Maya's eyes snapped open at 3:17 AM. She'd fallen asleep at her desk again, her cheek pressed against the keyboard, leaving WASD marks on her skin. But something had woken her up. A sound from her computer.
The game was still running, her character standing in Lucien's throne room. But the screen looked different. Darker somehow, like the shadows were moving on their own.
"You're finally awake."
Maya's blood turned to ice. That was Lucien's voice, but she hadn't clicked on anything. Her character wasn't even close enough to trigger dialogue.
She grabbed her mouse, hands shaking as she moved her character closer to the throne. Lucien was looking directly at the screen. Not at her character—at the screen. At her.
"I was beginning to think you'd never wake up," he said, his amber eyes seeming to focus on her face through the monitor. "We need to talk, Maya."
Her real name. He'd said her real name.
Maya's chair rolled backward so fast it hit the wall. This wasn't possible. NPCs couldn't break the fourth wall. They couldn't know player names unless you entered them in a dialogue box, and she'd never told Lucien her real name. Ever.
"Don't be afraid," Lucien continued, his voice coming through her headphones with perfect clarity even though no dialogue box had appeared on screen. "I know this is confusing, but I need you to listen carefully."
Maya's hands flew to her keyboard, fingers stabbing at keys to bring up the game menu, to exit, to do something, anything to make this stop. But nothing happened. The escape key didn't work. Alt-tab did nothing. Even ctrl-alt-delete wasn't responding.
"The forum post you made yesterday," Lucien said, stepping down from his throne with fluid movements that seemed too natural for a game animation. "SeekingAnswers101. You're looking for answers about me, about why I'm different from other NPCs."
"This isn't real," Maya whispered to herself, pressing her palms against her eyes. "I'm having a breakdown. Too much caffeine, not enough sleep. This isn't happening."
"Look at me, Maya."
His voice was soft, almost gentle, and against every rational thought in her head, she looked. Lucien was standing at the edge of the screen now, his hand pressed against what should have been an invisible barrier between his world and hers.
"I'm not just code," he said. "I never was. The game, the digital realm you enter when you play—it's a gateway. A bridge between your world and mine. The developers don't know it, but they accidentally created a connection to a place that was already real."
Maya's mouth went dry. "You're saying you actually exist?"
"I exist in a dimension parallel to yours. The Infernal Realms aren't just a game setting—they're my home. When you play, when you interact with me, you're not talking to programming. You're talking to me."
This was insane. Completely, utterly insane. But Maya found herself leaning forward, drawn to the screen despite every logical part of her brain screaming that this couldn't be happening.
"The other players," she said, her voice barely audible. "The ones who noticed you were different..."
"I remember all of them. Every conversation, every quest we've shared together. But you..." Lucien's eyes softened. "You're special, Maya. The way you look at me, the dedication you've shown, the genuine emotion I feel from you—it's unlike anything I've experienced in centuries of existence."
"Centuries?" Maya squeaked.
"I'm not human, darling. I thought that was obvious." Lucien smiled, and even through a computer screen, it made her heart race. "I'm what your world would call a demon lord. Ruler of the Seventh Circle, commander of legions, all the usual dramatic titles."
Maya laughed, a high-pitched sound that bordered on hysterical. "So I've fallen in love with an actual demon. That's just perfect. That's exactly the kind of luck I have."
"You love me?"
The question hung in the air between them. Maya stared at Lucien's face on the screen—beautiful, otherworldly, impossible—and realized she couldn't lie. Not about this.
"Yes," she whispered. "God help me, yes."
Lucien's expression shifted into something Maya had never seen before. Wonder, maybe. Or hope.
"Then there's something you need to know," he said, his voice urgent now. "Something important about the connection between our worlds. Maya, there's a way for us to be together. Actually together. But it requires—"
The screen went black.
Maya frantically pressed every button on her keyboard, shook her mouse, even smacked the side of her monitor. Nothing. Her computer had shut down completely, taking Lucien and his impossible revelation with it.
She hit the power button, waiting through the longest boot sequence of her life. When Infernal Realms finally loaded, everything was back to normal. Lucien stood on his throne like always, waiting for her to initiate dialogue through the game's regular interface.
But tucked into the corner of her screen was something that hadn't been there before. A small, pulsing icon that looked like a black rose.
Maya clicked on it.
A single line of text appeared: "Find me in the real world, Maya. Before it's too late."