Wednesday, August 27th, 2042, Coal Harbour, Vancouver, Canada.


    Sophie Kim woke to the soft chime of her phone’s alarm, its digital melody breaking the stillness of her one-bedroom studio apartment in Vancouver. The ULED display of her phone shone brightly, acting as a luminotherapy lamp—an all-too-common sight in a city that gets so little sunlight. Outside her window, the sky was grey and overcast. If you squinted hard enough, you might glimpse a light drizzle, typical for the season. The weather mirrored her mood, though she barely noticed the dim light filtering through the curtains of her twelfth-floor apartment. Living in this city for all twenty-nine years of her life has desensitised her to gloomy weather.


    As she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, memories of the last conversation with Daniel that led to their breakup played on a loop.


    <hr>


    It had started like any normal conversation.


    “Come on, Sophie. This is the perfect setup. I’ve got a steady job, and you’re freelancing. You don’t even need to work all the time if you don’t want to. We move in together, start saving up, maybe kids down the line. I’d support us. No babysitters, no daycare—what’s there to think about?” Daniel had said, his words as familiar as a broken record.


    “What’s there to think about? Everything, Daniel. We talked about this before—over and over—I’m not ready for all that. I like my space, having control over my life.” She had gestured at their shared apartment vaguely. “And this, it’s all too much. Too fast.”


    Her chest had tightened as the words had left her sharper than she had intended. But had he not been listening? Had he not realised how trapped she had felt?


    “Too fast? We’ve been together for years, Soph. What’s there to hesitate about? We’ve proven this works. What else is it going to take for you to see that?”


    “I’m not hesitating!” she had said, cutting him off, her fists clenched in her lap. Her nails had dug into her palms as she had tried to rein in her temper.


    “You are. You always hesitate. Just... stop waffling and decide for once. We could be so much more than... this.”


    He had looked around the small apartment like it had been barely tolerable, exasperated.


    “You want me to decide? Fine. Here you go…”


    She had clenched her hands, gathering her courage.


    “Well, look at that. Finally decisive,” he had said, his voice dripping with sarcasm.


    “... We’re DONE!”


    She had nearly spat out the last word.


    “What?” he had asked, caught totally off-guard.


    “You want a commitment? Then here’s mine. You can go chase your perfect life somewhere else, with someone else. I’m not signing up for it,” she had said before storming out of the apartment.


    <hr>


    At first, they had been a perfect match. Both worked in graphic design and shared a love for movies, novels, and games. They were both active, enjoyed hiking, and even had similar culinary tastes and dietary restrictions—they were both lactose intolerant. But Daniel had kept pushing for his ideal future to settle down, while Sophie needed the freedom to follow wherever the wind would take her. Neither of them had been willing to compromise on that matter, and that had marked the beginning of the end.


    Sophie recalled his ability to command attention had been intoxicating at first. But over time, it became exhausting watching people hang on his every word. They would go to dinner with friends, and somehow, she would end up on the sidelines, listening to Daniel recount stories as if she were not even part of them.


    Not that he meant to leave her out—it was just... she would never get the chance to shine like that. Not next to him: he was tall and beautiful and certainly knew it. He had an undeniable charisma that commanded attention in any situation, and Sophie had found herself completely enthralled from the moment she first saw him.


    As she stared at the grey sky through her twelfth-floor window, she felt a tightness in her chest, the familiar pressure of expectations pressing in. Her parents’ voices echoed in her mind, their well-meaning but persistent questions about when she and Daniel would settle down, get married, start a family. Everyone always seemed to know what she should want—except her.


    She found little reminders of him in her apartment almost every day. Sophie’s eyes glimpsed at the leather-bound notebook Daniel had gifted her, the one where he had suggested she could jot down plans for their life together. She ran her fingers over the cover, remembering how easily he had taken charge of decisions, even the smallest ones.


    “Trust me, I know what’s best for us,” he had said with that annoying, confident smile, as if she had been the unreasonable one for hesitating. And back then, she had wanted to believe him.


    But that confidence—the charm that had once made him so irresistible—had suffocated her over time, pushing her toward choices that were never truly her own.


    Shaking those thoughts away with a groan, Sophie swung her legs over the edge of the bed and grabbed an elastic band from the nightstand, sweeping her long black hair into a quick ponytail. She had worn an oversized t-shirt to bed, something that doubled as a nightgown. For a moment, she considered changing into something else but decided against it—it would do just fine. Sophie chuckled; Daniel would not have let that one slide, no way. But as with most other days, she had no plans to go anywhere today. Not physically, at least.


    The pandemic of 2020 had introduced the world to the wonders of working from home. Back then, it was a pivotal moment for changing work-life balance. But it had not been perfect. Even then, people had to dress up and clean up for the webcam. But now, in 2042? Nearly everything happened in FullDive VR, and your real-life attire or bed hair did not matter one bit to your virtual avatar.


    Sophie stood and walked over to the kitchenette. Eating a proper meal was a luxury for some—either the rich or those who grew up with them and clung to the past. It was much simpler—and cheaper—to let the FullDive machines handle their dietary needs while they indulged in exotic virtual feasts. Not having to count calories was a pretty great perk, she smirked.


    She pulled a clean coffee mug from the dish rack. She made a face. In beautiful script, it read “thinking of you.” Daniel had gifted it to her when he started his corporate career. This had been his way for her to remember him during the day. Allegedly because he could not be near her as much anymore, as if that was the end of the world. In fact, in the weeks prior to the breakup, those hours of separation had felt like the best part of every day.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.


    With a sigh, she dropped the coffee mug into the trash. The notebook swiftly followed—she did not need those reminders today or ever again, she hoped. Daniel’s world had always felt too small for her. Here, in her apartment, she could breathe again, but even now, the emptiness gnawed at her. Escape had never sounded so good.


    Taking a second clean cup, she poured herself a cup of coffee and turned to her phone, looking for anything that could take her mind off things.


    As soon as the screen lit up, the news feed assaulted her senses. She skimmed at all the click bait articles and wondered who ever followed one of those links. But just before she closed the tab, the very top headline caught her attention: A Realm Reforged Again was launching today. There was something familiar about the title, stirring a distant memory. She mentally scolded herself as she clicked on the article and began reading. That’s how, she thought.


    Turns out, the name ringing a bell was entirely intentional: the game was a re-release of a game she used to play. They had intentionally picked a name that would spark nostalgia. The new release was now owned and operated by an entirely different company. Apparently, the original one had gone bankrupt at some point. The banks had auctioned off the intellectual properties and code to pay back their debts. Return on investment, she mused. This game’s code, apparently, had sold for peanuts. There had been very little interest in such an old game that ran on decades old hardware—it ran on consoles from the early two thousands.


    The servers would go live at 10 a.m. Pacific—just two hours from now.


    I wonder how the algorithms knew that I’d care about this release? She mused to herself. Sophie remembered being around sixteen the first time she had logged into the original version. Already, its popularity had already faded by then. It was not surprising—the game had been older than she was, almost two decades old already. The account she had used the first time had not been hers, either. It had belonged to her dad, Kevin Kim.


    As an IT specialist, he had dabbled in games, but had never been a hardcore player. But he had let both of his daughters tinker with this game when they had seen him play on his account. Melanie was the one controlling, and she made a cute human character. The two of them then spent most of the evening playing dress-up with the various outfits available in the game. Their father, amused by their interest, eventually registered free trial accounts, one for each. Her older sister had stuck with the game for the character customisation and glamorous screenshots, but for Sophie, it became much more. She sank countless hours into the world, escaping high school drama and the pressure of figuring out her future. But as life got busy, she had to let go of it. Graduating, moving out, juggling work and college simply took too much of her time. As the years flew by, she simply forgot about the game and her account, everything lost to time.


    But now? The game was back. Not as a legacy server or fan-run emulator, but as a full revamp. New races, new classes, and a new world—yet with familiar systems. The developers claimed they had made these changes, so even veteran players would feel like they were starting fresh. However, the re-release was not just the updated content: they remade the game to work in FullDive VR. That nostalgic memory of sitting in front of a monitor to play the original version felt distant now.


    FullDive conversion of classics was a fairly common practice these days, so that really did not warrant making it to the headlines. No. Something else did, however—According to the article, the developers claimed to have solved one of the most significant issues with VR games: avatar customisation! Historically, the more an avatar’s body differed from a player’s real-life physique, the more likely the player was to experience health problems: dysphoria, dysmorphia, nausea, dizzy spells were the big ones. But there was a veritable host of other awful minor or major possible symptoms. The worst cases recorded had been severe enough to require hospitalisation. As a result, modern FullDive VR games had imposed very strict limits on character customisation. But this company, HexakAI Inc., claimed to have cracked the code, allowing for the customisation that was common during the golden age of MMOs. Sophie missed those days—it had been boring to always be your plain old self in every VR world. Sophie smiled, imagining how Melanie might jump for joy, given that fashion design has become her professional career.


    All of that sounded great. But the article cautioned it might be too good to be true. There were more than a few mysteries surrounding the game that made people uneasy. The game was releasing and had no public closed beta or open beta. In this age where most developers launched with early-access, this was a total surprise. Another oddity was that the developers did not send any pre-release review copies to gaming sites or influencers. They simply had access to screenshots, pre-recorded footage, and a thorough press-release FAQ. No one had actually played the game yet to verify any of the company’s bold claims.


    And the company? HexakAI, itself? They were a total unknown. Investigations showed the company reportedly had fewer than a hundred employees scattered around the globe. Many suspected much of the game’s content had been AI-generated. Artificial Intelligence had come a long way in the last decade, much to the dismay of people in creative fields like Sophie’s.


    Sophie wrapped her hands around her coffee mug, letting its warmth seep through her fingers as she absently scrolled through the screenshots and comments at the bottom of the article. The familiar thrill of anticipation buzzed faintly in the back of her mind. It was still early—9:12 a.m.—plenty of time before the game went live. She did not have to jump in as soon as the servers opened. But why not? Her schedule was clear today: no meetings with clients, no impending deadlines, just her and her coffee, and the faint weight of Daniel’s absence lingering in the apartment.


    Her lips twitched in a faint smile. Maybe today was the perfect day to escape for a while.


    Without a second thought, Sophie opened the game’s online store, purchased the game, and registered a new account. The entire process felt like slipping into a familiar rhythm. The game’s old-school business model—buy-to-play with a subscription—was anachronistic. Had that also been a conscious decision, to appeal to nostalgia, or were the developers just that out of touch with newer trends? As she went through the process, Sophie read they had to wipe all the data off the original servers. That made sense to her. Data privacy laws were pretty important. Any carry-over would’ve been impossible after the IP auction and shutdown. This time, it would not be like the earlier version, where they had thrown veteran players a small token of appreciation for sticking around. No such courtesy. This would be a clean slate for all. A level playing field.


    She finished setting up her new account up within minutes, and with a tap on her phone, her FullDive rig started downloading the game files. A flicker of excitement bubbled up in her chest as she glanced across the room. The sleek, minimalist setup rested in its usual corner—a contrast to the cosy clutter of her apartment. The reclining chair, the neural headset, the neatly coiled cables—it was a workstation, but one that doubled as her escape. Sophie spent hours in that chair—working, chatting with friends, unwinding with a VR movie or two. It was a window into other worlds, but none of those worlds had hooked her quite like the promise of visiting the world of A Realm Reforged Again. It was akin to a homecoming, but not quite. Visiting old friends, for the very first time, if such a paradox was possible.


    She stood up, traced a finger along the rig’s smooth armrest. It was top-of-the-line—an investment she had justified for work, but just as much for herself. She had tried a few VRMMOs over the years, but none of them held her interest. They were fun, sure, but they lacked the depth and connection of the games she used to play. This one, though—this would be different. It was not just another VR title. It was a portal back to her past. To days before work, obligations and relationships.


    Sophie smirked to herself. There was something appealing, too, about the aesthetic choices in this game. Unlike other VR titles, where realism often clashed with player fantasies, this world leaned into beauty. Even the scarier, monstrous races exhibited a kind of idealised elegance. It was a fantasy world where everyone—no matter how fearsome or exotic—looked like they’d stepped out of a high-end fashion spread.


    It was escapism at its finest, Sophie knew, and while part of her found the concept a little ridiculous, she could not deny its charm. After all, sometimes some self-indulgent fantasy was exactly what the doctor ordered.