Maya's eyes burned like someone had rubbed sand into them, but she couldn't stop staring at the screen. The glow from her monitor painted everything in her cramped studio apartment blue-white, making the pizza boxes and energy drink cans look like props from a horror movie. Her character stood in the throne room of the Infernal Citadel, and there he was again.
Lucien Morningstar.
God, even his name made her stomach do weird things. She'd been playing Infernal Realms for three years now, and she still got that flutter whenever he appeared on screen. The game developers had outdone themselves with this NPC. His dark hair fell perfectly across his forehead, and those amber eyes seemed to look right through the screen into her soul. When he spoke, his voice had this rough quality that made her think of whiskey and cigarettes and bad decisions she'd never been brave enough to make.
"You've returned to me again, little sorceress," Lucien said, his lips curving into that half-smile that made Maya's heart pound like she'd run up six flights of stairs. "Tell me, what brings you to my domain this time?"
Maya's fingers hovered over the keyboard. She'd done this quest line forty-seven times. Forty-seven. She had the dialogue options memorized, knew exactly which responses would boost her reputation points with him, which ones would unlock the secret cutscenes. But every time felt like the first time.
She clicked on the flirtatious response option, even though she knew it would lead nowhere. The game didn't have romance mechanics for NPCs like Lucien. He was meant to be mysterious, untouchable, the kind of character you could admire from a distance but never truly reach.
"Maybe I just missed seeing your charming smile," her character said.
Lucien laughed, and the sound sent shivers down Maya's spine. "Careful, mortal. Flattery will get you everywhere... or nowhere at all."
The interaction ended, as it always did, with Lucien dismissing her character with a wave of his hand. Maya sat back in her chair, running her hands through her unwashed hair. When was the last time she'd showered? Tuesday? Wednesday? The days blended together when you lived on four hours of sleep and survived on takeout and caffeine.
Her phone buzzed. A text from her best friend Jenna.
*Coffee tomorrow? Haven't seen you in weeks. Starting to think you've been abducted by aliens.*
Maya stared at the message. Tomorrow was Saturday, which meant Jenna was free from her marketing job, which meant she'd want to spend hours talking about her latest dating disasters while Maya nodded and made appropriate sounds. The thought of sitting in some crowded café, pretending to care about whether Brad from accounting was relationship material, made her feel exhausted.
*Can't. Working on a project.*
It wasn't exactly a lie. She was working on something, just not the kind of project Jenna would understand. Maya had been learning everything she could about the game's development, studying the concept art, reading interviews with the designers. She'd even found some leaked beta footage that showed early versions of Lucien's character model.
Her phone buzzed again.
*Maya, seriously. When's the last time you left your apartment?*
Maya turned the phone face down and looked back at her screen. Lucien was still there, standing in his throne room with that perfect posture and those perfect features. She'd read somewhere that the character designers had spent two years perfecting his look, using motion capture technology and facial mapping to make him as realistic as possible.
Maybe that was the problem. He looked too real.
Maya had dated exactly three guys in her twenty-six years. Two in college who'd turned out to be jerks, and one coworker who'd been nice enough but boring as watching paint dry. None of them had made her feel the way she felt when Lucien looked at her through the screen. None of them had that confidence, that danger, that way of making her feel like she was the only person in the world who mattered.
She reached for her energy drink, took a long sip, and started the quest line again. Number forty-eight.
"You've returned to me again, little sorceress."