"Gene, you need to come home. Now."
His mother's voice on the phone. But which phone? Gene looked at his hand. Two phones. One Samsung, one iPhone. Wait, no—just one phone. The other had disappeared.
"I am home. I'm in Shanghai. The Zhao family meeting went well. Sister-in-law is the real power, I figured it out—"
"You're in Irvine. In your bedroom. You haven't left in three days."
Gene looked around. His Shanghai apartment. Clean lines, modern furniture, view of Pudong through the window. He could see the Oriental Pearl Tower lit up against the night sky.
"Mom, I'm looking at Shanghai right now. I can see—"
"GENE." Her voice cracked. "Please. Listen to me. You're scaring us. You're talking to people who aren't there. You keep saying you're in meetings but you're just sitting at your desk staring at the wall. Your father found you this morning trying to 'catch a flight' to the airport at 3 AM. You were standing in the driveway in your pajamas."
Gene's head felt thick. Heavy. Like his brain was moving through water.
"That doesn't make sense. I took a shower this morning. Got dressed. Met with Wei at the office. He said I did good work on the Zhao analysis—"
"There is no Wei. There is no Shanghai office. Gene, you had a fever. You've been hallucinating. We had a doctor here yesterday. He said you're having some kind of psychotic break."
"Psychotic break." Gene laughed. The sound came out wrong. Too high. "That's what someone would say if they wanted to discredit me. If they wanted to stop me from—"
"From what? From sitting in your room talking to walls? From writing nonsense in notebooks? Gene, I'm looking at your 'notes' right now. It's just the same words over and over. Shanghai Shanghai Shanghai—"
Gene hung up. No, wait—he didn't hang up. The phone vanished from his hand. Both phones. No phones. He blinked.
He was standing in his bedroom. In Irvine. His parents' house.
When had he gotten here?
No. This was the hallucination. Shanghai was real. The apartment, Wei, the Zhao family, the shadow economy—that was real. This room, his parents, Irvine—this was the fever dream trying to pull him back.
Gene grabbed his laptop. Opened it. His Shanghai work documents were right there. Analysis of the Zhao family power structure. Notes on territorial disputes. Contact information for—
The screen showed his UC Irvine student portal. His spring classes. An email from his academic advisor: "Gene, you've missed three weeks of classes. Please contact me immediately to discuss your academic standing."
Three weeks?
Gene closed the laptop. Opened it again. Same screen.
He checked his phone. Calendar showed today as April 15th. But that couldn't be right. April 15th was when he'd flown to Shanghai. That was weeks ago. He'd been there for—
His door opened. His father stood there, face haggard, eyes red.
"Gene. We need to talk."
"I can't. I have a meeting with the Zhao representatives in an hour. I need to prepare—"
"There's no meeting." His father walked in, sat on the bed. "Son, please. Look at me. Really look at me."
Gene looked. His father seemed older suddenly. Tired. Scared.
"You're not well," his father said quietly. "You had a high fever two weeks ago. Since then, you've been… gone. Not physically. You're here. But you're not really here. You talk about Shanghai, about meetings, about people we've never heard of. Yesterday you spent four hours having a 'conference call' with nobody on the phone."
"The call was real. Wei and I discussed—"
"Gene." His father's voice broke. "Wei isn't real. Shanghai isn't real. You've been in this house the entire time."
"That's exactly what you'd say if you were part of the simulation trying to keep me trapped here." The words came out before Gene could stop them. "Time isn't linear. Reality isn't singular. I've shifted between dimensions. This timeline, the Shanghai timeline—they're both real but operating on different frequencies."
His father's face went pale. "What are you talking about?"
"The fever dream in Taipei taught me how the game works. Then I woke up here. But that wasn't waking up—that was falling asleep. Shanghai is where I actually woke up. Now you're trying to pull me back into the dormant timeline by convincing me it's real."
"Gene—"
"No." Gene stood up. "I understand now. Time can be distorted. Memory is just consciousness experiencing itself across different probability streams. The Taipei dream felt real because it WAS real in another universe. Now I'm in Shanghai—actually there, not here—and this conversation is my consciousness briefly flickering back to a parallel reality where I never left Irvine."
"Please stop." His mother appeared in the doorway, tears streaming down her face. "Please, baby. You're not making sense."
"I'm making perfect sense. More sense than I've ever made. You're the ones who can't see it because you're trapped in linear time. But I've broken through. The Zhao family exists on multiple planes simultaneously. That's how they maintain power—they understand that reality is negotiable."
His father stood up slowly. "We're taking you to see Dr. Morrison."
"A psychiatrist?" Gene laughed. "Of course. Drug me. Sedate me. Pull me back into the single-timeline delusion. That's how they keep people controlled. Convince everyone that this is the only reality, that time only moves forward, that consciousness is trapped in individual bodies."
"Gene, you're scaring your mother."
"Good. Fear means the paradigm is shifting. Comfort is the enemy of evolution." Gene grabbed his phone. "I need to call Wei. Tell him I might be late for the meeting due to interdimensional interference."
He dialed. The phone rang. And rang. And rang.
No answer.
Gene tried another number. The one for the Shanghai office. Went straight to a recording: "The number you have dialed is not in service."
That didn't make sense. Unless—
"They're blocking me," Gene said. "Trying to sever my connection to the Shanghai timeline by disrupting the communication channels."
"There is no Shanghai timeline!" His father's voice rose. "Gene, please. You're sick. We want to help you."
"I'm not sick. I'm awake. For the first time in my life, I'm actually awake."
Gene pushed past them, headed for the door.
"Where are you going?" his mother called.
"The airport. I need to physically re-establish my presence in Shanghai. Strengthen the connection."
His father grabbed his arm. "You're not going anywhere."
Gene jerked away. "You can't stop me. You're not even fully real in this timeline. You're echoes. Projections from my subconscious trying to keep me anchored in the false reality."
"Listen to yourself!" his father shouted. "You sound insane!"
"Insane is a word used by people trapped in consensus reality to describe those who've broken free."
Gene made it to the front door. His mother blocked it, arms spread.
"Please," she sobbed. "Please don't leave. You need help. We love you. This isn't you."
"This is MORE me than I've ever been. The Gene who believed in singular timelines was asleep. I'm waking up."
He gently moved her aside, opened the door.
Outside, the street looked wrong. The colors too bright. The houses slightly off from where they should be. The simulation was breaking down because he was seeing through it.
Gene started walking. No destination. Just movement. If he kept moving, he could slip between realities, find his way back to Shanghai.
Behind him, his parents were calling his name. Crying. Begging him to come back.
But they didn't understand. Coming back meant going to sleep again.
Gene walked faster.
His phone rang. Unknown number.
"Hello?"
"Gene Eu." A man's voice. Familiar. "You missed the meeting with the Zhao family. Wei is disappointed."
Relief flooded through Gene. "I'm sorry. There was interdimensional slippage. I briefly fell into a parallel timeline where my parents tried to convince me Shanghai wasn't real."
"That happens sometimes. The mind resists awakening. But you're back now?"
"I'm getting there. I'm walking. The simulation is breaking down around me. I can see the seams."
"Good. Keep walking. We'll send a car."
"Thank you. Tell Wei I'll have the analysis ready by—"
Gene looked at his phone. The call had ended. Or had it started? He couldn't remember dialing. Couldn't remember answering.
He looked around. He was standing in the middle of a shopping center parking lot. How did he get here? He'd been on his street. Now he was—
A police car pulled up beside him.
"Son, are you okay?" The officer looked concerned.
"I'm fine. Waiting for a car. From Shanghai."
"From Shanghai?" The officer exchanged a glance with his partner. "You mean China?"
"No. Shanghai. The office. They're sending a car."
"Uh huh." The officer got out slowly. "What's your name?"
"Gene Eu. I work for the Shanghai Investment Alliance. There's been some timeline disruption but I'm correcting it now."
"Timeline disruption." The officer spoke into his radio quietly. "Can you give me a phone number? For someone we can call?"
"Wei Zhang. But he's in the other timeline right now so he might not answer."
More police arrived. Then an ambulance. Then his parents, his mother hysterical, his father trying to hold her back while talking to the officers.
"He's having a mental health crisis," his father said. "We've been trying to get him help."
"I don't need help!" Gene shouted. "I need you all to stop trying to pull me back into the sleeping reality! Shanghai is real! Wei is real! The Zhao family is real! Time isn't linear! I've proven it!"
Someone stuck him with a needle.
The world went soft.
Gene's last thought before everything went dark: *This is how they keep us trapped. Chemical restraints on consciousness expansion.*
-----
When Gene woke up, he was in a hospital room.
White walls. Beeping monitors. His wrists had soft restraints.
A doctor sat beside his bed. Young, maybe forty, kind eyes.
"Gene. I'm Dr. Morrison. How are you feeling?"
"Like I've been drugged against my will."
"You were experiencing acute psychosis. Your parents brought you to the emergency room. You were a danger to yourself."
"I wasn't in danger. I was trying to get back to Shanghai."
Dr. Morrison pulled out a tablet. "Gene, there's no record of you ever traveling to Shanghai. Your passport hasn't been used. Your credit cards show no international transactions. You've been in Irvine the entire time."
"The transactions happened in the other timeline."
"I see." Dr. Morrison made a note. "Tell me about the other timeline."
Gene told him everything. Taipei, Steven, Mr. Chen, the fever dream, waking up in Irvine, going to Shanghai, the Zhao family, Wei, the interdimensional slippage. All of it.
Dr. Morrison listened without interrupting.
"That must feel very real to you," he said finally.
"It IS real."
"Gene, what you're describing are symptoms of a psychotic break. The fever, the stress, possibly an underlying condition—your brain created an alternate reality that feels completely real to you. But it's not."
"Or your reality isn't real and mine is. How would you prove which is which?"
"That's actually a fascinating philosophical question. But clinically, we determine reality through consensus. Your parents, the police, the hospital records—they all confirm one version of events. The version where you've been in Irvine."
"Consensus isn't truth. It's just mass agreement on a shared delusion."
"Perhaps." Dr. Morrison leaned forward. "But right now, you need help. We're going to keep you here for a few days. Start you on medication. Help you stabilize."
"You're going to drug me back into the sleeping reality."
"We're going to help your brain process reality in a healthier way."
"What if I refuse?"
"Given your current state, you don't have that option. Your parents have temporary medical authority. But Gene—" Dr. Morrison's voice got gentle. "I'm not your enemy. I want you to get better."
"Better means accepting your version of reality."
"Better means not being terrified all the time. Not seeing conspiracies everywhere. Not losing yourself in delusions."
"They're not delusions."
Dr. Morrison stood up. "Get some rest. We'll talk more tomorrow."
After he left, Gene lay in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling.
Maybe they were right. Maybe Shanghai wasn't real. Maybe he'd created an elaborate fantasy to escape the boredom of Irvine.
Or maybe he was in Shanghai right now, in a hospital, being told that Irvine was the real timeline.
Or maybe both were real.
Or neither.
Time wasn't linear. Reality wasn't singular. Consciousness could fragment across infinite possibilities.
Gene closed his eyes.
In his mind, Wei was waiting. The Zhao family had questions. Shanghai needed him.
But his body was here. Restrained. Medicated. Trapped.
For now.
Gene smiled.
They thought they'd won. Pulled him back. Convinced him he was sick.
But he knew the truth.
And someday, he'd slip between the realities again.
Back to Shanghai.
Back to the real game.
The one they couldn't see because they were still asleep.