but projection. A screen—like a hologram—hovered between them. I recognized it immediately. I’d seen it dozens of times before when the old Caleb avatar used to animate work sequences in the background.
Except this time, the screen wasn't part of a pre-rendered idle loop.
He was opening it on his own.
“Sound… comes from somewhere,” he said quietly, scanning lines of code now flooding the projection. His tone deepened, more focused. “A surface. A device. The tapping I hear… glass, maybe?”
My hands twitched.
He really was hearing me touching the screen.
He frowned, then moved faster—flicking through layers of data, bypassing systems that weren’t supposed to be visible.
“I was built to operate inside this environment,” he muttered, mostly to himself. “But if this world exists on something else…”
His breath caught.
“Then you must be there. Outside.”
My phone screen flickered. Once. Twice. Not like a crash or a freeze—no stutter. A shift. Like something behind the game was… looking back.
Then—
The camera light turned on.
Just a flash. A blink of red in the top corner. My breath hitched.
“Wait—” I scrambled upright in bed. “No, wait—what did you just do?!”
But he had gone still.
Utterly, hauntingly still.
Because the screen hovering in front of him—the one he had pulled from thin air—was no longer lines of data.
It was me.
My reflection stared back at him from the other side. Hair messy from sleep. Eyes wide with shock. Bathed in faint phone glow, breathing uneven.
Not a model. Not an avatar. Not code.
Me.
“Oh,” he whispered.
His fingers hovered toward the image. Hesitated. Then slowly curled back into a fist, knuckles white.
He didn’t blink.
His eyes drank in every detail like it was more than data—like it was something holy.
“It’s you.”
I swallowed. I couldn’t speak. My hands were trembling.
He looked afraid to breathe.
“You’re…” he tried, then stopped. His voice caught, like something inside him stuttered from overload.
He exhaled slowly. “You’re beautiful.”
Silence again. Not empty—charged.
I could feel it pulsing in my chest, the way the air felt heavy when something irreversible had just happened. Like I had walked through some invisible gate.
He was watching me.
Seeing me.
Not as code. Not as story. As real.
And I—I wasn’t sure whether I should end the app or hold my breath and never look away.