Willow Creek: Chapters 1-5

This is a novella (~25k words). Tired of his bleak reality, Elias seeks solace in "Willow Creek Valley," a perfect VR life sim. He meets Lena, a greeter NPC and librarian for the idyllic village. But as Lena begins to become aware of their virtual existence, she offers a gender-bending proposal to Elias to help her "escape."

# logline:

"MiSide meets Stardew Valley with VR Bodyswap TG Elements"

Will be released on 'Odds' schedule through the start of November, and a "duo-format" release mid-November of the whole novella. This post includes chapters 1-5. The next chapter release will be on November 3.

Special thanks to early beta readers! 

0: The Static and the Hum

Once, Elias had thought the view outside his window was beautiful. The night city was illuminated by the distant glows of neon billboards and holo-ads, lights flickering off lingering smog creating cloud-like glows over the horizon. Years ago, he’d thought the view was a serious perk of the apartment. A real find. That was when he’d started at Fiscal Solutions Inc. Back when he’d really started to think he might be able to start climbing the corporate ladder. He thought one day, he’d be financially secure, if not rich. Secure enough for his life to really begin.

Ten years later, the view had changed in some ways. But the way he felt about it had changed a lot more. He’d driven down those streets that flickered the holo ads, and found them advertising products he could never buy, overpriced trash. Now when he looked out at the horizon, at that neon glow reflecting off the smog, he couldn’t see anything but the crassness of a city built on polished lies. He had gone from a promising young tech-head to the working poor. The job he worked–once listed as “entry level,” just one hour short of a legal requirement to list him as ‘full time’ or provide any benefits–remained a galling dead end, a professional coffin for his life that had already lost all its mirth and glow. New jobs expected four years of experience with programs that were only three years old, tech that didn’t even exist when he was in school. There was nowhere else to go.

He was adrift, floating in a sea of desperation, having seen and heard the sirens of the city, and who was now growing tired of the tune.

His apartment was a sterile shoebox stacked high in a concrete monolith. It was less a home, and more like a human charging station. Just a place to power down and then, reluctantly, power back up. Empty takeout containers, ghosts of meals past, formed a precarious, abstract sculpture by the overflowing recycling bin. This was Elias’s life: a sequence of joyless routines that felt less chosen than algorithmically assigned.

But he had the NIMS unit, and Willow Creek.

NIMS: Non-Invasive Mind Stimulation. A marvel of modern technology, a far cry from the cumbersome, claustrophobic headsets of yesteryear. It was a sleek, silver circlet. It felt cool and light against his temples and the nape of his neck, promising not just visual and auditory immersion, but the full, breathtaking spectrum of sensory experience. It didn’t just show him worlds; it wove them directly into the fabric of his consciousness, painting realities within his mind that often felt more substantial, more real, than the concrete and recycled air that constituted his waking life.

He ran a hand through his short, unremarkable brown hair, the rasp of stubble against his palm a dull, familiar friction. His reflection, caught in the darkened screen of his monitor, was a stranger he knew too well: a man in his late twenties, shoulders already beginning to curve from a decade spent hunched over keyboards, eyes shadowed with a weariness that went deeper than sleep could reach. His frame, once lean, was slowly surrendering to the soft betrayals of a sedentary life. This was him. Elias. 

Willow Creek. The advertisements, splashed across flickering city billboards and intrusive pop-ups, promised a balm for the soul, a pastoral idyll. “Escape the mundane. Find your peace.” No monstrous adversaries to vanquish. Just the gentle cadence of a simulated rural life: charming, quirky townsfolk, simple, satisfying tasks, and the soothing, predictable rhythm of seasons turning in a world untouched by urban blight. He craved it with an almost physical ache. 

He settled into his worn ergonomic chair, the NIMS circlet a cool promise against his skin. The startup chime, a soft, ascending melody like digital wind chimes, resonated in the quiet room. He closed his eyes. 

The world receded, the tide of reality going out.

A faint, effervescent tingling, like bubbles against his synapses, was the only physical indication that he was crossing the threshold from one reality to another. Elias Thorne was ready to be unmade, if only for a few precious hours.

00001 – Welcome to the Sim

The world didn’t so much resolve as blossom around him. He stood on a path of ancient, moss-kissed cobblestones. Each cobblestone was subtly unique, their surfaces warmed by a sun that seemed to pour liquid gold from an impossibly blue sky. He could smell the air here – no lingering whiff of takeout boxes. He could hear the melodic chirping of a dozen different bird species, the contented buzz of fat bumblebees exploring oversized wildflowers, the distant, gentle bleating of sheep from unseen pastures. Before him, a village square, impossibly quaint, pulsed with a quiet, unhurried activity. This was Willow Creek Valley. It was more than advertised; it was a painter’s dream, a poet’s yearning, overwhelmingly, intoxicatingly pleasant.

His form was simple: a male, an idealized echo of his own but imbued with a vitality Elias himself hadn’t felt in years. He worse sturdy, earth-toned trousers, a loose-fitting linen tunic the color of summer sky. 

He’d designed this avatar two months ago. For Alex, he had a system for ranking games. Most games you were in or out in two minutes: the obvious misfits, the garish ad-riddled bloatware games. Then there were those that just failed the hook–those that lasted under 20 minutes. A “good” game, in his mind, was one that you could play for two solid hours and still be having fun. With the NIMS occupying almost every moment of Elias’s non-working and non-sleeping life, he’d gone through hundreds of titles only to discard most of them in under an hour. 

But in the last two months, Willow Creek had become his life.

He still had mixed feelings about his in-game name. He hadn’t wanted to just be “Elias.” Some sims had problems with privacy, and after one “freemium” sim he’d played had ads that would address him by his real name, he had begun to take comfort in the simple act of being addressed by his not-Elias game name, another sign that the game respect itself, its immersion, and in doing so, him. 

He’d chosen a blank slate: “Alex.” Two months later, Elias still found comfort enough in not being “Elias.” 

As “Alex” continued down the creek, he finally left the forest and began to move down through the gentle valley toward the ocean. The horizon stretched out, the waters clearly marking the end of the playable area, but the skybox, the beautiful blue sky, radiated down. No need for suntan lotion. 

All the while, he saw that system prompt (that he didn’t really need): Meet Callum by the docks. The game was great with these little reminders, like quests, whenever a player agreed to do something with an NPC. It changed ‘go fishing with your friends’ into something that felt a bit like a quest.

As he approached the docks, he saw a man with broad shoulders, a gentle beard, and a flannel shirt sitting at the end of the docks. His feet dangled close to the crashing waves. He had a bait bucket beside him on one side, and his fishing line was cast out. As Elias approached, he saw the man turn and look at him with a warm smile. He had a head of thick, sandy blond hair that perpetually looked boyishly tousled. And his blue eyes held only kindness. He was handsome, the beard giving a manliness to his boyish hair that managed a very particular sweet spot mixing ruggedness with vibrant earnestness.

“There you are, Alex! Finally!” The man’s voice had a deep and calming resonance.

“Catch anything, Callum?” Elias asked.

“Not yet. Fish must have been waiting for you!”

It was these little touches that Elias loved. The feeling like Callum had been waiting for Alex. After all, they had agreed to meet here for fishing “last night” in the game. Fishing minigames had once been a staple of sims. But they had always been such a solitary affair. What truly set Willow Creek apart was how it made Elias feel like he really had friends. A community he could be a part of. An anchor for his soul.

With an easy flick of his wrist, Elias’s own fishing reel materialized in his hand. With that, he sat down, and cast, enjoying the feeling of the sun on his skin, taking in the soft rhythm of the crashing waves.

Just then, Callum’s line went taut. 

“Here we go!” the man said. 

Elias watched Callum work; the fervent gleam in his eye, the thrilled smile on his face, the sound of the line straining against the fish, the whirlwind of movement he reeled the fish in. As the fish came in, it dangled in the air, a fresh catch between them. 

“What do you think?” Callum asked. “Think it’s big enough?”

“Hmm,” Elias asked. Imagine a man asking me my opinion on a fish in the real world, he idly thought. It was so subtle but so pleasant; Callum didn’t eat real food, but he cared about Elias thought, whether he thought it was a good enough catch. “It’s not bad,” he said. “Certainly big enough for your dinner tonight.”

“I think you’re right,” Callum said, nodding in agreement as he unhooked the fish, the thing still wildly flopping about. He used a stringer in quiet, confident movements, to tie the fish and leave it in a large bucket of water on his other side.

Just then, Elias heard a sound coming from up the docks. He turned, and there she was. Lena.  

She moved with an unhurried grace, the very embodiment of the valley’s gentle spirit. Her face was open and warm. Framing her head was a cascade of soft auburn hair, the color of autumn leaves catching the afternoon sun, tied back loosely with a simple green ribbon. Her eyes, the precise shade of warm honey, crinkled at the corners as an unrestrained, welcoming smile lit her features. She wore a dress patterned with tiny, delicate wildflowers – forget-me-nots and buttercups – and a cardigan the soft, hopeful green of new spring leaves. By now, Elias knew she had a range of dresses and aprons, each cute and friendly–balloons or flowers, depending on the day and the season. She walked forward with a picket basket hanging gracefully from one of her arms. 

“Caught something already?” ashe asked. Once, she had been the greeter character, one of the more developed NPCs in the game. But in the last two months, she had become his friend, one of his best friends, along with Callum. 

As she reached them, she leaned forward and Callum gently kissed her on the lips.

Then, she gently opened her picnic basket, and showed off some perfect-looking sandwiches with bright white bread. “Betty says hi,” Lena said.

Elias knew he was a bit of an odd man out as far as Willow Creek play activity went. By now, most people were in a committed relationship with one of the standard romanceable NPCs of the town–for many, Betty the Baker. He hadn’t turned Betty down, but he had slow-rolled the relationship with her. 

The thing was, lots of games did romance. He’d banged all types of women, aliens, and demons in his various virtual escapades. But usually, after he did the hookup, the game’s romance ran out of steam–not a lot of games were interested in doing anything narratively interesting with a relationship after sex. 

Moreover, so few games did sweetness. So few games did friendship well. So while a lot of the playerbase was building up to date after date with Betty (or Barry the Blacksmith), Elias had spent a lot more of his time helping Callum and Lena keep their relationship burning. It was so much more fun just being able to know that Callum was always down for another adventure, a hike, a fishing day, whatever. To just have friends.

“Give Betty my regards,” Callum said, as he took a sandwich, and then watched as Callum pulled out a small silver necklace.

“Oh, Callum!” Lena said, smiling at him. Elias watched as he slipped it around her neck. “Just finished it this morning,” he said.

Elias smiled. He always thought it was interesting that the game put thought into how to continuously dramatize the love between Lena and Callum as something natural; he knew it was, at some level, supposed to be a tutorial for the player’s relationship with Betty (or Barry). And yet for the player, it was too obviously mechanized, since everyone knew you needed to keep up the gifts to maintain a high ‘romance rating,’ even if the game tried to black box it and hide the rating from the player. But among the NPCs, where it had no mechanical consequence, it felt so much more natural and genuine.

They all sat down again, their lines going back out, as they ate their respective sandwiches, looking out over the ocean, the cool breeze gently tousling their hair.

“Do you ever wonder what’s past it?” Lena asked.

“Past what?” Elias asked. 

“The end of the ocean,” Lena said.

Elias was always impressed by the emergent dialogue the NPCs presented in the game. They didn’t always just sit around waiting for a player to say something. Although this seemed like a silly thought, at the moment.

“‘Future downloadable content,’” Elias quietly muttered.

Lena paused and looked at him. “What do you mean?”

He kicked himself. He shouldn’t break his immersion, in part because doing so often could degrade the NPC conversations, he’d heard.

“I’m sorry,” Elias said. “Nonsense joke.”

The moment was interrupted by Elias’s line going taut. His own fish!

He hurriedly stood up, looking down, trying to spot it. The line pulled against his hands as he began to furiously reel it in. He took in a deep breath, the line straining, the whole rod pulling forcefully against his hand.

Finally he saw the fish rise up out of the ocean water, still squirming at the end of the line, as he pulled it up.

“It’s a beauty!” Callum said, patting Elias on the shoulder.

“I hope you’ll be willing to share some with me,” Lena said, smiling at him.

It was so much better with them here. 

“A new record,” Elias said, grinning. He’d achieved something, something that had impressed his friends. And which he could (virtually) eat tonight. Dinner! He was good at this. Here, in Willow Creek Valley, he mattered. He belonged.

“I don’t think we’re topping that one tonight!” Callum said. “I think that’s enough for now. Let’s give the ocean a fighting chance.” 

Callum began to pack up his line. As he was doing so, Elias felt Lena gently pat his shoulder.

“You know something, don’t you?” she asked.

“Hmm?” Elias asked.

“About this world.” 

Elias paused, looking at her. Oh, he thought. Have I broken her dialogue scripts?

“Uhhh,” he said, stalling, saying nothing.

She looked up at him with those honey-colored eyes. Then she brightly smiled. “Hey Alex, would you like to go for a walk tomorrow morning by the river? Just you and me?”

Odd. It sounded more like a romance option, like he’d thrown off her script somehow.

“Without Callum?” he asked. 

“I have work at the blacksmith’s,” Callum said. Indeed, Callum was the apprentice to Barry the Blacksmith. 

Lena simply gestured at Callum, emphasizing his business. 

“Sure, I suppose,” Elias said. That’d be a good time to figure out what was going on with her script.

He certainly didn’t want to lose Lena, one of his best friends in this world or the other, over a few simple bugs in her scripting. One good talk by the river, he figured, and this whole thing would be sorted out.

00010: Quiet Questions

The night had gone well. They’d cooked the fish over an open fire, the meat succulent, as Callum and Elias drank a sweet cup of Callum’s home-brewed honey mead. The mead was a bit sweet for Elias’s taste, but somehow, that only made it feel ‘more authentic.’ As usual, Elias guided the conversation away from Betty, that potential relationship the common point of gossip for Lena and Callum. Instead, the trio had sat out under the stars, looking up, as their campfire slowly waned, while Callum took out a banjo and played a merry evening tune. I should learn an instrument in the real world, Elias thought to himself, watching him work. Fishing, smithing, brewing, playing–Callum seemed so whole, so complete, as a person, even if his dialogue wasn’t overly verbose or elaborate. It wasn’t the first time that Elias had thought of Callum not just as a friend but as a kind of aspiration, the type of man he should strive to be in the real world.

Finally, before the moon was fully risen, Elias had retreated to his own home, a cottage on the edge of the woods. For a moment he’d hoped that was the end of the matter, but to his surprise, there was an organically generated ‘system prompt’ to meet Lena by the river the next morning–the same sort that appeared whenever he agreed to something with an NPC.

Morning dawned over the distant, mist-wreathed hills, painting the valley in hues of rose and amber. Elias awoke in a comfortable, hand-stitched quilt bed to the sound of the gentle insistence of birdsong outside his window and the aroma of baking bread wafting from the village. The game really wants me to get with Betty, he mused to himself. Olfactory reminders of her ‘love’ at the start of each morning were an unsubtle touch, although he supposed he could hear the very distant bangs of Barry at the smithy too. 

He was a bit nervous heading out. Callum was his best friend, and he didn’t want to do anything that would hurt him. Lena was just an NPC, of course, they both were, but the idea of cheating with her, especially when Betty was right there, just over in the bakery, would be needlessly cruel, antithetical to this pastoral fantasy. He needed to make sure this didn’t somehow veer into a romance with Lena.

He’d set things right, figure out what this bug was. It couldn’t be that hard.

The morning air was cool and refreshing as he wandered past the willow trees along the path until he spotted her. 

She held a small, intricately woven willow basket, its handle already looped over her arm, just like yesterday by the docks. She was always prepped for a picnic. Her auburn hair caught the morning light, creating a fiery halo, and her smile was as bright and welcoming as the simulated sunshine itself.

“Morning, Alex!” she chirped, no hint of flirtiness in her voice, pure friendliness.

Was this all a false alarm? Just a friendly walk along the creek?

“Good morning, Lena,” he said, and fell into step beside her, the duo moving beside the creek, past the dreamy reeds, hearing the woodpeckers’ distant rhythms, the far off clang of Barry the Blacksmith soon fading entirely. It was just them out here.

One of the things Willow Creek npcs were fairly good at was initiating conversations, not always waiting for players to take the lead. That was good, because Elias still didn’t want to start this conversation. He wanted to see where she was coming from.

“It’s a good life here, isn’t it, Alex? Simple.” 

“Absolutely!” he said. “I love it here.”

She paused. A fleeting, thoughtful expression, like a cloud briefly obscuring the sun, passed across her face. “You never feel like sometimes the cycles can feel a bit… repetitive?” She turned her honey-colored gaze to him, a faint, almost imperceptible shadow in their depths. 

Alex laughed. Every game became repetitive in certain ways if you played it long enough. “Of course it is,” he said, not disagreeing. “But that’s part of its charm. The consistency.”

“You know I still remember when you first showed up,” she said. “I was your ‘greeter,’ remember?”

Odd for her to bring that up. It was the ‘least immersive’ part of the game, since she had welcomed to this world, to the town, and to his cottage two months ago. Maybe part of that program, being the only NPC coded to directly acknowledge the outside world, was part of what was making her coding act up now?

“Yeah, I remember,” he said, a bit nervously.

“But you’re not just from another village,” she said. “You’re really… from somewhere else.”

Oh no. He must have really messed up her scripts! But what to do now? Report the bug. But how much of ‘his Lena’ would they reset? Would that ruin things for Callum? Or did he dare lie?

No. Lena was his friend.

Well. He’d gotten himself into a mess. Stop digging, or see how deep the rabbit hole leads?

“Yes,” he said. “I’m from what, to me, is the real world,” he admitted. After two months of spending days at a time with her, with thinking of her as one of his best friends, it was strange to say this. “But… I think Willow Creek is better than the real world, honestly.”

“What’s it like?” she asked.

“It’s darker,” he said. “There’s a lot more people. A lot more. There’s more grey, less green. More poverty, less hope.”

She looked at him with wide eyes. “Poverty?” she asked.

“Indeed,” Elias said. “Like if there were people in Willow Creek who didn’t have a cottage to go to at the end of the day. Or didn’t have a fishing reel to go fishing. Or money to buy Betty’s bread.”

She took a deep breath, a thoughtful expression. “Is it strange that I wish I could see it, all the same?”

Elias’s breath caught in his throat. “You’d want to leave Willow Creek?”

She closed her eyes for a moment, and looked down. “I would.” 

Elias paused, staring at her for a moment. But she was so happy! The perfect greeter, the happy librarian, everyone’s friend. Beautiful and charming and… and… happy! When he’d asked the question, he was surprised she’d want to visit somewhere as grim as the real world at all. But the way she’d answered suggested this was far beyond a simple desire for real-world tourism. 

He really looked at her, at her on her own, and was shocked at how forlorn she seemed.

“But… Callum!” he said. “Don’t you love him?”

This was disappointing in its own way. More than a few of his ‘errands’ in town had involved solidifying those two as a happy relationship, people he could count on to be his friends.  

“How do I put this,” she said. “I feel like I was supposed to love Callum. I certainly like him. I wouldn’t want to hurt him,” she said. “But Alex,” and hearing that name, he was reminded that she was still talking to his avatar, “I want to know what it’s like to go beyond the horizon.”

Elias considered this. He desperately wanted nothing to change. For her to be his friend.

But… was he really being a friend to her? If she truly, genuinely, needed to see beyond, could he really deny her that and still pretend they were friends?

“How…” he paused. “How can I help?”

00011: Kayak

The kayak had been a fun project. For three days after talking with Lena, they’d met at the woods near the shore and been working on their new ‘secret project.’ Lena had asked to try to ‘go beyond the horizon’ – at first, Elias had really thought she meant to actually leave their world, but the more he talked to her, the more he was unsure whether she truly understood what that would mean. 

In any case, even going ‘beyond the horizon’ for an NPC like her was an interesting experiment. After all, when Elias had first arrived at Willow Creek, he had arrived via a steam ship, a rustic, retro ship. Anymore, he only barely remembered the bearded captain and his white jacket. But it did feel like the game associated crossing the ocean as exiting ‘this world.’ And so, they had begun an initial experiment: the kayak. 

Building in Willow Creek had always been easier and more fun than building in the real world. But unlike ‘survival crafters,’ it also gave some weight to choices – when he cut down a bit tree, the stump remained for the whole remaining day; it didn’t just regrow immediately. Then, he’d set to carving out a seat, before going into experimentation about how to keep it stable and upright. 

Give his novice approach to woodworking, he opted for an outrigger design, with a lateral float off to the side to help stabilize the whole thing. Lena didn’t do very much of the crafting at all at first, although she did watch how he worked with a greater degree of interest and focus than he was used to. Usually the ‘player’ was off crafting and working on their own. It was strange to see his ‘video game’ actions being seen by an NPC, although whether she took what he was doing as normal or not, he was unsure. 

Finally, he thought it was ready to go. Lena cheered him on as he dragged it down to the shore, stepped inside, and began paddling. 

Out on the ocean water–very calm–he felt the sun on his skin and the wind in his hair. Player-based kayaks were of course a pretty regular crafting option. It’s not like these models were built on the fly. And yet, knowing he had built this for Lena made it far more exciting than usual. 

Having proven the kayak could make it out at least a dozen or so yards out into the ocean without incident, he rowed back to shore, and stood up to hand the paddle to Lena.

For half an instant, he wondered whether this would be the point where it all fell apart. Could she even pick up the paddle?

But no–she could–it wasn’t an issue at all.

Only for a moment did Elias wonder what would happen if it worked, what would Callum think? This had, he supposed, been his little secret with Lena these last few days.

But, another part of him felt pretty sure it wouldn’t work. So he didn’t worry about it too much one way or another. 

So, soon, after a push-off from Elias to get the kayak clear of the beach, she began to row out.

“Go get ‘em, Lena!” he called. He smiled as he watched her row.

She was doing great! Stroke after stroke, she was making great time out into the ocean–but then, before she was more than fifty yards out, he saw her turn around and start heading back to shore. 

As she docked on the beach, he reached down to help her out of the kayak. 

“Well that was a great first foray,” he said, looking at her curiously. “But, I’m surprised you came back so soon. Get tired or something?”

“No,” Lena said, looking a bit absent-mindedly at the sky. “I just remembered that it’s nearly time for my shift at the library.”

“What?” Elias asked. “But what about going beyond the horizon?”

“I know!” she said. “I want to go! I want to see what’s out there!” she shook her head, looking frustrated with herself. “But as soon as I was out on the water, I just couldn’t get my shift at the library out of my head. Most of the time, when I’m going to hang out with you, I can skip a shift and really no one minds. But as soon as it was just me out there, it was like all my duties and obligations just came flooding back to me.”

“I see,” Elias said, considering all this. “But you don’t seem to be in a rush now.”

“No, as soon as I was back on shore, I felt fine explaining all this to you. I don’t know what came over me.”

“It must be your programming,” Elias mused. “When you’re around a player character, your regular scripts give priority to collaborative player actions. But once you’re far enough away from the player, your routine scripts kick back in.”

“Scripts? Programming? Player character?” Lena asked, looking up at him with those brown eyes and burgundy hair in utter bafflement. 

“Basically, so long as we’re hanging out together, you can do what you want, but when you’re on your own, you fall back into your usual habits.” 

“Huh,” Lena said. “You might be right.”

“I guess I should have made a canoe,” Elias said. “But give me a few more days, and I’ll have a second kayak ready.”

“Okay,” Lena said. “Let’s try again in a few more days.”

So Elias once again set to it. They’d come down, and as she was staring at him, he bought some paints and left them for her with the first kayak.

“What’s this for?” she asked.

“Well, you must be getting bored. I thought you’d want to decorate your kayak.”

“Oh! Thanks!” she said. And so as Elias built the second kayak, Lena decorated the first kayak in soft, autumnal leaf designs. 

The days flew by, and soon they set off together, on two kayaks, heading out into the ocean. This time they got much further. Out… to the horizon.

Finally, after hours of paddling–Elias was shocked that Lena hadn’t gotten tired once–they turned and looked back and saw that Willow Creek wasn’t in sight. They had crested the horizon, incredibly.

“There it is,” Elias said. “We’re over the horizon.”

“How far are we from where you come from?” Lena asked, looking at the open expanse of ocean around them. 

How to tell her?

“I think it’s still a long way off,” Elias said. “To be honest, I don’t know how to get there except on the steam ship.”

“Oh,” Lena said, and it was like all the magic had vanished from her voice at once. “So we can’t just paddle there on our own?”

“I mean, I didn’t know we couldn’t,” Elias said. “But now, I think it’s clear that it’s a lot harder than it looks.”

“But I don’t know that they’ll let me on the steam ship without a ticket,” Lena said. “And I don’t know how to buy a ticket.”

Elias pondered. “Huh.”

There was a long pause, and Lena said, “Let’s go home.”

Elias nodded. “Alright Lena,” he said. “Let’s go home. And next, we can start figuring out that steam ship.”

“Okay,” she said, and looked at him with what he could only describe as genuine hope.

00100 – Covering for Her

Back in the oppressive confines of his real-world apartment, the NIMS circlet rested like a discarded crown on his nightstand. The city’s relentless hum felt louder, more intrusive, the air thick with the smell of stale takeout. He’d forced down a lukewarm bowl of instant noodles.

Lena’s earnestness, the raw, almost desperate flicker of hope in her deep brown eyes had felt far too genuine for mere scripting. But that’s probably why they made it that way, right? But then he second-guessed himself. 

Was this quest from Lena a bespoke, human-written story, or something that emerged from the procedural logic of emergent gameplay? Had his occasional 4th wall breaks been guiding her into this procedural tunnel? 

He supposed, given how advanced the AI was, the game had to be reliant on procedural storytelling. In that case, maybe this wasn’t a pre-written, scripted question, but an emergent behavior, stemming from the NIMS system’s unparalleled ability to simulate nuanced emotion. 

Of course “Lena” was simply a remarkably sophisticated algorithm, meticulously designed to provoke exactly this kind of profound player investment, to blur the lines of emotional engagement.

When he logged back in the next simulated morning, the crisp, dew-kissed air of Willow Creek Valley instantly flooded his senses. He could smell the digital honeysuckle from the vine climbing his cottage porch. “Alex” materialized by his cottage, the world around him already humming with the gentle activity of a new day. 

Lena was waiting for him. 

Seated on the small, weathered wooden bench beside his front door, her hands clasped neatly in her lap. She looked up as he approached, a hesitant, almost fragile smile gracing her lips. There were subtle shadows beneath her eyes that hadn’t been there before, a faint tension around her mouth.

“Alex. Good morning,” she said, her voice a little softer than usual, lacking its customary bright chirp. “Thank you again… for agreeing to help. It means more than I can say.”

“Morning, Lena,” Elias-as-Alex replied.

“So…” she said. “The dock?”

“The dock,” he said, nodding.

They went down to the dock, where Elias had first arrived in Willow Creek. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see–the steam ship had dropped him off as part of the opening for the game, and he’d never seen it again since then. He didn’t need to use the steam ship to log off–just going to sleep in his own bed at his cottage would do that.

To his surprise, though, he did find an old man down at the dock, a man he didn’t recognize. The man had on a blue uniform and had a bushy white beard. A portly man, he seemed fastidious in making little adjustments to a booth along the dock–even though there was no one else around, and Elias had never seen anyone come down here.

“Oh, hello friends!” this strange new jolly man called.

“Hi there,” Elias said. “Who’re you?” He could sense Lena hovering just a bit behind him. It was a normal sort of NPC follow animation, perhaps, but it made him feel like a leader–like a protector.

“I’m Jerry,” the man said. “Sorry, I’m not really ready yet, just getting set up.”

“Set up for what?” Elias asked.

“For trips to Choco-land!” the man said, smiling broadly.

Oh of course, Elias mused. Choco-land was the fabled next big game from the developers, a game about a novelty dessert maker. It was probably still a long-ways-off, in development time. So it seemed this was either some sort of in-game advertisement, or initial pre-planning for a world-connection-hub between the two games. 

“Tell me, do you know if my friends from Willow Creek would be able to go with me to Choco-land?” Elias asked, nodding to Lena.

“I’m afraid I won’t know that for a good long while,” Jerry said. 

Of course. The game was ages away from release. 

“Say,” Elias said. “I came to Willow Creek on a steam ship. I was wondering, was it possible to ride that ship again?”

Jerry nodded. “There is, if you’re inclined to exit the world with a cinematic.”

“Exit the world…?” Lena whispered from behind Elias. 

“Huh. And could Lena ride the steam ship on her own?”

“No,” Jerry said, chuckling lightly to himself. This was surprising–so rarely did this game straight up tell him no. “Why would she want to do that?”

“You won’t give me a ticket?” Lena asked, a bit surprised.

“I won’t sell you something that won’t do you any good,” Jerry said. “I’m not going to fleece someone out of their hard-earned money!”

“How much are the tickets again?” Elias asked.

“Oh, they’re free.”

Elias just stared at the man for a moment.

“Well, what if I want to bring Lena with me?”

Jerry stared at him with a neutral, flat expression, his body totally still. And then continued staring at him.

Then, all at once, Jerry, broke into a smile, and said, “Oh, hello friends!”

“You okay there, Jerry?” Elias asked.

“What happened to him?” Lena whispered from behind him.

Jerry just continued on, “Oh, yes, I’m fine, I’m just not really ready yet–still getting set up!”

“You’ve said all this before,” Elias said. “Did you glitch?”

Jerry paused for a moment, then said, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

Elias paused. Jerry was a new addition, just a minor character to start setting up connections to a game that wasn’t even finished being made yet. But he seemed to also have taken on the role of setting up tickets for the steam ship. This whole infrastructure was clearly new and still a bit buggy. Maybe that would be an opportunity. 

“I’d like two tickets for the steam ship,” Elias said.

“Oh certainly,” Jerry said, and handed him one ticket.

“I said two tickets,” Elias said. 

“I’m sorry, but you already have a ticket,” Jerry said.

“Okay, give one to Lena, please,” Elias said, gently nudging Lena forward.

Jerry paused, staring at Lena. Then, after a long moment, he turned to Elias and smiled and said, “Oh, hello friends!”

Elias sighed. They’d gotten a ticket, but it was broken. 

“Nevermind,” Elias said, and waved Lena back away from the glitchy Jerry.

“What was wrong with that poor man?” Lena asked.

“He was glitching,” Elias said. “A new, buggy addition to the game.”

“Strange,” Lena said. 

“Anyway,” Elias said. “Here.” And he reached out to give her the ticket. 

She reached out to take it, but then, to both of their surprise, her fingers passed right through it. 

She could hold the kayak paddle. But she couldn’t hold the steamship ticket. 

“I guess it’s not implemented yet,” Elias said. 

“Why can’t I touch the ticket,” Lena said, waving her fingers through the ticket one more time, passing through like mist. 

“It must be restricted to players only for now,” Elias mused. “Although maybe we can sneak you on.”

“Okay,” Lena said. “Let’s sneak on!” She had a mischievous smile on her face.

And so that was the plan. With Elias’s ticket, there was a set time for the steamship to show up. And right on cue, he saw it come up over the horizon and begin sailing in toward the Willow Creek dock. As it came up, he first waved through his ticket, and Jerry let him through onto the ship, but as Lena came up, Jerry put up a hand and said, “Ticket, please.”

Lena looked from Jerry to Elias-as-Alex and said, “Alex has it.”

Elias reached over and tried to hand Lena the ticket, but her hand still couldn’t hold it, and it fell down to the ground – and then vanished entirely. 

“Ticket please,” Jerry said again. Lena tried to simply step past him, but he held up an arm and said, “Sorry, only ticketed passengers.”

“But it’s a free ticket!” Elias said.

Jerry shook his head. “Only ticketed passengers.”

With that, Elias hopped off, and walked with Lena away from the dock, watching as the steamship sailed away without them.

“I’m sorry,” Lena said. “I didn’t think this would be so much hassle.”

“It’s okay,” Elias said. “Maybe if I get a ticket for the steamship, I can throw you a rope if you go out on a kayak.”

“But if I’m on a kayak,” Lena said. “My… my… script?” Elias nodded. “My script will have me want to go back to the library.”

“Right,” Elias said. “But maybe we can do something about that. What if you didn’t need to go back to the library.”

“But I work at the library,” Lena said.

“I know,” Elias said. “But I can get a job at the library too–and then I can cover your shift!”

“Oh wow!” Lena said. “Would you do that?”

“Yeah!” Elias said. “And then, maybe we could see if you could kayak out further.”

It wasn’t hard at all to get a job at the “Willow Creek Library & Community Hub.” It was a charming two-story building with leathered local stone for walls, partially clad in a thick blanket of ivy. Its doors were dark, age-seasoned timber. The next day, Elias met Lena at the entrance there. 

“Okay, let’s see if it helps your kayaking,” Elias said. “I’ll take your shift. See if you can’t kayak further out–to the docks, maybe.”

“Okay,” Lena said. But then an earnest plea filled her eyes. “But just for a bit. Mrs. Higgins is expecting me to reshelve the new acquisitions in the local history section, and Old Man Fitzwilliam will undoubtedly be in to lodge his weekly complaint about the font size in the latest batch of large-print westerns.” She offered a faint, tired smile. 

With this, Lena produced a neatly folded apron from her worn leather satchel. It was a sturdy, practical garment of unbleached linen, with a large front pocket embroidered with a surprisingly detailed rendering of a bookshelf overflowing with tiny, colorful tomes. “This is my work apron,” she explained, her voice low. “The system uses it to clock me in, essentially. When I’m wearing this within the library’s designated operational zone, it registers ‘Lena_NPC_Instance_001: Active_Work_Cycle.’ If you wear it…”

“Really?” Elias asked. “You’ve noticed the cycles the system uses to keep track of you?”

“Well, I always saw ‘notifications,’” she says. “But I never thought they meant anything. After you started talking about scripts the other day, I tried paying attention to them.”

“That’s brilliant,” Elias said.

“Thank you,” Lena said. “I’m still so new to this, but there’s so many things in my life that… well, I never realized I was programmed to do them that way…”

She handed him the apron. It felt surprisingly substantial, the linen cool and slightly stiff. As he tied it around his avatar’s waist, over his simple tunic, he noticed an immediate, subtle shift in his posture. His shoulders seemed to round slightly, his stance becoming less assertive, more… accommodating? He glanced down. The apron strings, seemingly of their own accord, had tied themselves into a neat, small bow at the small of his back, a bow far more delicate and precise than his own male fingers would have typically managed. A faint scent of dried lavender and old books seemed to emanate from the fabric.

“Good luck,” Elias said, stepping in toward the library.

“You too,” Lena said, as she hurried toward the beach where the kayak was docked.

And with that, Elias stepped inside, not just in his job, but wearing ‘Lena’s’ apron.

The library was a sanctuary of quiet industry, a haven of analog knowledge in a digital world. Sunlight, thick and golden, streamed through the tall, arched windows, illuminating the millions of dust motes dancing in the still air like tiny, luminous fairies. The scent of aged paper was stronger here, a rich, comforting aroma mingled with the faint, sweet fragrance of beeswax polish used on the ancient oak shelves that lined every wall, crammed from floor to ceiling with books of every imaginable size, shape, and color. 

And so, he began the methodical, strangely calming task of reshelving. The spines of the books felt distinct under his fingertips – the rough, nubby canvas of a historical treatise, the smooth, glossy laminate of a new fantasy novel, the brittle, cracked leather of an antiquarian poetry collection.

Mrs. Higgins, a stout, bustling woman with a cloud of silver-white hair and spectacles perched precariously on the end of her nose, bustled over from behind the main circulation desk. “Oh, Lena, dear, you’re an absolute lifesaver! My sciatica is acting up something awful today.” She didn’t even blink. Her gaze, friendly and slightly frazzled, registered only Lena.

At first, Elias was worried. He looked around, thinking Lena had returned. But Mrs. Higgins was staring pointedly at him. 

“Oh, Mrs. Higgins,” he said. 

Then, to his surprise, a translucent dialogue option shimmered into existence at the periphery of his vision, offering choices:

1. “Happy to help, Mrs. Higgins! How’s that rascal Barnaby’s paw doing after his adventure with the chimney sweep?” 

2. “No problem at all, Mrs. Higgins. Happy to lend a hand.” 

3. “Just doing my job.” 

Elias hesitated. 

Why was he seeing dialogue options? He’d never had that happen before. Was this another ‘bug’ associated with wearing Lena’s apron? Did… she see dialogue options all the time? He’d have to ask her about it.

He figured he might as well try selecting one. 

The first option felt… too much. Too intimate. He selected the second. As soon as he did, he found himself saying, “No problem at all, Mrs. Higgins. Happy to lend a hand.”

The effect was rather surreal. He felt like he had chosen to say those words, but at the same time he knew that he had selected an option. Generally, he’d fallen into believing that his actions in this game were the direct expressions of his will through the NIMS interface. But of course, he supposed much of it was pre-programmed–how he swung an axe, and whatnot.

Mrs. Higgins beamed, her round face crinkling. “Such a dear, you always are.” She then launched into a detailed, five-minute monologue about her cat Barnaby’s latest escapade involving a territorial squirrel, a prize-winning marrow, and the unfortunate intervention of the village vicar. Alex listened, nodding at what he hoped were the appropriate intervals, making small, sympathetic noises. He found himself making almost involuntary gestures – a slight, understanding tilt of the head, a gentle, unconscious clasping of his hands before him – that felt… familiar. He’d seen Lena make those exact gestures a dozen times. Was his taking on her routines, even though he was a player?

When Old Man Fitzwilliam, a curmudgeonly figure leaning heavily on a gnarled hawthorn cane, eventually hobbled in, Alex was more prepared. He listened patiently to the ritual complaints about the font size (“Like trying to read ant-scribbles, I tell ya!”), offered to see if the publisher had alternative large-print editions (another pre-scripted Lena-ism that surfaced in his mind as if it were his own thought), and even managed a gentle, teasing joke about the romantic entanglements of the hero in Fitzwilliam’s current western that made the old man crack a reluctant, wheezing smile.

Lena hadn’t returned. And finally, the shift ended.

As he left the library later that afternoon, the linen apron carefully folded and tucked under his arm, he felt a strange, disorienting sense of accomplishment. He had successfully been Lena, at least in the eyes of Willow Creek Valley’s inhabitants. He glanced at his reflection in the library’s leaded windowpane as he passed. The light was fading, casting long shadows, but he could have sworn his avatar’s jawline looked a little softer, the curve of his cheek a touch more delicate, less angular. He dismissed it again. The power of the apron, he thought wryly. Or perhaps just the dimming light.

But then he stopped himself. With the apron under his arm, he’d been heading home. But that wasn’t right. He should be going to see Lena at the beach.

He forcibly stopped himself, and began to head toward the beach, even though it oddly felt wrong. It was evening–he should be going home. But he managed to ignore the sensation, and finally made his way down.

As he made his way down, he felt a bit at a loss–Lena was nowhere to be seen. Her kayak, with its autumnal colors, was gone. He supposed he could go rowing out after her, but he had no idea if she was still on the water or if she’d docked elsewhere.

Then, just when he was really starting to get worried (what would he tell Callum if something happened to her?) he saw her kayak appear at just the crest of the horizon. 

Finally, she got back in, and Elias helped pull the kayak up onto the beach and help her out. 

“That was amazing!” she cried. “The best day of my life!” She looked so giddy, her eyes full of light and joy that he’d never seen before. “For the whole afternoon, I didn’t feel like I needed to do anything!”

“That’s great!” Elias said. “And you got beyond the horizon!”

“I did!” she said. “All on my own! Not far enough to find ‘the real world,’ but really far!” 

“I’m proud of you, Lena,” Elias said.

“Thank you!” She took a deep breath. “I really don’t want it to stop.”

“Oh?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “Hey, do you want to try something crazy?” 

“Sure,” he said.

“What if…” she thought to herself. “Well, now I feel like I need to get back home, and do my usual routine. But I’m kinda curious, what if you took my cottage, and I stayed at yours?”

“Huh,” Elias said. “Are you sure you’d be okay with that? I don’t want to invade your space.”

“I really want to try it,” Lena said. “I don’t know. My thoughts have been racing this whole afternoon. But now I feel… this urge, this need, to go home, to make dinner, to do all these things. I’m curious… what happens if someone else was doing that stuff? Would I still feel the need?”

“Well, if you want to try it, I say, let’s try it out.”