Kaiden hadn’t realized how loud the real world had gotten.

  Outside his window, wind whipped through the trees like it was trying to tear something loose. Their branches slapped the brick siding of the house, and the sun - what little of it there was - filtered through the clouds like it didn’t want to be there. Everything felt swollen, heavy. The air. The clouds. Even the dirt in the front yard looked darker than it should.

  He stared down at the empty spot on his desk where his VR gear used to sit. No hum. No boot-up screen. No connection to the world where he actually had power.

  He stared at the sunlight pooling in a line across his windowsill, missing the way the Photosphere would pulse in his inventory. Kaiden felt the ache of its absence.

  He didn’t need the sun. He needed answers.

  Downstairs, plates clinked. His mother moved gently around the kitchen, speaking in soft Japanese with her own mother. Kaiden’s grandma had flown in last night to support the family. Malik, Kaiden’s father, paced in short, tense steps outside the back door, taking calls from work and checking in on Mina every few hours. The hospital kept them in the loop, but there was nothing new to say.

  Kaiden hadn’t returned. Not yet.

  Instead, he found himself walking to the local library, the same one he used to go to as a kid to study for math tests. It was quiet, mostly empty, and still had those old Dell PCs with gummy keys and mismatched mice.

  He sat down at one of them, logged in, and hesitated. Not because he didn’t know what to search for but because he didn’t know what would help. So, he started slow. Unusual plant infections. Climate shifts. Neurological symptoms related to fungal exposure.

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  Then, he got weirder. Photosensitive spores. Plant mimicry. Digital-ecological contamination.

  That’s when he stumbled onto something.

  Post on a private student bio-forum: “Anyone else notice that the new moss outside Quad D is the same kind that showed up in our lab experiments? I swear it pulses when you stand near it.”

  Another thread:

  “My roommate has been coughing up black specks after staying in that new greenhouse exhibit. The doctor says it’s allergies. But that plant’s not listed in any database. What the hell is ‘Calyx Muta’ anyway?”

  Kaiden clicked through until the system logged him out for inactivity. He swore under his breath and leaned back.

  “Mind if I sit here?”

  Kaiden turned. A tall guy with a neon-green beanie and dark circles under his eyes dropped his bag beside the neighboring chair.

  “I saw your searches,” the guy said casually. “Weird stuff. You a botany major too?”

  Kaiden hesitated. “Something like that.”

  The guy extended a hand. “Emir. I moderate that forum you were just on. Lotta people think it’s just student paranoia. I don’t.”

  Kaiden shook his hand. “Kaiden. I think... it might not be paranoia. My sister… something’s wrong with her. And I think it started with a plant.”

  Emir didn’t blink. Just nodded slowly. “You ever play RTS?”

  Kaiden stiffened. “Yeah. Why?”

  “Because half the people posting about this stuff? Some of them they’re players too. And all the symptoms? They started showing up just a little after a new mod for an infection meter came in. Coincidence? Yeah, I’m not so sure.”

  Kaiden sat back. The puzzle pieces weren’t just falling into place. They were starting to grow together.

  They exchanged contacts. Emir mentioned he had a friend on campus who was studying bio-cybernetics, and another who’d recently been booted from RTS for ‘tampering.’

  Afterward, Kaiden left the library, for the time-being with more questions than he knew what to do with.