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Chapter Text

But never did Henry, as he thought he did,

end anyone and hacks her body up

and hide the pieces, where they may be found.

He knows: he went over everyone, & nobody's missing.

Often he reckons, in the dawn, them up.

Nobody is ever missing.

- Dream Song 29, John Berryman

i. the neighbor

“Please don’t go. Please. Wait.”

“It’s the right thing to do, love. I can’t just let this happen.”

“They’re not gonna let you get away with this. Stay with me, please. You can’t go.” 

“I can’t live knowing this and not doing anything about it... Could you?”

“What about me? And your son?”

A kiss on the forehead.

“I love you, never forget. I’ll be back by the morning.”

“Promise me you’ll be there when I wake up.” 

“Always. I’ll always be there.”

Walking into the bleak, rainy night.

"Wake up."

“Henry? Henry? Is there anyone here named Henry?”

Maura jolted awake from her seat, feeling a sharp tug on the sleeve of her blouse. She glanced up to see a tight-lipped woman with blonde hair that was messily twisted into a long braid, loose strands flying around her head.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but are you Henry?” The woman asked crossly. Propped on her hand was a tray carrying a picture-perfect glass jar of strawberry milkshake, topped with whipped cream, rainbow sprinkles, and cherry. Maura’s eyes traveled to the name tag on her checkered apron, proclaiming “ Hi! I’m Tove ” in a cheery comic sans font that contrasted with her so-done-with-this-job demeanor. 

Maura gaped at the milkshake, unsure of how to respond. “W-well, I…” She took a lengthy pause to think, her gaze drifting away to anything but the person she spoke to. She did this quite often — much to the annoyance of everyone. 

Tove snapped her fingers as if to call Maura back to the world. “I haven’t got all day. So is Henry your name or not?” She stared expectantly with her electric blue eyes that seemed like they were about to pop out at any further second that Maura could not supply a response. 

Is Henry her name? The answer to that was quite complicated, and Maura felt very protective of certain bits of information she could potentially leak if she answered truthfully.

“Sorry, I’m afraid I haven’t ordered any strawberry milkshake,” Maura apologized in the most neutrally polite tone she could muster. She wrinkled her nose, her eyes rolling upwards as if she suddenly remembered something. “Also, I haven’t really got the budget for more orders.” She gestured towards the cup of coffee, the plate of half-eaten waffles, and the printed medical reports with animal diagrams sprawled across the table in her booth.

“Well, no worries, because this shake has already been paid for by someone,” Tove forced a smile through gritted teeth, suggesting that she was tired not only of Maura’s inability to answer her question directly, but of these “special” antics that customers request once in a while. “He told us to call ‘Henry’ to take the order when the shake is ready. You were sleeping at that time.”

“How strange,” Maura blurted out, directed more to herself than to the diner waitress. 

Her full name was Maura Henriette Franklin Singleton. When she arrived at the small coastal neighborhood of Kerberos, she shortened it to Maura Franklin, removing the parts which would arouse any suspicion that she was related to the man who built the place. No one in this town could possibly know her nickname was Henry — only her brother and a few childhood friends teasingly called her so. 

And her brother, by all accounts, was found dead a year ago. 

In this very same town. 

Who could possibly know about her old nickname? She felt a rise of panic in her stomach. Did Mayor Larsen find out? Could he have caught up with her secrets? 

“Listen, I’m gonna set this down now,” Tove asserted and placed the milkshake on top of Maura’s files, the water droplets at the bottom of the jar forming a blot that blurred the printed text around it. She hastily surveyed the diner and leaned towards Maura to whisper, as if someone were listening, “My brother said that the man who asked to leave this wouldn’t stop staring at you, so I’ll stick with my common sense…” 

Before Maura could protest, Tove had already moved onto the next diner booth, taking orders with a tiny notepad. There, the perpetually anxious local priest rested his head a little too comfortably on the shoulder of his “brother”, whom her nosy co-worker Virginia Wilson once described as “horny” (everything Virginia tells her, she has learnt against her will). As the priest pointed to items on the menu, his brother was sneaking suggestive glances towards the mousy blonde-haired young man at the counter, who always seemed so panicked whenever a customer ordered anything that required him to use the espresso machine.

Maura turned her attention back to the jar of strawberry shake and examined it for several minutes without touching it, as if it were a parcel that might contain an explosive. Could Mayor Larsen have ordered one of his assistants to send this as a threat after finding out about her past? No, Eyk was not the type to play roundabout games, thought Maura, assuming she read his personality correctly. If he found out about Maura’s secrets, he would have dropped all his urgent meetings, drove straight to the vet clinic she worked at, and angrily demand that she confess the truth, startling the pets waiting outside her room.

Still, there was no other man in town who could have sent her such a teasing message. She glanced around the diner, searching for any trace of a man that looked suspicious, but the only customers left were her, the priest, and his brother (Were they … giggling and kissing? Something to tell Virginia in exchange for more town information that could be useful to her.)  

Maura supposed that the shake could not be poisonous, since it went directly from the waitress to her. As she began to sip from the paper straw, she caught the mousy blonde boy at the counter gawking at her, and Tove slid beside him, whispering into his ear. 

If she was being poisoned, then it’s too late for her to back out; the jar was quickly emptied before she realized it. She had no memory of ever enjoying the taste of strawberry — yet at that moment, she realized that it’s the unnamed flavor she had been craving on the rainy nights she couldn’t sleep. 

However, this was no match for the surprise that Maura found at the bottom of the jar, leaving her open-mouthed and confused: a golden ring that glistened against the dull ceiling lights of the shabby diner. 

She helplessly looked over to the counter, where both Tove and the mousy blonde boy, presumably her brother, shrugged in perfect synchrony. 

“Congratulations,” the boy said weakly. 

Tove elbowed him in the stomach and he scowled. 

“Miss Franklin, i-is that yours?” 

Maura cursed under her breath. Not now. 

Mayor Larsen, wrapped in his sophisticated brown overcoat, was right in front of her. He slowly took off his black fedora, the light revealing the lines on his wearily handsome face, staring at the ring in horror. 

Maura forgot that she told him where she was headed after work. 

“Did you… have some sort of a date ?” Eyk uttered in confusion and, perhaps, Maura sensed, disgust. 

“I can explain.”

Maura did not, in fact, explain. Well, not everything at least.

As he drove her back home on this rare occasion he was not drunk (though the sight of the ring might send him into a binge), Mayor Larsen interrogated Maura worse than her first job interview. Luckily, she had a talent for dodging details by highlighting other unnecessary ones. In particular, she did not want him to know about the “Henry” ordeal that could reveal her identity, so she focused on the strange man who might have sent the ring and expressed worry about her safety. He weirdly seemed to be alarmed by this far more than the current state of the town, considering the crimes that have been increasingly committed lately. 

Despite his reputation for being distracted and incompetent at his job, Maura could not help but empathize with Mayor Larsen, since his wife died under mysterious circumstances that were similar to her brother’s. The two of them have been investigating these deaths for almost a year now, and this strange strawberry shake man was an interesting development that may or may not be related to the case. 

Mayor Larsen was keen on catching the “stalker”, as he termed it, and warned her not to touch the ring, so that they can bring it tomorrow morning to the police station for forensic analysis. He insisted on keeping the ring inside the jar, so Maura simply put the entire thing in her handbag (Thankfully, Mayor Larsen paid the siblings from the diner to cover the cost of the jar.)

However, Maura absolutely had no plans to give the ring to the police. She was going to figure this out on her own. Trust nobody but yourself , as her father once told her. Although she found Mayor Larsen useful in her investigation of the truth about this town, she often withheld information from him, and she knew he did the same to her.

The waitress named Tove and her brother, Krester, did not help much. Mayor Larsen questioned them on the man’s appearance, so Tove pointed to her brother, claiming that he was the only one who saw the man, while Krester, his face turning white as a sheet, excused himself because his cat, Ada, was allegedly sick. 

“That boy seemed suspicious, don’t you think? Like… he was hiding something,” Mayor Larsen spoke as they drove past pale, identical bungalow houses that reminded Maura of the scale model towns on seaside cliffs that she and her brother used to play with in her father’s office.  

Maura nodded slowly. “Hmm. Yes, I suppose so. He seemed a bit scared, so I don’t think he meant any harm.” She leaned her head against the window, focusing on the reflections of waves from the sea that extended into the purple-hued horizon, a reminder of both infinite possibilities and this prison of a town. 

“We could come back tomorrow at the diner and ask him together again,” he suggested. “I mean, if you’d like.” 

The car halted by the sidewalk, under the light of a lamp post buzzing with moths. They have arrived at Maura’s house, another indistinguishable roofed box in the solemn neighborhood. 

“I’ll think about it,” Maura shyly responded, avoiding his gaze. After a beat, she decided to open the car door and hop out. “I’m quite busy tomorrow.”

Mayor Larsen reached out to touch her wrist and she felt a momentary buzz through her skin. “Would you like me to keep you company tonight, Miss Franklin? In case of any… intruder?” 

“No, Eyk,” she refused firmly. “Go back home to your daughters. They probably miss you.” 

“Of course.” He stared at her apologetically, tears seeming to form at corners of his eyes at the mention of his kids. “Ring the office if any emergency comes up.”

“I will,” Maura softly said, feeling sorry for rejecting his advances, or whatever they might be, once again. 

So far, nothing has ever happened between Maura and Eyk that went beyond looking into each other’s eyes, brushing hands, and embracing intensely. Maura could not deny the special bond they have formed as a result of their similar cases of grief, but neither of them ever had the guts to go further. It all felt wrong somehow, and it did not help that Maura, by default, always guarded herself quite strongly against anyone getting too close to her.

Just as Mayor Larsen was about to say another word, heavy droplets of rain began falling from the sky, and Maura had to duck under her lab coat. “Sorry, I have to go now,” she shouted over the multitudes of raindrops thumping against the concrete ground. Mayor Larsen sounded like he said something before his car drove away into the darkness, but she could no longer comprehend it. 

Scurrying to her porch, Maura reached into her handbag and scrambled for her keys. However, when she looked up to her door, someone else was already there. 

The man appeared to be startled by the sight of Maura, more than she was alarmed at the sight of him. He froze midway into unlocking her door with a key like hers in his shaking hand, having the air of a frantic child caught by his mother stealing food from the fridge rather than an intimidating thief who could easily slit a knife at your throat. “I-I’m sorry,” he stuttered in a more confused manner than an apologetic one. “Is this your house?” His voice was gentler than Maura had expected. 

She just stared blankly back at him.

“Sorry, I’m new here,” he admitted in a tired, hushed tone. “All these houses… They look the same. I must have gotten confused. I, uh… didn’t see the address number.” He squinted his eyes at the sign on Maura’s door. “Oh, you’re 1011 .” He forced a laugh that sounds like it was generated by a robot impersonating a human. “My house is the next one, I suppose.” 

Maura examined him from head to foot; he was a lot to take in. His disheveled black hair was soaking wet and closely plastered onto his forehead. His plain white nightgown, which was dripping with water, almost blended perfectly with his sickly pale skin, endowing him with a ghastly appearance. His bare feet against the cold ground did not seem to bother him at all. Either the strawberry shake she drank was making her hallucinate a ghost, or a real man who escaped from the psychiatric ward thought that he lived here. 

“Daniel. Daniel Solace,” he uttered in an attempt to keep the conversation going when Maura still didn’t respond. “I’m your…” he paused with a sad, longing gaze, “… neighbor .” His most striking features were his bulging brown eyes held by dark half-circles, which signaled a desperate plea that Maura could not encode.

Strangely enough, Maura did not even consider for a second to run away, perhaps, to a nearby co-worker’s house (preferably Clemence over Virginia), or to chase after Mayor Larsen’s car in the pouring rain. Not only did the man look fragile enough to be one gush of wind away from being hospitalized, but his presence at Maura’s porch somewhat made sense to her – like he was a missing ornament that was miraculously returned to her doorstep. Or a childhood pet that came back to life, unannounced. 

She approached him closer, her eyes curiously locked on his face. “Maura Franklin,” she finally introduced herself. “Have we met before? You look somehow familiar.” The name Daniel Solace did not ring a bell, but Maura oddly thought that she knew what it would feel like to touch his face — not that she would want to.

He shook his head sorrowfully. “I don’t think so.” With his head bowed, Daniel scooted past Maura and sauntered into the rain, unmoved by the rough concrete that his bare feet walked on and the heavy raindrops befalling him.

“Wait!” she called out before he could go further down the sidewalk. After some thought, Maura decided that she should act more concerned by this extremely unwell man before he freezes to death, walks off a cliff, or gets hit by a truck. “I have some hot tea inside,” she offered with the most well-intentioned expression she could produce. 

Maura caught a momentary hint of hopefulness and surprise on Daniel’s face, before it fell back into an expressionless dead stare, as if he were an actor in a play who immediately snapped back into character. “I can find my way home,” he insisted, his voice deeper and harsher. “Like I said, I just live next door.”

“Pardon if I’m being a bit too frank, sir, but you are drenched in rainwater and you don’t look well.”

Daniel furrowed his brows at her like she spoke to him in an incomprehensible language. He opened his mouth to protest, but closed it immediately when he looked down to see his own soaked nightgown and bare feet. Clearly embarrassed, he scratched his head and sent a helpless glance at Maura. “Do you, uh… have spare clothes?”

This man was far gone, she thought.

Inviting a potential psychiatric ward escapee inside her home was not exactly on the top of Maura’s bucket list, but she trusted her gut that this “Daniel” was harmless. Besides, if he threatened to hurt her in any way, she could always just stab him with the tranquilizer injection she always keeps in one of her lab coat’s inner pockets.

For someone who looked like he was on the brink of insanity, Daniel was a far more behaved guest than any of Maura’s coworkers who would urge her to host house parties that she couldn’t enjoy herself — she was well aware of her own timidness, not being a fan of social activities, which were often loud, gossipy, and resulted in plenty of dirty dishes in the sink. 

If anything, Daniel was more like the sturdy dogs with widely alert eyes who would obediently sit still atop the examination table in her clinic, patiently waiting for her to employ the use of various tools and equipment on them. And maybe even supply a treat afterwards.  

Maura appreciated that he did not speak as she prepared him a cup of tea by the kitchen counter, but his eyes often darted around the living room in a way that was slightly intrusive to her. There wasn’t much to see but he seemed so preoccupied with inspecting every corner of her place from the futon couch he sat on. 

A box-shaped television with two long rods of antenna poking out from behind. Curtains with geometric patterns. Books scattered everywhere, some stored in the stepped bookcase, others stacked on the floor, the rest on wooden side tables, filling the room with an earthy smell. Peach walls that were mostly bare, except for a clock shaped like an inverted triangle and a faded painting of an auburn-haired woman who wore a vibrant orange dress draped over her body, peacefully curled in her sleep as the sea sparkled behind her. 

Maura never cared much for artfully decorating her home, and the painting was only given as a gift by Virginia, who claimed that she should refrain from displaying anatomical charts of dogs, cats, and other critters where visitors could see them. “It would scare away people, darling,” she told Maura in a condescending tone, gracefully sipping from her cup of tea during one of their afterwork dinner parties.   

Daniel simply bowed as a gesture of gratitude as Maura handed him the tea she prepared. She sat beside him on the couch, leaving a considerable space between them. 

“She seems to be in deep sleep,” Daniel bobbed his head towards the painting of the sleeping woman, with an earnest expression. “The colors are… nice,” he added in an unfittingly grave tone, his intense glare returning to Maura. 

Maura answered with a look of indifference. How was she expected to respond to that generic statement?

Yet his eyes never left hers, frozen in time as he anticipated her to speak, and at some point in between the unsettling silence, she wondered if he was incapable of blinking. 

“How long do you think she’d been asleep?” he continued in his attempts to get a word out of her.

“Well, she’s been sleeping on my wall for about a year now,” said Maura in a-matter-of-fact tone. 

She thought she spotted Daniel smirking for a fraction of a second before pressing his lips tightly together. He crouched to sip his tea. “Shall we wake her up, then?” He raised his eyebrows suggestively at her.

She averted her gaze away from him and focused on the carpeted floor. “If she doesn’t want to, why should we?” 

Daniel didn’t answer back but his face fell, the subdued glow of the lamp light hitting it made him look more skeletal, cheeks and eye sockets sunken in deep shadows. He almost looked like a vampire with Maura’s black trench coat hung over his hunched frame. 

She was not scared of him. Slightly repulsed by his peculiarity maybe, but it felt right to have him beside her, even from a distance. Although she had no idea what to do with him. She considered ringing Mayor Larsen’s office to let the authorities handle him appropriately, but she did not trust his people either — they never handled outcasts with compassion, a value Maura tried to foster in herself to avoid becoming like her father.

“Do you have any family?” Daniel suddenly asked, as if he read her mind. “I don’t see any photographs.”

Maura only shook her head. That was the last thing she wanted to talk about. 

“Nevermind. Sorry for asking,” he apologized. “I think I should go.” He stood up and left Maura’s teacup on her coffee table. 

“I have a brother. He died. And my father… I don’t really get along with him,” Maura blurted out and watched him thoughtfully to see his reaction. 

Daniel slowly walked back to the couch, and he genuinely looked sorry, his brows knitted together worryingly.

“Yeah, my father, he’s an awful, awful person. My brother and I… we decided to cut him off from our lives,” she continued, her voice cracking. Why was she opening up to a man she has literally known for 5 minutes? “I love him, he’s my father, of course… but he… he…”

“Hey, hey, I understand,” Daniel sat beside her again, but this time, there was considerably lesser distance between them that their thighs were nearly touching. “You don’t need to tell me. Trust me, I understand.” He placed his hand softly on top of hers, and his skin was surprisingly warm and familiar, like an old blanket that gave her comfort during rainy or sick days. 

Maura found herself mesmerized by the dark pools of his eyes, and suddenly they weren’t as empty-looking and tense as they were just a while ago. Daniel's gaze wandered all over her face as she slid her hands further to clasp his hand back. A strange, invisible force drew her closer to him, but she did not know what. There was something welling inside her, but it felt muted, like a rushing river blocked by a boulder.

Then Maura noticed a reddish scar on his ring finger, forming the shape of a wedding band. She gasped and withdrew her hand. Could he be—

Daniel scooted away from her, the moment he sensed her discomfort. He looked equally flustered as her. “S-sorry. What did I…” his voice faltered. For a second, he seemed like he was on the verge of tears.

Maura shook her head. “Oh, nothing. I just remembered I need to check something in my room. For… work,” she quickly reasoned out and darted upstairs. 

The strawberry shake jar was on her nightstand, beside a copy of The Awakening by Kate Chopin, a book gifted by her friend Clemence. 

Maura sighed. The ring was still at the bottom of the jar. She reached inside it with her fingers to pick the ring up. 

The moment her skin pressed against the band’s cold metal surface, a sharp electric jolt ran through her bones and images flashed within her field of vision.

A bloody scalpel in her hands. Picturesque green fields with the silhouette of three people dancing in a circle. A fresh laceration, deep and red, above the brow. Small plastic animal figurines on the floor: a butterfly, a bird, and a scarab beetle. Running through a snowy forest with smoke rising beyond pine trees lined up in the horizon.

In an instant, Maura found herself collapsed on the floor on her knees, sweating and panting. The ring was still inside the jar. She ran her hands through her arms to check if she could feel herself and wiped away the hot tears rushing down her cheeks. 

“Mr. Solace?” she called out in between heavy breaths after climbing downstairs. 

But he was gone. Not a trace of him left. Only the cup of unfinished hot tea sitting at the table and the sound of rain pounding violently against her window.

Was she going crazy? Was he even real? Or was this all a weird dream? 

ii. the masked man

A man in his early fifties, his hair prematurely white like his father’s, drummed his fingers rapidly on the armrest of his wheelchair as he carefully observed the waves of pixels that enveloped the theater-sized wall in front of him. Soon, he was not only tapping his fingers, but his fists also clenched tightly, until he felt his fingernails dig deep enough into his skin to rupture its fleshy surface. Eventually, he let out an ear-piercing, visceral scream, its hoarseness and robotic melody combining to produce a sound that was similar to a broken record. 

Another man with neatly gelled copper hair and a perfectly curled mustache scuttled inside the room, which, other than the large screen, was enclosed in curved, jet black walls and flooring, so that anyone inside looked like they were floating in endless space — the only giveaway was that the man’s footsteps produced loud metallic clanking sounds that echoed in the semi-cylindrical chamber. 

“Mr. Singleton, we will deal with this quickly. I have already confirmed that before airtime, the cybersecurity team never detected any intru—“

The man on the wheelchair raised a finger up and pressed it against the copper-haired man’s lips. “Shhh… Sebastian, please I cannot bear to hear your squeaking, I’m having the time of my life here. Read the fucking room, dipshit .”

To Sebastian’s surprise, his oftentimes bad-tempered boss did not look enraged as he imagined. He was… laughing ? 

“Oh, it’s you, it’s really you. After all these years…” Ciaran Singleton pushed his wheelchair closer to the screen, which projected the image of a gaunt man with hollow eyes, brimming with desperation and agony. 

Sebastian gulped as he watched Ciaran hysterically cackle in his high-pitched mechanical tone, completely absorbed by the scenes unfolding in front of him. The man who introduced himself as “Daniel” was conversing with Maura on a couch, and Ciaran’s eyes lingered solely on him. 

“I’ve been looking all over for you,” Ciaran whispered, touching the figure of Daniel on screen. “It’s been… so long. Of course, it’s only you who could bypass her security measures without directly plugging in… but why come back for her ?” He sounded pained at his mention of his sister, who was, ironically, both the root of all this and the most oblivious player at the moment. 

He watched her stare nonchalantly at Daniel. She was always so dreary and stuck in her own head, Ciaran thought bitterly, that one could wonder why Daniel was so devoted to her like she was a god to worship. 

“Sebastian, why don’t I have updates on the cybersecurity team?” Ciaran turned to his assistant with a sinister glare. The screen eerily emitted a hazy glow on his diamond-studded stainless steel mask, which covered half of his heavily powdered face. 

“W-well, I was just going to—“

Ciaran playfully shoved Sebastian by the waist. “I’m kidding, you idiot.” He snickered as Sebastian stumbled backwards.

The files Sebastian held slipped away from his hands, flying all over the place. He scrambled on all fours to pick them all up.

“I don’t need the boring reports, Jesus, relax. This is the greatest thing that’s ever happened to this bloody show.” Ciaran spoke cheerily in his thick Scottish accent. He picked up one of the pieces of paper that landed on his lap and scrunched it into a ball, throwing it to Sebastian’s head.

“H-how is this great, sir? This wasn’t according to plan?” Sebastian sent him a confuddled look. Ciaran was deeply amused upon realizing Sebastian looked like a clueless, lost cat sometimes, but he was going to save that joke for later. “In this episode, Maura and Eyk were supposed to—“

“God, don’t you get it Sebastian? Audiences have seen that dozens of times,” said Ciaran, rolling his eyes. “Unlike the other participants, my sister always ends up with Eyk in every version of the show. This is the first time he has potential competition. Look up the socials and ratings right now, and tell me I’m wrong.”

Sebastian stood up, nervously scrolling through his android phone. “Oh, wow. V-viewership quadrupled,” he stammered. “We’re also… trending on every social media platform. The New York Times is already calling it ‘a bold, monumental move from showrunner Ciaran Singleton’… but…”

“But what?” Ciaran raised a brow.

“Just in the best interests of the company, I think we need to consider… how are we going to explain this Daniel guy?” Sebastian inquired, straightening his posture. “Legally, he isn’t in the original list who signed up 12 years ago.”

“The Jerome situation , we handled that cleanly. Modified his memories. Made him a permanent part of the show because that fool willingly plugged himself in. That’s already consent. It spiced things up for Clemence’s and Lucien’s arc and turned out to be a big success. Maybe the human rights warriors are gonna bother me for months on end, but it doesn't matter! Because the general public loves entertainment!” Ciaran explained with unwavering assurance. 

His mind, however, was racing frantically on how to deal with Daniel — he wasn’t just another random activist who broke into the show, like Jerome. Daniel created the simulation with Maura, so he surely had extensive controls not even Ciaran could access. 

How did Daniel even enter the broadcasted part of the simulation when Ciaran spent years locating him in the program to no avail?

On the other hand, he knew he could talk to his old friend. And how to manipulate him. It wasn’t that hard. His weakness was glaringly obvious.

Ciaran could get something good out of this.

iii. the flaming june

Work with the changes. Don’t let the audiences know it wasn’t intentional. 

Those were the instructions from the higher ups.

Sounds of chatter pervaded computer labs, offices, cubicles, boardrooms — every inch of the Singleton Studios building in New York. The editors were nervous if they should have censored the weird new character “Daniel”, and perhaps switched scenes to something pointless and mundane, like Eyk opening up about his depressive feelings to his trusty Siberian Husky, or Lucien and Jerome arguing over the difference between noodles and pasta. 

On the other hand, the cybersecurity team attempted everything in their power to delete Daniel, initially thinking that he was a randomly generated NPC that was bugged, but his avatar was protected and untouchable. 

The simulation coders were also deeply troubled, because the weather controls went haywire the moment Daniel entered the system. There was a scene where Eyk was predicted to kiss Maura, given the average episode number it takes for him to do so, but it strangely started raining so hard that Maura was able to insist on leaving right away. 

However, while this Daniel character did pose a huge threat to the show, it also helped create buzz for it. 

“Hey, hey, guys, listen to this,” one of the lead story editors, a lanky blonde woman, shouted over the chaotic set designers and writers’ room and pointed to her phone screen. “Cinema Craze just published something and it said, ‘In all twelve versions of the show, from the late 1800s romance drama on a sinking ship to the previous superhero fantasy comedy, new characters have been a rare occurrence, and Daniel Solace, on his first appearance, has already shown promising potential to sway the world’s first and only simulated reality show back to an interesting track, after years and years of repetitive characters with the same personalities.’ We can adapt to this and come up with new scenarios for Maura, Eyk, and Daniel that could really… you know, bring the show back to life and excite audiences.”

“Come on, Willa, this feels like dangerous territory. I heard he’s not even under our studio’s control,” complained a scratchy voice from the crowd, followed by eruptions of “ yeahs ” in varied qualities and volumes. 

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but the love triangle has great potential,” a petite girl in overalls commented, chewing on a gum as she swirled her chair around. 

A dark-haired young man beside her gagged, his hand covering his mouth. “Excuse me, I have to go.” 

He headed straight to the men’s toilets and splashed his face with water from a running faucet. Lifting his head up, he saw his reflection in the mirror and wondered if anyone noticed that he had his father’s angular face and his mother’s sky blue eyes. 

“You okay there, Alfred? We need you back in the room in, like, 5 minutes,” his supervisor, a monotonous man with tortoiseshell glasses peeked from behind the doorway. 

Alfred. The name of the beetle he found on the last day he saw his mother. And now, more than a decade later, Elliot was using the name for a fake identity in his uncle’s company to bring his mother back. To wake her up. 

“Got it, Mr. Decker,” Elliot responded, out of breath.

“Hey, uh, great recommendation for the painting to add in the room, by the way,” Mr. Decker gave him an awkward pat on the back. “I know you recommended it months ago, and I wasn’t so sure about Maura being the type to have a Frederic Leighton piece in her room, but it became a great conversation starter for this new guy who popped up. Like whether it was an accident or not, I think these little coincidences are nice.”

It wasn’t a coincidence, Elliot thought somberly. He recalled seeing the painting in one of his art history books in college. A woman lulled into sleep during a hot summer. Beside her was oleander, a poisonous plant. The Flaming June , popular during the Victorian era, was a symbol of the close relationship between sleep and death — the state his parents were in. Seeing that painting awakened something in Elliot, and he decided that it was his job to set them free.

Or he’ll live the rest of his life with guilt.

Chapter Text

i. The Spawning

Perched upon a tall oak’s branch, a boy in a plaited knit sweater was engrossed in constructing his newest little craft: sharp flaps of tissue foil forming a geometrical figure of a bird. In making origami pieces, he thought that there was something hypnotic about the folding and unfolding, as well as the transformation of triangles and quadrilaterals.

Once he was done with the third identical origami bird, he let out a satisfactory breath and began working on the next one, over and over until he deemed it perfect. I hope this makes her smile, he thought. 

“Hey, won’t you come down now Daniel?” A voice came from below, beyond the rustling leaves and spiral of branches. “You agreed to build a fort with me.” His tone was demanding.

Daniel giggled, revealing a set of crooked teeth with a large chunk in the middle missing. “Sorry, Ciaran. Give me a few more minutes, I promise I’ll be there.”

“Ugh, you’re always promising things like that but you’re never there! You and Maura are so annoying,” scowled Ciaran. “Why does no one here want to do actual fun things like me?” He gave up and ran off, his makeshift cape from the curtains in his father's office flying behind him. 

It was pleasantly windy for a summer day, and Daniel was glad to be away from his grandfather’s shabby cottage back in the Welsh valleys. The isolated Singleton estate was expansive enough for him to wander alone in its sylvan surroundings like he owned it, without any mean children who teased him for looking frail and sickly, or grandparents who bothered him to help out in carrying the fish caught from their boats to their home. 

Most of all, the children of Henry Singleton, as bratty as they may be, were probably the only two people on earth who liked having Daniel around, like he was the forbidden puppy they’ve always asked their father for on their birthdays. This was the second summer he spent at the Singleton’s, so that Henry could continually run tests on his brain, after his miraculous survival of a boat accident that killed both his parents when he was 7. The brain injury that he suffered from hitting his head on a sharp rock underwater made him forget all his relationships and experiences, but his mathematical intelligence sharpened, and he was deemed a “genius” in his small town. 

“Solace, look over here,” another voice, calm and composed, emerged from the bottom of Daniel’s tree. 

Daniel perked up when he spotted a girl with bright red hair in pigtails, wearing an apricot puff sleeved dress swaying in the wind’s direction.

It was no secret — as much as he tried to hide it — that Daniel particularly adored Ciaran’s sister, Maura. She was much more reserved than her boisterous brother, but she was also quite a character, with her interest in brains and realities and other big ideas that Daniel planned to read about in the library soon, even if he didn’t fully comprehend them. 

Maura was holding a familiar tall glass that he didn’t finish drinking from in the dining hall. The glass was empty now, once filled with strawberry shake that one of the butlers prepared. 

“I hope you don’t mind me finishing it,” she announced in a nonchalant manner that suggested she did not really care what he thought. “Strawberry’s my favorite. Mother used to feed me strawberries all the time.”

Daniel took a mental note to learn how to make strawberry shake.

“Also, I found something at the bottom,” she said, her steely blue eyes piercing through his gaze with increased enthusiasm. She reached in the glass to get something and held it up for him to see. “It’s yours, right?”

Daniel’s mouth widened in horror and he felt for his front tooth — only a gap was left and it was now in between Maura’s fingers. 

“You probably didn’t notice that it fell off because the drink is cold,” she explained. “Anyways, can I look at it under Father’s microscope?” Maura expectantly raised her brows for his permission.

“W-well, uh, it’s all yours,” he chuckled, somewhat both startled and honored that she would like to keep a part of him in whatever collection of bits and bobs she probably placed inside jars in her bedroom. 

“Thanks, Solace! You’re the best,” she beamed at him in a flash of a second before disappearing from under the tree shade. 

Then she came back.

“What’s that in your hand, by the way?” She pointed to his origami piece. “Is that a pterodactyl?”

Daniel, cheeks reddening, swiftly tucked the bird into his pocket. “Nothing.” 

Maura paused for a minute, in deep thought. Then her eyes darted up to Daniel. “Would you like to examine your tooth with me? I think it’s only fair because it’s yours.”

Daniel was not so sure about leaving his tree.

“You always sit there, why don’t you stand on the ground for a little bit?”

“What about you? You don’t wanna try sitting here with me for a while?” he asked back.

She frowned. “I don’t really know how to climb up a tree.”

“I’ll build a ladder for you,” offered Daniel. He meant this seriously and was already forming a blueprint in his head.

She smirked mischievously, filling Daniel with glee. “I’d like that. We can pull the ladder up once I’m there. Dad and Ciaran won’t be able to reach me.” Maura’s eyes suddenly widened in excitement. “We could even build a treehouse. Just you and me up there.”

Daniel was grinning from ear to ear. Of course, he loved the idea. 

But he could only manage to nod as Maura vivaciously elaborated on how they should bring their books up to the treehouse and read all day.

“And we’d never ever have to leave,” she stated, as he emerged from the tree trunk, their eyes meeting gleefully once he was in front of her. 

Then, Maura yanked Daniel’s hand and whisked him away to her father’s lab. 

Wake up.

Daniel sprung up from the floor, still cold and wet in a hospital gown. He had never dreamt about his past in a simulation before, so he assumed that there was some sort of memory retrieval system that ran before the next day started. 

He fell back down in exhaustion, his head collapsing on Maura’s black coat, folded neatly like a pillow on the ground. He inhaled her scent deeply and imagined she was facing him in their bedroom, when she promised that she would never forget him — a promise which he now confirmed she had broken, just as he feared during all these years that they were separated.

The rain outside stopped, and it was dead silent in the night. There was no light seeping in from the rectangular-grilled windows of the empty house that he claimed was his. 

Daniel stared at the ceiling in the dim space, waiting for the floating specks in his vision to fade away. His head was pounding, not so much from physical weariness, but from the mental overload of adjusting to his new virtual environment.

“The suburban simulation is a larger extension of this original one, and its design changes every year depending on the setting that the studio decides on — a castle in the medieval period, a futuristic space station, a steamship in the Victorian era, you name it,” Elliot informed him while they were having a picnic together on top of a grassy hill, against the backdrop of a rocky, mountainous landscape and patches of snow scattered all over. It was a breathtaking view, but it was nothing more than a collection of pixels designed to create a three-dimensional illusion. “Uncle Ciaran doesn’t have all the controls, since Mum’s still the creator… but she doesn’t know it. So he can’t detect us, unless he actually sees us through the cameras.”

“Don’t worry about your uncle,” Daniel reassured Elliot, offering the boy some of the wild strawberries he foraged himself from the riverbanks below the hill. Eating strawberries has become part of his daily routine, because they were the quickest items to respawn every 12 simulation hours, as he and Maura coded their ideal “home away from home” together. He added, “I can speak to Ciaran, and I think he’ll allow us to stay.”

Elliot pressed his lips firmly together and averted his gaze from his father, a flash of disappointment plastered on his face. “I don’t trust him, Dad. I just told you what he did to Mum.”

“I don’t trust him either, but darling, you have to trust me on this,” Daniel said, placing strawberries in his son’s palms and staring at him achingly. “Uncle Ciaran… he’s complicated, and the only way you can win is by playing elaborate mind games with him.”

“Fine. I just want my mum back. That’s why we’re doing this, you know that.” Elliot shot him a cold glare, with the same piercing blue eyes as Maura. He proceeded to chomp on a strawberry. “Ugh, that’s so good!” His expression shifted into astonishment. “Why is that so good? I don’t remember it being this good?”

Daniel broke into a hearty laugh and pulled Elliot into an embrace. “My little boy.” They both tumbled on the checkered picnic blanket, snickering as Elliot playfully tackled Daniel to the ground, and then lied down beside him to stare at the clouds. The drifting blobs of white looped every 5 minutes or so, and soon, the sounds of laughter subsided. Only chirps and crickets of birds were playing in the background. 

“Elliot?”

“Yeah, dad?”

“How old are you now? In reality?” Daniel turned to face his son, who entered the simulation unchanged in his 10-year-old self, pale cherub cheeks and a helmet of dark hair. Daniel had lost track of time within his own simulated world, where the sun never sets and time felt frozen the longer you stayed.

Elliot looked vacantly at the sky and didn’t respond.

He reached out to squeeze his father’s hand. “Maybe you’ll find out when you wake up, dad,” Elliot spoke, a hint of melancholy in his voice.

Daniel held Elliot’s hand tighter as he felt his heart sunk. Somehow, he knew.

Perhaps he knew it all this time.

Once Daniel left the original simulation he and Maura created to move into Ciaran's world, he could never go back. 

Simply put, it was a one-way trip to an unknown territory.

The only way out was for Maura to remember where she placed the key with the exit code, so that they could all wake up.

Transferring from one simulation to another was not a piece of cake, and Daniel immediately picked up on Elliot’s lack of technical knowledge in computer engineering, given the simplicity of the boy’s instructions to him, as if they were being repeated from an outside source who most likely used layman’s terms. However, Daniel attentively nodded as he tried to figure out the technicalities behind what Elliot was telling him, doing his best not to reveal his reluctance at the malware they were going to use to enter Ciaran’s simulation. 

He could only hope that Elliot was working with a competent coder who could be trusted.

Following Elliot’s instructions, Daniel waited for a portal to show up outside his home, a small pyramid with monolithic concrete walls, by a waterfall flowing into a forest stream. 

The portal eventually came in the form of a circular vault door floating midair, as if it were attached to a flattened wallpaper of the surrounding greenery. 

“Fuck!” cursed Daniel under his breath. He struggled to pull the vault door open, toppling backwards as his hands slipped from the metal. His spine hit the rocky ground and he lay down for a few minutes, soaking in the shock, before attempting to open the vault again. “Open, you piece of shit .”

Being alone in a simulated world for so long, he’s grown to be quite the curser after every little inconvenience, as if it made his pain feel more real — because no one else was there to hear it.

Finally, after around fifteen fucks and shits combined, he peered into the portal with the door swung partially open.

But it only showed him an unidentifiable pixelated image. 

How the hell was he going to know where he would spawn? His mind inconveniently visualized several disastrous possibilities: at a fireplace where he could instantly burn, inside a locked car trunk where he’d have to scream for help, and in the shower where someone might be bathing. If only Elliot had given him a seed number that would help him spawn at an ideal location, like behind a bush or from a cave, then he could simply whip out his tablet and encode it before entering the portal.

He sighed, regretting that he did not ask Elliot more questions. He became too excited at the prospect of seeing Maura again that he did not plan this through. 

However, Elliot told him that he had to enter the portal as soon as possible, so there was no time to waste. 

Daniel pulled out his tablet, tapping and swiping swiftly on the screen like it was second nature to him. He scanned his inventory one last time, where he stored Maura’s wedding ring, a couple of strawberry jam sandwiches, and a green beetle, which Elliot merely described as a “weapon” to use in case of emergency — he could only assume that it was a virus, but he did not know exactly what it did. These items showed up as icons in little boxes on the tablet’s interface, but he could upload them into Ciaran’s simulation as concrete objects later on.

Elliot also helped him modify his avatar to look appropriate for a 1950s setting, with brushed up hair, a simple bowling shirt, and thin-striped trousers. 

Before he slid into the portal, Daniel took one last glance at the pyramid, the falls, the stream, the lush forest, and the sun that never sinks. It felt like an eternity since that time Maura and Elliot were splashing water all over him while he lay down reading Jean Baudrillard by a large rock formation, inviting him to wade into the sparkling stream with them. That same visit when Maura was surprised that he listened to all her ramblings about a constructed reality. And when Elliot let go of a little green beetle which he named Alfred. 

If only he knew that they would never visit him again.

Daniel had been isolated for so long that he learned to stop crying about it, or about anything at all. At first, he was only daunted by the idea of Maura forgetting him, but now he was afraid that he had forgotten how to be himself too. Or simply how to be human.

The mission was “straightforward”, according to Elliot: Get close to Maura. Make her remember the key. Convince her to end the simulation once and for all, so that everyone would be freed from this hell. 

“If there’s anyone who can make her remember, it’s you,” his son said in such a hopeful way that Daniel felt his own chest tighten at the thought of disappointing him. 

Spawning in the middle of a raging sea was not the worst possible scenario, but it was nevertheless cumbersome. And while Daniel was a great swimmer, growing up in a family of fishermen, he loathed the water, the way it made clothes stick to his skin, his fingertips all wrinkly, and just the gross feeling of being soaking wet and freezing on dry land afterwards — which is exactly what happened. 

“Should have brought a fucking boat,” he whispered to himself in frustration, pushing away the tangled clumps of hair blocking his eyes. 

Daniel emerged from the wavy coastline, coughing out water and struggling to balance himself as he strode on pebbles, shells, and sand. It was bright and hot, the sunlight striking his forehead with a burning touch. His hand landed on the surface of a tall limestone rock for support, and he glanced around, still dizzy from swimming for so long.

He swiped across the air, his fingers moving in a pattern only simulation coders could recognize, and his tablet spawned into the world with a tiny popping sound. He slid to the ground with his back relaxed against the limestone and tinkered with his device. In a matter of seconds, he managed to secure a map of the entire program, or “Kerberos” as it was named in the save file. 

House 1013 . Elliot told him to meet there. 

It would be the house beside Maura’s.

“Ah, fuck,” he muttered, clutching onto his chest. He felt like an asthmatic transported into an alien planet with little oxygen. 

Once his senses were coming back to him, Daniel trudged his feet towards a blurry, crowded area in the distance, where a hubbub of cackling and prattling and shouting could be heard. As he drew nearer to the first signs of civilization he had witnessed for who knows how long, Daniel finally discerned that he was in a beach — the noisy, public type with pockets of families, towels, and umbrellas scattered across the golden sandy coast. Striped and spotted swimsuits and shorts were abundant across the beach mob, some carrying surfboards as they approached the shore. 

Daniel’s self-consciousness took over, and he scampered to hide behind one of the coconut palm trees towering over the area. 

“Hey, sir, d’you need assistance?” 

Already awestruck by the sudden noises of living, breathing bodies, Daniel jumped at the tap on his shoulder.

It was a sandy-haired teenager, megaphone in one hand and a whistle hanging around his neck by a string, in a fitted singlet swimsuit. He was sturdily built and had a kind, approachable face, which addressed Daniel with a particularly concerned gaze. “You seem a bit rattled. Do you want to stay under the shade for a while? Or contact anyone you know? Don’t worry, I’m a lifeguard ,” he pronounced slowly with exaggerated mouth shapes as if he assumed Daniel could not comprehend his words.

By this time, Daniel thought that he only looked exasperated from swimming in his clothes. It had not yet dawned upon him that when he spawned into the depths of the sea, his clothing had been randomized as well, and he was now wearing what might be either a hospital gown or a nightgown without any footwear.

It also did not help that he had a constantly bewildered expression that was magnified with his intense eye contact and dark circles underneath.

“Dad, you looked like a castaway. Or someone who escaped a psych ward,” Elliot honestly noted later on.

Instead of composing himself and responding like a normal person would, Daniel only managed to glare threateningly at the poor lifeguard who, by the natural goodness of his heart, attempted to communicate with him again. 

“Oh-LECK,” the lifeguard heavily patted on his chest with both his hands, introducing himself to the odd stranger. 

“Oh, uh, that’s-that’s your name? Olek?” stammered Daniel, feeling like he was losing his grasp on basic communication skills.

“You speak, thank god!” exclaimed Olek cheerily. “Are you okay? Did you almost sink? I am a lifeguard, I can help,” he repeated, and Daniel had to stop himself from rolling his eyes in irritation.

Daniel placed a hand on his forehead. Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck do I do first? “Do you know where the town is? Like with houses and stuff, whatever you have these days.” 

Olek, eyebrows furrowed in confusion but still politely smiling, nodded. “You can drive or hike up there,” he pointed to the top of a nearby cliff, where stacks of pastel-colored buildings and houses, following the rocky contour, overlooked the sea. “But you look tired. Do you have a car?”

“No,” Daniel plainly responded.

Olek scratched his head, looking troubled. “I can ask someone to drive you up there. Mayor Larsen, maybe.”

“T-the mayor?” Daniel gulped. Elliot had told him about this “Mayor Larsen” character.

Olek beamed from ear to ear. “Yes, the mayor himself. He could get you, um… the help you need.” He leaned in closer to whisper in Daniel’s ear, “And between you and me, he doesn’t really do anything in this town but ride around in his car. He’s surely got time to help a fellow like you.” 

A fellow like me? Daniel frowned. What the hell did that mean? 

“No, thanks. I think I’d rather walk.” Daniel forced a grin.

Olek looked at him funnily. “Surely not. It would take you hours. It’s impractical.” 

But Daniel was already forcefully pushing his way into the beach crowd — both adults and children — to get to the bottom of the cliff’s path, leaving Olek with his mouth hanging.

Daniel did not need to hike. He had other methods.

A booming sound erupted in the middle of the road after a manhole cover skyrocketed in the air and crashed into a painted signage that said “ Welcome to Kerberos! Your Safe Seaside Haven ” in red cursive. 

The large signage originally had a lively illustration of a bearded man in a fedora and checkered sportcoat, arm in arm with a red-haired woman in a polka dot maroon dress, fake smiles in front of a house amidst a neatly mowed green lawn. 

Now, there was a burnt-looking hole on the fedora man’s face.

An unassuming green beetle crawled out of the manhole, circling around it several times. 

Then Daniel rose from the hole, lifting himself up with his arms on the concrete. 

“Fuck!” He ducked rapidly as an overspeeding cherry-red Chevrolet Bel Air drove by, nearly striking his head and turning it into a messy splatter of blood. 

“Asshole,” scowled Daniel, using his trusty photographic memory to remember the plate number for revenge later on. 

He let the beetle crawl back into his palms and headed towards the “THIS WAY” arrow, barefoot and dripping with water in his ghastly white gown.

The town center made Daniel feel woozy with all the light bubblegum shades of pink, yellow, green, and blue found in adjacent buildings with arched doorways, where streams of men, women, and children went in and out with an overly pleasant disposition. He trekked on the sidewalks in a hunched posture that he thought would make him more invisible (it did not). Hats, patterned dresses, blazers, and smiles filled the streets, and made him feel out of place. He searched for any trace of Maura in the lifeless faces that passed him by, but to no avail. 

He walked past a movie theater, advertising the title “Prometheus Sinking” in big black letters with light bulbs around its rectangular border. Then, there was a boutique, displaying more hats, dresses, and shirts in vibrant colors. Two dark-haired women strolled out of the shop, appearing to be arguing, with more forceful hand gestures from the younger one. 

“Ma, I’m going to the dance audition whether you like it or not!” the younger girl yelled, interjecting her mother’s previous statement. “I’m not letting you stop me from living my dreams!” 

“Ling Yi, wait!” the older woman called after the teenage girl. 

Ling Yi ran past her mother, tears in her face, and bumped into Daniel along the way. “Sorry,” she apologized, then gave Daniel a questionable look from head to toe. “There’s a sale at my mom’s shop.” She gestured towards the boutique before leaving him to his devices.

Daniel was clueless as to why the girl made this slightly mean remark, so he continued on his journey. 

Then, as he minded his own business, bells rang simultaneously from two ice cream trucks that stopped by Daniel’s side.

“Buy ice cream here!”

“No, sir, please buy it here!”

A mustached man resting his arm on the window frame of the blue truck offered Daniel a cone with a swirl of vanilla on top. “It’s a free sample! Make sure to come by next time.”

Daniel, grouchily eyeing the mustached man, was about to accept the ice cream just so that he’d be left alone, when the other bearded man in the pink truck interrupted, “He stole my recipe! Try mine, sir, please!” 

“You’ve found a new person to fight over, I see,” a woman came by and grabbed both ice creams, nearly identical. “Lucien, Jerome. Leave this poor man alone.”  

Once the trucks drove off, the woman swiveled gracefully to Daniel. “I’m Clemence, by the way.” Her brunette hair was iron-curled at the ends, and she wore a baby pink striped dress under a lab coat. She licked from both ice cream cones and pressed her bright red lips together. “Mmm… oh, did you want one?”

“Y-you’re a vet, aren’t you?” Daniel pointed at the tiny paw symbol on the left side of her coat.

Clemence shrugged with a hint of dissatisfaction. “Sort of. I’m an assistant.”

“Do you know Dr. Maura Franklin?”

Clemence eyed him sternly. “Why? You got a sick pet? Or are you a crazy ex-boyfriend?” She chortled at Daniel’s frozen, horrified face. “Hey Virginia, someone here’s looking for Maura!” 

Clemence stepped out of Daniel’s view and was replaced by another woman who seemed older, green satin dress and cigarette between her fingers. “Oh, what a creature,” she commented, thoughtfully squinting at Daniel, her lips curling in amusement as a wisp of smoke blew out from it. “She’s not at the clinic, dear. Tell you what,” she spoke softly into his ear. “She’s at Anker’s, the cheap diner three blocks away. In exchange for this, do visit my party tomorrow evening.”

An envelope made its way to Daniel’s hand.

He quickly scanned the scribbled cursive lettering: Virginia’s Rock and Rollin’ 45th. Bowling alley. 6PM. Bring your best attire and attitude.

Surely, Maura would be there.

Earth angel, Earth angel, the one I adore

Love you forever, and ever more.

I'm just a fool, a fool in love with y—

Daniel blasted into the doors of the diner, sliding on the soles of his feet from the momentum of his run across the vinyl checkerboard floors until he crashed headfirst into a jukebox.

“Argh, fuck!” Daniel scrambled to his feet and kicked away the scraps fallen from the jukebox, which now had flickering wires pouring out from its unfortunate puncture. 

Sheepishly, he probed the pastel-colored room, expecting shocked and judgmental gazes darting towards him.

But everyone was asleep .

A blonde boy with a soda jerk cap was slumped over the counter, snoring loudly. A blonde waitress with an apron was lying down on the floor with her eyes closed, like a body left at the scene of a crime. Two men, one of them wearing a priest’s collar, were cozily leaning their heads together in their booth.

Then there was Maura, her porcelain face serene as ever, tucked comfortably on top of her crossed arms on a table filled with papers and unfinished food.

Daniel approached her in slow strides, feeling every muscle tremble beneath his skin. He suddenly felt hot, sick with fear and desperation. A growl in his stomach. Hairs standing up on his arms. Maybe there were some tears streaming down too, but it wouldn’t make a difference, given how he somehow still hadn’t dried up from the sea. 

She was only inches away, yet Daniel still felt she was out of reach, inside a bubble he wasn’t allowed to pop. He could only gather the courage to wave a hand in front of her, but he didn’t have it in him to wake her up. He somberly gazed upon her, and his strong urge to push her heavy copper locks behind her ear could only be left to his imagination, even in a place so far from reality. He wished to hear her soothing voice, to see her lips curl into a lopsided smile, even just for a second, and to hear her say his name back — maybe that alone would be enough to let his restless heart find peace, but he couldn’t have it now. 

No, Daniel wasn’t ready. 

The lights abruptly turned off, and a spotlight flashed past Daniel’s field of vision. At the counter, the blonde boy was beaming like a Cheshire cat, his mouth stretched all the way to his ears as if an invisible force were pulling them. He was at the center of the spotlight, and the waitress stood beside him, a tub of strawberry ice cream on top of her tray: “Singleton’s Delight” in bold letters on the tub’s label with an illustration of the lifeguard Olek, muscled and grinning, holding a spoon with a pink ice cream scoop.

“Ever feel troubled on a hot day?” spoke the blonde boy, staring straight ahead, as if there were an audience behind Daniel. 

The waitress picked up the ice cream tub from her tray and set it on the counter. “Well, Krester, worry no more, because Singleton’s Delight offers a cool, refreshing taste that will surely help you beat the heat!”

“Really, Tove? Let me try!” Krester tossed the tub’s cover away and exaggeratedly devoured a tablespoon of ice cream. He made a pleased humming sound. “Gee, that’s oh-so-delicious!”

The two of them exchanged glances, “Singleton’s Delight! The taste of heaven. Approved by the Food and Drug Administration.”

Then, the lights were turned back on and everyone, except Maura, snapped back into consciousness, like nothing had happened.

Tove went straight to the kitchen, while Krester was perplexed upon seeing the barefoot man in a white gown in front of him. “Um, how can I help you, sir?”

Daniel had an idea. It was going to be a hit or miss.

“Can I order a strawberry milkshake for someone?”

ii. The Treehouse

“Wakey, wakey, dear Daniel.”

Daniel shuddered as a figure hovered above him out of the blue, blocking the ceiling he had been staring at for hours. 

“ Ciaran ?” Daniel was startled to see Ciaran Singleton in his strikingly tall, freckled, and elegant form, free of the deformities and injuries caused by his father’s inhumane experiments.

Experiments that were desperate attempts to find a cure for his mother. 

“I look amazing, don’t I? Whereas, you… ” Ciaran pointed all over Daniel. “Seems like a wardrobe malfunction, huh? Good thing you have a pretty face… back when they hadn't invented vaccines for influenza, maybe.” 

He lent his pale bony fingers to aid Daniel in getting up from the floor. “Shall we?”

Daniel ignored this and gathered himself up, trying to look as neutral-faced as possible. “Let’s make this quick. I’m waiting for someone.”

Ciaran shot him a comical look. “Waiting for who? The second coming of Christ?”

“My son.”

“Okay, God the Father, who’s next? The Holy Spirit?”

“Ciaran, I’m not joking.”

“Well, who did you have the child with?” Ciaran questioned, his eyebrows arched up dramatically. “Is it mine?” he whispered.

Daniel looked as if he were five seconds away from committing murder. 

“Impressive. She never told me I had a nephew,” Ciaran tapped his fingers playfully on his chin. “Jesus, chill out, Daniel. Let’s go, I designed a nice little place for us to chat. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

The portal fashioned by Ciaran led to a sunny forest glade with a large oak tree at the center — a recreation of Daniel’s favorite spot in the old Singleton Estate. A wooden house with thick, crooked planks was tucked in between the high branches. The two men climbed up the ladder made of rope dangling from the balcony and sat under the shade of the extended roof. 

At first, they mostly talked about childhood memories. Daniel and Maura’s failed attempts to make the treehouse on their own, so Henry stepped in and ordered his workers to build one for them. Ciaran getting his own ladder so he can break in the treehouse, which was explicitly labeled by his sister, “ No Fathers and Older Brothers Allowed .” Maura eventually becoming bored of the treehouse, so Daniel was left alone. Ciaran trying to cheer him up with video games, leading to his new obsession with computer technology. 

Then it got emotional. They recalled when Ciaran stopped playing with Daniel and Maura, because Henry started a round of experiments on him, including treatments that rendered him immobile in some body parts, like his legs, and extensive burns scattered on his skin. Ciaran had to lie to them that it was a natural disease and Henry was doing everything to save him. 

Daniel clarified how Maura got into a fight with Henry when she discovered what he was doing to Ciaran, but her own father threatened her life if she exposed the truth. 

So Maura tried to escape and asked Daniel to marry her. And Elliot was born. 

But Ciaran complained that he received no word from them.

“She was so excited to leave Father and me,” Ciaran scoffed. “I was all alone after both of you left for your unicorn fantasy land.”

“Ciaran, she loved you,” Daniel asserted. “She just… didn’t know how to save you at that point, so she had to save herself first.”

“Why did she never tell me she had a kid?” 

Daniel sighed. “We didn’t tell anyone. Elliot lived with my sister in New York. We didn’t want Henry to… you know, use him against us. That’s also why I made the simulation. It was a place where we could meet Elliot even if we were in London most of the time. It was really just to keep him safe, while we were figuring out how to get you out.”

Ciaran chuckled mean-spiritedly. “You’re so naive, Daniel. How could you not know the woman you claim to love so much?”

Daniel opened his mouth to protest but Ciaran lifted his finger.

“Tell me, what was the last thing you remember? Before Maura told you that you have to stay in the simulation until she says that it's safe for you to wake up?” asked Ciaran.

Daniel bowed his head. “Just rain. A sad, rainy day.”

“Now look at what happened. She never came back for you. Your son stopped visiting afterwards. She used the simulation technology for the family company. And you’re trapped here with everyone. You know it, Daniel. Somewhere in there, you know the truth .”

“I have to go, Ciaran. Elliot might be waiting for me.”

Daniel stood up to leave, but Ciaran reached for his hand and pulled him closer. Ciaran’s grip was tender, his thumb rubbing Daniel’s skin gently. 

“I’ll offer this to you one more time: I’ll let you stay here peacefully. You don’t really need to save her or make her wake up. She asked for this. And I’ll stop erasing everyone’s memories to restart a new show. It’ll be suburb heaven forever, baby. You’re free to make her fall in love with you again. Bring your son along, whatever. I don’t care. I’m being nice here because… you know I’d never hurt you like she did. And I…” Ciaran’s voice cracked, and he sounded like he was about to say what was better left unsaid. 

“Please let me go,” Daniel begged. “She made a mistake, but Maura deserves better than this — her life being a source of shallow entertainment for the world to publicly consume? Seriously? You’re as sick as your father.” He shoved Ciaran and stormed off.

Ciaran’s jaw tightened, veins popping out. “I didn’t know what to do with the simulation when she stopped getting out of it with that Eyk guy! Father was dead. It was all left to me. But I’m not a nerdy brain like the rest of you lot are. I don’t know how to use it to cure cancer or whatever… so I did what I do best.” Ciaran theatrically formed a rainbow with his hands above his head. “Entertainment. It makes people happy. Laughter is the best medicine, blah, blah.” 

“This needs to stop,” Daniel asserted. “It's the right thing to do. And why are you doing it like this anyway? Making her feel bad in your stupid show that her brother got murdered? Does it make you feel better about yourself? You sadist fuck.”

“You don’t remember what she really did to you, don’t you? And why she left you in that simulation?”

“Whatever she did, I know she did it for my own good.”

Ciaran shook his head. “You and me, we’re both alike. That’s what I thought about my father too. When he did all those experiments on me. He said it was to save my mother. That I’d be a hero to her. And your kid? Does he really want to free you? Maybe he just wants his mom.”

“I don’t care, Ciaran. I’ve got nothing to lose. All I know is that I love my family,” Daniel firmly stated.

“There’s no saving you, Solace. I tried,” Ciaran said in a disheartened tone before leaving through the portal. “But you’re a hopeless romantic.”

Then he added, “And I’ll make sure you’re never getting out of here by the way. It’s for your own good .” 

iii. Mr. Sandman

“Maura, do you know who this man is?” Mayor Larsen stormed into Maura’s clinic, aggressively shoving the soft-spoken priest conversing with her off to the side. 

The blue Persian cat on the examination table hissed at Mayor Larsen, a splatter of saliva landing on him. He backed off a few inches, wiping his coat and eyeing the cat grimly.

“Oh, I am truly sorry, Father Ramiro,” Maura apologetically glanced over to her client, who was now shaking in agitation as he sat down on one of the plastic chairs in the corner of the room, as far away as possible from the mayor. “Give me a minute.”

Maura forcibly pulled Mayor Larsen into the adjacent storage room by his arm, both of them squished in a narrow passageway between heavy duty steel racks of medicines and treats. “Eyk, listen to me, you can’t just—“

But Maura’s voice faltered when Mayor Larsen lifted up a piece of paper with a police sketch. 

Dark curly hair and threateningly large eyes. It was the strange man from last night. The one with the peculiar ring scar. Her neighbor. Daniel. 

When Maura woke up today, she was convinced it was a dream, because she didn’t see him come out of his house. She wasn’t sure if she wanted him to be real or not, but this morning, she waited for him by the window to return her coat as the birds chirped their morning tunes and her phonograph record played:

Mr. Sandman, bring us a dream

Give him a pair of eyes with a "come-hither" gleam

Give him a lonely heart like Pagliacci

And lots of wavy hair like Liberace

“So have you seen him before?” Mayor Larsen questioned her again, gentler this time.

Maura bit her lip. “Hmm… I’ve never seen that man in my life.” 

“You’re telling the truth?”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

Mayor Larsen seemed unsatisfied with her response. “Olek, the lifeguard, told me he saw this man wash up on the shore — the same spot where they found the body of my wife. And your brother.”

Maura gasped and rubbed her hand over her tightening chest, feeling tense and unable to breathe. What could this mean? Would he know something about Ciaran?

The mayor, noticing her uneasy response, placed a heavy hand over her shoulder and caressed it. “Listen, he was seen all over town. We’ll find this man soon and interrogate him. Don’t worry.”

But what if this Daniel knew something Maura didn’t want the mayor to know?

Mayor Larsen leaned in closer to her, and their noses were almost touching when the door swung open.

Clemence peered, her eyes going back and forth between Maura and Mayor Larsen for an awkward minute. She made a clicking noise with her tongue. “Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but the priest just left with his cat and I couldn’t ask him to pay because… you know.” She stared sharply at Mayor Larsen. 

“I better go,” Mayor Larsen said glumly, sliding past Clemence to exit the room. “I’m sorry for interrupting you at work. Also, that man who left you the ring, you don’t think… it could be the man on the police sketch?”

Maura shook her head. “No, I figured it out. A prank from Clemence.” She winked at her assistant.

“Why… yes. Haha,” Clemence forced a giggle with an unsure look on her face. “How silly of me, Mayor.”

After Maura told Clemence about her new neighbor during lunch break, leaving out the ring scar and hallucinations, she discovered that Clemence had, in fact, met Daniel before she did. 

“Maura, he looks insane,” shot Clemence. “He knew your first and last name, your occupation, and your home? I think you should tell the mayor. In fact, if you don’t tell the mayor, I’m gonna go to him right now and—“ 

“Clemence, please no!” Maura pleaded. 

“Oh dear god,” Clemence put a hand over her mouth. “Maura, please don’t tell me you’ve fallen for another man who needs long-term therapy.”

“There’s—“ Maura buried her face in her hands in frustration. “It’s not like that at all. Oh, I wish I could tell you but…”

Clemence raised a brow at her. “You know him, don’t you? I can see it in your face. The way you talked about him earlier.” 

Maura wasn’t sure how to respond, and she simply buried herself in Clemence’s warm embrace.

It was around the afternoon. Maura was sitting on the swing at her porch overlooking the perfectly flat lawn that never seems to need mowing. Flipping through a book that she wasn’t reading, she occasionally checked for any sign that Mayor Larsen had arrived to drive her to Virginia’s birthday party. The two of them had plans to interrogate Angel, the priest’s brother, regarding the treehouse in the outskirts of town where he was spotted hanging out with Maura’s brother. 

Then, a ball with green and white stripes landed on the vacant grass in front of her. She was about to pick it up when a boy, aged around 9-10, came into view. 

The boy’s round blue eyes shot up, intensely fixated on hers, and his head tilted to the left.

“Hello?” Maura greeted in an uncertain tone. “Is this ball yours?” She didn’t know how to interact with him without being immensely awkward, but she felt like she needed to say something.

He stayed silent with an absent-minded atmosphere, twirling the tip of his shoe on the grass. 

“Maura!”

It was Daniel. He immediately put his arm around the boy, who proceeded to hide behind him, shyly peeking at Maura. Were they brothers? They had the same sickly pale complexion and dark hair, but their eye colors were drastically different.

Daniel also looked much more normal than she expected, clothed in an army green gabardine jacket, along with belted shorts and knee-high white socks that partly matched the boy’s outfit in an eerie twin-like way. 

“This is Elliot, my son. Say hello to Dr. Franklin, darling,” Daniel gently nudged the boy forward.

“Hi,” Elliot said in a hushed tone, his gaze now avoiding Maura’s.

“You have a son ?” Maura blurted out in a much more shocked manner than she intended.

Daniel’s face fell dejectedly while Elliot looked like he just got teased with a horrible nickname in the preschool playground. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Maura said, giving the ball to Elliot like a peace offering. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”

Daniel held up a hand. “No worries, Maura. You look… really… um,” he gulped nervously, as if it took all his energy to get a word out. “… pleasant.”

Maura swore she saw Elliot roll his eyes.

“You, yourself, Mr. Solace. Pleasant. I mean,” Maura scrambled to get her words right. “You look pleasant.”

Maura’s head was swarming with confusion. Was this an unspoken rule of how they were going to interact? Pretend that the night before didn’t occur at all? 

“Are you off somewhere?” Daniel asked, his eyes arduously searching hers. “A party, perhaps?”

Was he also invited to Virginia’s birthday?

“I—“

The approaching sound of an engine interrupted her, prompting all of their heads to turn towards the road. A newly polished car parked in front of Maura’s house — a red Chevy Bel Air from which Mayor Larsen emerged, in an ironed suit and tie.

Maura noticed Daniel’s immediate shift of mood as soon as the car became visible, his jaw hardening and the rage in his expression visible from a mile away. 

He continuously glowered at the mayor as the latter held out an arm for Maura. 

“Who’s this?” Mayor Larsen asked her.

Maura nervously anticipated if the mayor would notice Daniel’s face from the police sketch. “My new neighbor, apparently.”

“Wait, are you…” Mayor Larsen drew nearer to Daniel. “Did you wash up on the shore?”

“That sounds a bit dramatic, mayor. I was just. Going. For a swim,” Daniel answered vehemently, stressing every word.

“In a hospital gown?”

“A night gown,” he corrected. 

Maura had never witnessed such tension between two men talking about articles of clothing.

“Um… dad, I think we should get going,” Elliot squeaked, pulling his father’s arm. 

Maura, taking the boy’s cue, also began pulling Mayor Larsen away before he and Daniel might make each other’s brains explode with their glares. 

“Goodbye, Daniel and Elliot.” 

Chapter Text

i. Strawberry Fields

“Elliot, come down, your parents are waiting for you!”

As soon as he heard Aunt Delia’s voice, Elliot dropped his paintbrush on top of the splatter of earthy colors on his palette and raced outside his room, his sketchbook tucked under his arm.

His aunt was sitting on the couch by the fireplace, where tiny bird figurines, hand-carved and painted by his father, were lined up on the mantelpiece. Daniel left one bird for each year that he visited Elliot in person for his birthday. 

“Every animal has a fitting name,” Daniel told Elliot, placing the figurine of a bright red parrot with green and yellow specks on his son’s palms. “What should we name this bird?” 

It was Elliot’s 6th birthday. The family of three sat cross-legged on the carpeted floor of Aunt Delia’s New York flat, surrounded by a field of empty boxes, torn pieces of decorative paper, and dozens of unwrapped presents, ranging from books to toys to clothes, all brought by Maura and Daniel.

Elliot held up the parrot figurine to his eye level, admiring the intricately carved feathers. “Uh, maybe he looks like a Henry? Or a Hank? Mum, help me choose!” 

Maura scooted closer to the boy and rested her chin on his shoulder, squinting at the bird. “He’s a Hank, I think.”

 “Hank, it is, then,” Daniel cheerfully agreed and kissed the top of Elliot’s head. “Happy birthday, darling. We love you.”

“Never forget,” added Maura, pulling Elliot into a crushing embrace, which his father joined in. 

There were now 8 birds displayed.

And Elliot yearned for the day he received the 9th one. 

“It’s time, cariad bach ,” Aunt Delia called his attention, bringing out the multicolored Pyraminx puzzle from a compartment under her coffee table. Red, blue, yellow, and green triangles covered the walls of the pyramid toy that Elliot had been plugging himself to, so that he could see his parents while he slept. 

“Can I bring my paintings?” requested the boy, waving his sketchpad. “I really want them to see what I made.”

“Sure, love. Let’s scan them first.”

The Solace family were gathered inside the simulation, atop a hill where they frequently held picnics, chewing on fresh strawberries amidst the mountainous terrain. 

Maura’s head was relaxed on Daniel’s shoulders, as he gently stroked her hair. To Elliot, his parents have always been a singular, inseparable entity, especially since he always met them in his dreams, where there was no one else to see but them. 

“This is me , right?” Daniel pointed to the human figure wearing a black coat in Elliot’s painting.

Elliot nodded proudly as he faced his parents, clutching a tablet which projected the scanned picture of his latest artwork. 

“It’s unmistakably you.” Maura popped a strawberry into Daniel’s mouth, beaming affectionately at him. “Look at those huge eyes. And the circles underneath. Great work on the details, Eli-copter.” She playfully tapped on the boy’s nose with a finger, eliciting a giggle from him. 

“And this is you, mum!” Elliot ecstatically gestured towards the girl in the painting with long red hair and a maroon blouse. She appeared to be sitting on a crescent-shaped boat next to the boy in a dark coat, who extended his arm to cover her with an umbrella, as it rained water droplets that were as big as their heads. 

“She looks gorgeous, doesn’t she?” chimed in Daniel, planting a kiss on Maura’s cheek. 

“Thank you for putting me under the umbrella, sweetie,” Maura said to Elliot. 

“And thank you for putting me outside the umbrella. I sure do love the rain,” Daniel  mentioned, an awkward half-smile plastered on his face.

“That’s how you fell in love, right? You took mum to a boat and it was raining!” Elliot recalled his parents’ story.

“You actually listen when we tell you things,” noted Maura, sounding impressed. 

“Elliot, you’re giving me too much credit, because I actually forgot to bring an umbrella that day,” Daniel corrected, laughing weakly. 

“So you just stayed under the rain?” asked Elliot worryingly, beginning to feel sad that he got the painting wrong.

“We both stayed under his coat,” Maura replied, her cheeks blushing. “And I kissed your dad for the first time.” She leaned in and quickly pecked Daniel on the lips. 

“Ew! Don’t do it in front of me!” Elliot covered his eyes. 

Later that day, they trekked down the hill until they reached a stream, where a fleet of origami boats that Daniel and Elliot made floated continuously. The sunlight that poured in from gaps between the shade of trees never faltered or intensified. Birds hummed their routine melody, a tune that would be stuck in Elliot’s head when he woke up and attended his classes.

Maura suggested that they camp along the stream instead of going to their pyramid home. Daniel used a device to spawn a tent and a campfire. He also tried fishing, but he wasn’t very good at it, the fish pulling away before he could reel in  — so he also used his device to make a carp appear out of thin air. 

While Maura roasted the fish on a stick, Daniel and Elliot foraged for more strawberries. Then they ate, told stories, laughed until their cheeks hurt, and exchanged cuddles, tickles, and kisses. Maura sang along to her favorite tune playing on a stereo as they lay down on their backs outside the tent. 

Let me take you down

'Cause I'm going to strawberry fields

Nothing is real 

And nothing to get hung about 

Strawberry fields forever

Elliot invited his parents to hold hands with him and hop around in a circle to the beat of the song, the fallen leaves crunching beneath them. Was it only a dream or was it real? Elliot felt dizzy. He didn’t want to think about it, but he was happy. To him, the simulation was like a painting of his parents he could hop into – eternal and unchanging, but alive. 

“You know, we really love your painting. Do you think you could ask your aunt to mail it to us, so we can have it on our wall?” Maura requested while they were cramped together inside their tent, buried under layers of blankets and cushions. Elliot was comfortably sandwiched between his parents, who both lied down on their sides in his direction. Once he slept, he would wake up in the real world, without them next to him.  

“You can also keep it if you want it for yourself,” offered Daniel, caressing his cheek. “But of course, mummy and daddy want something made by you in our place.”

Elliot’s heart leapt for joy, hearing that his parents wanted to have his painting — it was what he secretly aimed for every time he showed them his work. He imagined the painting on their wall, the two of them stopping to admire it, like the parents in his school who would look at the student artworks displayed in the classroom, gushing about their child’s creation. 

“Of course, I want you to have it!”

Wake up.

Elliot lifted his head from his father’s lap. He yawned as his surroundings took shape: Balloons. A jukebox. Long tables of refreshments and food skewers on plates. A chocolate fountain. There was a large gathering by the bowling lanes, where Jerome and Lucien took turns in rolling balls across the pinewood flooring, somehow hitting the exact same number of pins every round and occasionally screaming profanities in French.

“Where’s mum?” Elliot scanned the crowd for any sign of wavy red hair.

A bluesy guitar lick emitted from the jukebox, and pairs flocked from the bowling lanes to the hall’s open space, skirts spinning and shoes kicking to the upbeat melody. It was so well-choreographed and synchronized that the movements appeared robotic.

“She’s probably dancing with the mayor,” Daniel responded in a completely flat tone, vacantly staring straight ahead. A pointed conical hat with polka dots sat titled upon his head, while he wore the dark coat which Maura let him “borrow”. He was like the grinch wearing a Christmas hat, thought Elliot.

“Then do something about it,” snapped Elliot, in a matter-of-fact tone.

“I’m nervous,” admitted Daniel, rubbing his hands together. “She doesn’t react much when she sees me.”

“That’s not true. I think she smiled when you called her pleasant,” Elliot lied. She definitely showed no signs of amusement at anything his father said. 

Daniel went on like he didn’t hear Elliot, “When I tried to hold her hand, she was terrified — you should have seen the look on her face.” He sighed heavily. “If the mind forgets but the body remembers, does my touch only remind her of horrible things? All I’ve ever wanted to do was to make her smile. Did I do anything wrong, Elliot?” 

Elliot avoided his father’s gaze. Some questions were better left unanswered. 

“There she is,” Daniel remarked. 

Elliot narrowed his eyes. “ Where? ” 

“At the corner, behind that tall man in stripes next to the blonde woman in blue to the left of the chocolate fountain. She’s not dancing.”

Elliot spotted the back of Maura’s head, and a fraction of her red dress. She was barely visible and he was a bit terrified that his father recognized her from so little clues — that’s probably what 12 years of marriage does to your brain. 

“You don’t have to hold her hand right away,” advised Elliot. “Maybe it’s better to start out simple, like what’s something you always tell her?”

Daniel’s face lit up. “I love you?”

“W-well, not exactly,” stammered Elliot. He was starting to lose hope in this mission. “You can save that for later. How about… the first thing you ever said to her?”

Elliot immediately realized the mistake he made. His parents were literally children when they met. Who knows what dumb things his father probably said at age 10?

But it was too late for him to retract his statement. Daniel was already making his way across the hall, his pointy hat on the verge of falling over. 

ii. The Mechanic

“ Maura , that’s an Irish name, isn’t it?” 

Taken aback by the sudden presence behind her, Maura almost spilled her cocktail drink on her party dress. She swung her head slightly to take a cautious glimpse, and it turned out to be her neighbor, wearing the same black coat she let him borrow. He appeared to have no plans on returning it to her. 

Daniel took a step closer and Maura flinched. “But you’re not Irish,” he continued, subtly smirking.

Why was this man trying to strike a conversation about the Irish origins of her name at a party? 

More importantly, was he even invited? Was Virginia that desperate?

Maura’s neutral expression after several beats seemed to evoke embarrassment on his part, his face frozen in terror. He was right. She was not Irish. What else was there to say?

Before she could overthink further, she plainly responded, “No, I’m not.”

Daniel appeared to take this rejection to heart, backing away and looking down the floor in defeat. Maura didn’t understand his disappointment when she confirmed that he was right.

“Sir, your party hat is falling over,” Maura helpfully pointed out.

“My what?” He blinked rapidly in confusion.

“Here, let me…” Maura moved closer, tipping his hat to the left while meeting his gaze. They both stood motionless as dancing couples brushed past them.

“Sorry.” Maura broke away from his stare, because she was filled with a strange, irrational fear that he saw right through her.

She now had the opportunity to ask if he gave her the strawberry milkshake, but she was too scared to know the answer. Her eyes landed on his finger, where the burnt scar took the shape and place of a wedding ring. “How long have you had that scar?” she asked before she could stop herself.

Daniel sighed dolefully. “I’ve had it since my wife left me.”

Maura fell silent. It seemed too intimate for her to dig for more details. “I’m sorry to hear that.” 

“Don’t be sorry,” Daniel gave her a pressed smile that tried too hard to seem assuring. “How about you? Any luck with love?”

Maura watched Olek and Ling Yi slow dancing in the middle of the hall, arms wrapped around each other. No specific memories resurfaced — her past was a blur to her — but she recalled the feeling of being young and thinking that love could make her happy forever. Her father never showed any sign of love, so she thought that finding it outside her family would somehow set her heart right.

“Virginia says I’m too intimidating,” she admitted in a slightly bitter tone, sipping on her drink. 

“I like that about you,” Daniel sheepishly uttered, almost a whisper. 

Maura turned to him, open-mouthed. Was she supposed to say thank you? Or be offended?

“I mean, it’s not bad. To be intimidating,” rephrased Daniel in panic. “Besides, some people are much worse. Me , for example, I once got fired as a waiter when I was in university. My boss said I single-handedly caused the restaurant sales to crash, after customers complained that I was staring at them too intensely when I take their orders, and you know th—“

“Miss Franklin!” boomed Mayor Larsen, sliding into her view with a seething expression, blocking Daniel’s way. His alcoholic scent washed over her, a sign that she would have to ask Clemence to give her a lift home. “He denied having a relationship with your brother.”

“Who? Angel?”

Mayor Larsen nodded. “He claimed that it was the boy who works at the diner.”

“That’s Krester. Anker’s son,” noted Maura. “Aren’t they devout Catholics? His mother recites the rosary everywhere she goes.” Iben was a stern woman who walked the streets of Kerberos like it was a never-ending pilgrimage. 

“More reason to keep the affair private,” Mayor Larsen reasoned out. “The family probably found out and needed to put a stop to it. I think we are right in our hunch that there is someone being hired to kill people. Then they dump their bodies into the sea. They did the same to my wife after I won in the elections against Henry Singleton.”

Maura froze at the mention of her father, almost as if his cold presence was instantly summoned in flesh. She would not put it past him to have his brother and Eyk’s wife killed if it got in his way of maintaining power.

“I think I have some information for you, Mayor.” Daniel stepped forward. 

Mayor Larsen glanced over to Daniel, slightly bemused that he had been there the whole time. “You! Didn’t you come from that beach?” he asked in an accusatory tone.  

Maura appreciated their efforts not to instantly throw a punch at each other, given that Mayor Larsen was dramatically badmouthing Daniel during the entire car ride to the party (“Something is horribly wrong with that man. He looked like he was plotting to burn my car.”).

“My wife also disappeared,” stated Daniel firmly, all emotion washed away from his typically gentle manner of speaking to Maura. “She told me she would come back for me and my son after she handled certain… personal problems. But she never did, and the last I have heard of her was that she moved into this town.”

Mayor Larsen’s face softened. “I’m, uh… I owe you an apology. Your wife. What was her name? Perhaps I knew her and could be of assistance to you. In case she also—”

Daniel’s eyes lingered on Maura. “It doesn’t matter. It’s been a long time. I think she’s gone. I moved here with my son, not because we want her to come back to us. We just wanted to feel whatever’s left of her presence.”

Mayor Larsen nodded gravely. “I understand what you mean. We all deal with grief in our own ways.” Was he crying? Maura felt relieved that he seemed to be more affected by this than her.

“But there’s certainly something strange going on in this town,” Daniel added, surveying the hall with his sinister glare. “Everyone who moves in here, they never get out. I wish both of you luck in finding the truth.”

In the weeks that followed, Daniel became a permanent fixture in Maura’s life. Not a day passed by where she wouldn’t find him and his son materializing in her field of vision wherever she might be. Standing by the lamp post outside her house. Sitting on the first bench she passed by at the park. Watching the same movies in the theater that she and Mayor Larsen would buy tickets for. 

Whenever she drank her coffee before heading to work, Maura would spot them within the small frame of her window, regardless of the weather: Daniel struggling to make a kite fly and Elliot sitting down on the lawn infuriated, a game of football wherein neither of them were kicking the ball successfully to each other (Daniel once sent the ball flying to Mayor Larsen’s car window — he paid for the damages by doing work at the mayor’s office), and eventually when they ran out of outdoor sports, they began playing scrabble and chess on a picnic mat, though Maura didn’t understand why they couldn’t just do it indoors, especially when it rained.

Eyk often drove Maura home from the vet clinic, and Daniel would skulk around the parking lot where the mayor’s car was, his hands in the pockets of the black coat that he never returned to her. One day, a dense fog landed in town, and Mayor Larsen got into a car accident before arriving at the vet clinic. Luckily, he had no serious injuries, except for a few scars that ran through his face. 

Maura frantically arrived at the hospital to visit the mayor, and Daniel was there in the waiting area, sipping on a strawberry milk box. 

“Odd fog, innit?” He asked casually. 

She shot him a quizzical look.

“Almost as if someone had sent it here on purpose… to stop that corrupt madman from running this town irresponsibly,” he spoke slowly in an unsettling tone.

“You’ve only lived here for a week,” Maura retorted, before entering Mayor Larsen’s room. 

The worst was yet to come for Mayor Larsen. Witnesses claimed that they saw Krester’s cat, Ada, who rarely left her owner’s side, being lured out of Anker’s Diner to a spot in the middle of the road by a mysterious man in a ski mask. 

Precisely 5 seconds after the ski mask man left Ada, Mayor Larsen’s overspeeding Chevrolet hit the poor cat. Daniel and Elliot happened to pass by, and rushed the cat to the vet clinic themselves, while Eyk took a second trip to the hospital for stitches. 

Maura was able to save Ada’s life through a gruesome surgery, receiving a year-long supply of free meals from Anker’s Diner as a reward. Meanwhile, the town residents of Kerberos rallied in the streets for weeks, with the text “Justice for Ada” on the placards, calling for the impeachment of Eyk Larsen as mayor, due to multiple incidents of reckless driving. 

“With a mayor like that, anyone’s pet, child, family member, or friend could be next,” Iben, Krester’s mother, shared in a statement on Kerberos Daily, the local newspaper, where she was pictured posing with the cat next to the Virgin Mary’s statue and Ramiro the priest — “God heard our prayers” in bold text under the photo as a caption.

Krester refused to release a statement. Virginia says that he was caught by his sister doing unholy deeds in the diner’s storage room with Angel while Ada was going through surgery. 

Nevertheless, despite all his naysayers, Maura still visited Mayor Larsen, offering him company when his daughters were away at school. 

“I think the mayor’s wrong,” Daniel approached Maura from behind a lamp post on her way home. “He should have been more careful while driving.”

It took Maura several seconds to realize that he was talking to her. “That man with the ski mask shouldn’t have left that cat in the middle of the road,” she countered.

Daniel looked offended. “Well, if he wasn’t driving past the speed limit, he would have time to stop once he’d seen the cat.”

Maura could not argue with that, so she just left him, as the rain began to pour.

Maura soon learned that Daniel was a mechanic. 

While this seemed like the most normal characteristic he possessed, how she found out was a whole other story.

On a Friday, she visited the laundromat. When she opened the laundry machine door, she found him hunkered inside with what looked like a flat, book-sized television box that he tapped on with his fingers. “It’s the latest tool in laundry-fixing technology,” he explained. Soon enough, objects in her house started breaking apart one by one — her television set, her toilet, her sink, her bookcase, and more. Asking help from Daniel was the most practical option, and he offered his services for free. 

After work hours, Maura would make tea for both of them while Daniel was busy fixing whichever was the newly broken item in her cursed home. Every day, he arrived with his toolbox, wearing the black coat he gave her. He never initiated returning it to her. 

But she let him keep it anyway because she thought it fitted him. 

They frequently conversed about Daniel’s wife. At first, Maura thought that bringing her up might bring back bad memories for him, but Daniel’s face brightened up whenever he told stories about her. 

Daniel was certainly peculiar and startling at times, but Maura could tell how much he cherished his wife that she wondered what could have possibly went wrong. 

When she was bored during work breaks, forced to listen to Virginia’s ramblings about how she would make a better mayor than Eyk, Maura tried to build a complete picture of Daniel’s wife in her head. She was intelligent, earning a doctorate in the field of psychology in her 20s. She was incredibly assertive. She kissed Daniel first and proposed to him after she read the news about a couple dying together hand in hand due to a fire that ravaged their home — this was a day after she rejected his marriage proposal. She enjoyed thoughtful romantic gestures, such as when Daniel wrote a 10-page reaction paper to her favorite non-fiction book about the space-time continuum, and when he drunkenly played the guitar and sang outside her window while she was asleep (shortly before her roommates called the cops on him). Although she had a cold and calculated exterior, she was sweet and affectionate when no one was around, and Elliot adored her (“It was clear that I wasn’t the favorite parent,” admitted Daniel.). She liked cacti, banned books, Greek mythology, culottes, frost flowers, the mountains, riding bicycles, analyzing rugby statistics, and strawberries. 

“Do you reckon I would get along with her?” Maura asked, lightheaded and sprawled across her couch. Instead of tea, they decided to drink gin and eat strawberry shortcake, ordered from Anker’s diner. “Your wife, I mean.”

Daniel was plopped on the floor, bottle in hand and his back leaning against the leg of the couch. “Pfft,” he blubbered. “If you only knew.”

“Knew what?” Maura repeatedly prodded his arm with her foot. Daniel made less sense when he was drunk. “Hey, answer me.”

Maura just came out of an argument with Mayor Larsen after he uncovered her brother’s real birth certificate, which led to him discovering that she was related to Henry Singleton. She understood that he felt hurt and lied to, but she was rattled when he slammed her against a wall and shouted aggressively at her. 

Then she came home, trying to hide that she was upset. That clearly didn’t work because when Daniel arrived, he made her pancakes and tea, wrapped her in his black coat (Or was it hers? Who knows anymore?), and told a dumb joke about croissants in space being called spacetries. He was about to fix her shower when he saw her calendar and told her off-handedly it was his wedding anniversary. 

So she insisted that Daniel should take a break from fixing her house and celebrate. 

“You know, this song, it goes like…” Daniel coughed to clear his throat.

“Oh god, no, don’t do it,” Maura giggled airily. “I’ve had an awful day already.”

“I-I don’t think this song exists yet,” slurred Daniel, raising a finger. “Hold on.”

“So you wrote it?”

“No, no…” Daniel shook his head. “Someone else did but it doesn’t exist yet.” 

Maura threw a pillow to his face. “You don’t make any sense.”

Daniel embraced the pillow and chuckled. “ Whenever I’m… you make me feel… home…” He hummed an unfamiliar melody. “Maura, you don’t remember?”

“What?” She looked at him funnily. “Why would I remember?” 

“Whenever I’m alone with you, you make me feel like I am home again,” he sang with his eyes shut. 

“Did you sing that to her?” Maura clumsily slid down from the couch to sit next to him. 

“Yeah. The one I told you. I was drunk… with my guitar… outside her dormitory… the window.” He made a rectangular shape with his hand. “Enough of that, I always talk about my wife,” Daniel stated. “What about you? Do you remember anyone you’ve ever loved?”

Maura immediately thought of Eyk, but there was a certain emptiness inside her that he couldn’t fill up, like a missing puzzle piece he was never meant to fit.  

“This sounds silly, but when I was a young girl, around 8 or 9, there was this boy I used to play with in a treehouse,” she recalled, grinning. “He was the first person who loved me I think.” 

Daniel’s expression suddenly became hopeful, “And did you love him back?”

“Something bad happened to him,” she whispered. “It was too late when I realized that I loved him.”

She rested her head on his shoulder and she felt him briefly recoil a bit in shock. 

“Shall we sleep forever like her?” she said, pointing to the only framed painting on her wall — the girl in the orange dress, dozing off to an endless dream.

“I’d love to,” Daniel replied wearily. “But my son needs me.” 

“Won’t you stay here? Just for the night?” Maura drowsily asked, her eyes nearly closed. “I don’t feel safe right now. You can tell Elliot to come.” 

“Elliot’s fine at home, trust me,” he said, changing his mind. “Of course, I can stay.” His soothing voice and the lilt to his words were enough to calm Maura’s nerves. 

Before she knew it, she was pressing her forehead against his, cupping his face in her hands. For a moment, she thought about kissing him, but they both pulled away. 

The rest of the night was a blur. Maura recalled flashes of Daniel carrying her to bed. It was freezing and he slept on the floor, so Maura dropped the black coat and her blanket on top of him. 

“You’ll be there when I wake up, right?” She asked for assurance, her eyes fixated on the ring inside the jar atop her bedside table.

“Always.” 

iii. Sleeping Beauty

Ciaran was lounging on his mattress, donning a silky velvet robe and holding a remote control. He was fixated on his flat screen television, the only source of radiance inside his windowless bedroom with a gray cement finish and high ceilings. Above the headrest of his round leather bed was a vibrant triptych abound with lush greeneries, bodies of water, otherworldly contraptions, and animated human beings, fully exposed in the flesh and engaged in all sorts of pleasurable acts. Ciaran stole Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights from Maura’s collection after she trapped herself in her own "paradise".

“Sebastian!” he yelled after biting a puff from his pack of Cheetos.

After echoes of frenzied footsteps, Sebastian emerged from an elevator that slid open beside Ciaran’s flat screen TV. His hair was unruly and his blazer was falling off one shoulder. “Yes, Mr. Singleton?” He panted heavily. 

Ciaran clicked his tongue in disapproval. “I said I wanted extra spicy ones.” 

Sebastian’s eyes widened. “Oh, apologies, I thought I hea–”

“You know what? I don’t care,” Ciaran crumpled the Cheetos pack and hurled it at the TV screen when it showed a close-up of his sister smiling. “Look at them, they’re so pathetic.”

Maura and Daniel, hungover from the night before, were sitting across each other on the dinner table, eating leftovers and exchanging knowing glances.

“I-indeed,” Sebastian reluctantly responded. “But… sir… Is this really part of your plan?”

“Are you questioning me?” Ciaran shot Sebastian a threatening glare.

“Oh, no, I–”

“No, that’s good actually. That tiny brain of yours is trying to critically think,” jeered Ciaran, bursting into a chuckle. “Come.” He patted on the empty space next to him on the bed.

Sebastian carefully sat on the edge.

“I’m such a good brother,” uttered Ciaran, faking a melancholic tone. “This is what Maura always wanted. You know, she’s always been so delusional, she might just be the smartest person to live.”

“Hmm,” Sebastian made a noise he deemed neutral enough not to elicit a wild reaction from his boss.

“She was so unsatisfied with our reality that she convinced herself it’s just a construct — I mean, who the fuck knows? She might be right,” Ciaran prattled on. “So she made her own world, thinking she could make a more perfect world than God, free of pain and guilt. A place to start over. To her it was never a matter of escapism, it was taking matters into her own hands, not settling for this hellish world she never chose to be born in. Quite poetic, huh?”

“And what about Daniel?” Sebastian asked.

“He has no idea what’s going on. It’s better for us to keep him lulled in Maura’s affections, so that he’d rather not leave… It doesn’t seem to be that hard anyways,” Ciaran remarked, rolling his eyes. “Our little sleeping beauty can’t wake up. Besides, our viewer numbers have drastically increased ever since he came in.”

Ciaran narrowed his eyes on the screen when Elliot showed up on Maura’s doorstep, asking to talk to his father. The boy whispered into Daniel’s ears, his expression shifting from relaxed to tense.

“We need to be quicker in finding the boy, Sebastian,” Ciaran demanded. “As long as he’s there, he will be reminding his father to try to wake them all up. Find a list of every person who has attended any rally or gathering against Singleton Studios. Get into contact with Daniel’s sister again. We need to get rid of this boy in the season finale .”

“Noted, Mr. Singleton.” Sebastian glanced at his watch. “By the way, I believe it’s time for your Hollywood Reporter interview about your future plans for the show.”

iv. The Birds

A wave of nostalgia overtook Elliot every time he plugged into the simulation nowadays. All of it was too painfully familiar before everything went wrong. 

Lately, Maura’s visits to their house became more frequent. And she would also invite them to hers. She would bring food from the diner, and the three of them would watch black and white slapstick comedies, play board games, and perform shadow puppet shows. 

On the other hand, his father was the happiest he’d ever seen, savoring all the crumbs of endearment Maura showed — a slight smile to his unfunny jokes, a friendly kiss on the cheek, and the nights when she’d ask him to sleep on the foot of her bed.

Maura also interacted more with Elliot. He had tried to avoid becoming too attached to her in the simulation, playing off a shy persona and refusing to speak to anyone but his father. But she would always find a way to be with him.

When Daniel was teaching him how to ride a bike (an attempt to replicate whatever normal things fathers and sons did in the 1950s), Elliot fell and scraped his knee. Maura, who watched them from her window, was alarmed and immediately tended to his wounds, sternly lecturing Daniel on how he should have been holding onto the handle instead of letting go right away. His parents didn’t speak for three days until Daniel waited hours outside her house, soaking in rain, to give her a box of home-baked strawberry muffins (most likely burnt) once she got home from a party that she attended with Mayor Larsen. 

While Elliot was setting up the malware beetle in the park (to unlock Mayor Larsen’s car while he went for his morning jog), Maura spotted him and asked him if he liked collecting bugs.

So he ran along with it, even if it made him seem a little unhinged.

Maura scooped the beetle from the grass. “Oh, it’s quite shiny.” It ran in circles around her palms. “Do you collect bugs, Elliot?”

There was no other way out of this. 

“Yes, Miss Franklin,” he tried to put on his best enthusiastic sing-song voice. “I love beetles the most! That one’s my pet.” Elliot thought that he might as well claim it in case she sees him or Daniel with it again.

“Does it have a name?” Maura extended her hand to meet Elliot’s, and the beetle crawled back to its owner.

“Oh, this is Alfred,” Elliot introduced the bug, pretending to tenderly caress it with a finger. 

Maura bent down to his eye level and beamed warmly at him. “Well, it does look like an Alfred. Tell you what, you and your father should stop by the vet clinic some time. I think I’ve got some helpful books on taking care of bugs,” she suggested. The next day, she brought the books to their house herself and helped him set up a tank for Alfred, filled with twigs and leaves they gathered from the park. 

It was both an unnerving and comforting feeling — the mother who left you being insistent on spending more time with you again.

And yet he couldn’t resist it. He had always yearned desperately for her affections and seal of approval. Maybe he inherited that from his father. When he was a child, Maura was, without a question, far more thoughtful than other mothers he’d seen. She listened to Elliot’s stories, asked him questions, became invested in his odd interests (trains, coins, comets), and gave him lots of kisses and hugs. 

But there was always a large part of her that was hidden away from him and Daniel. He only understood that when he got older. And now he doubted if she had always been genuine whenever she reminded them that she loved them. 

“She was always meant for bigger things,” Daniel told him once, while they waited for Mayor Larsen to show up in the parking lot. “It’s not that she doesn’t love us. She just knows there’s more to the world that we humans could strive for. And she isn’t afraid to go there.”

Hunched under a bunk bed in his real apartment, Elliot stared at the Pyraminx puzzle in his hand. It was the first toy he had ever owned. He was just an infant when Aunt Delia began placing an electrode cap on his head, so that his parents could meet him while he slept. 

Now, the pyramid, thanks to a hacker he knew, had been redirected to Uncle Ciaran’s simulation, where his parents were given another chance to reconnect. 

Maura and Daniel were getting along so well that Elliot began to question if it was better to leave them this way. He thought about throwing the entire pyramid into the trash bin or setting it on fire so that he would never bother them again. The fear that his parents might be better off without him constantly crept into his mind. 

Maybe his mother was right. Who knows if our reality is even real? What difference does a simulation make? Do their lives being televised even matter if they don’t know about it? Was it selfish that he wanted his mother to wake up?  

“Hey, bugface. I know it’s a special day.”

The door to his cramped studio apartment swung open to a nonchalant-faced brunette holding a plate of doughnut with a single candle on it. “You’re paying for this by the way,” she added. 

“Fuck off, Nina, it’s not a birthday,” Elliot snapped. “I don’t have a dime. Have this instead.” He casually threw her a wine bottle from under his bed. “I stole it from my boss.”

Nina caught the bottle smoothly in her other hand. “Even better. Is your boss the one you’re having dinner tonight with?”

“With his family, yeah.”

She left the plate of doughnut on the kitchen counter and slowly trod through the piles of unfolded clothes and books scattered on the floor. “Ew. Spending time with your boss.”

“Like you’re doing anything better?” retorted Elliot. 

Nina sat in front of her desktop computer and started clicking on her keyboard. “Watch your words, I’m the one who hacked you and your dad into that dumb TV show.”

If Elliot was asked how he first met Nina Larsen, he wouldn’t have a definitive answer. There wasn’t exactly a support group for Children With Parents Who Trapped Themselves into a Simulation — and even if there was, neither of them were emotionally open enough to partake in that. However, Elliot had come across Nina several times: 2 college parties that she crashed for free alcohol, a poetry slam event, and a boring gathering for The Youth Against Singleton. The order of which came first was scrambled in his head, but they had each other’s contact numbers. 

When Elliot began to plan his infiltration of Singleton Studios, he invited Nina to join his plan, and they became roommates. 

only agreeing 2 this so that when my dad gets out i can use him for lots of $$$$$$$$$$ when i start suing ppl. also to make his life more miserable bc he left me 2 take care of mama

Elliot was not entirely sure what Nina’s job was, except that it was related to computers and a “Polish Housecleaning Service.” Whenever he did ask her about it, she simply said, “It’s better that you don’t know.” Once in a while, a lively man who strangely looked like Elliot’s father entered their flat without warning, ate all the food in their fridge, and talked to Nina about “orders”, “arrival time”, and in a whispering voice, "heroin". 

“Hey, I’m heading out,” Elliot informed her, while he was halfway through the door.

“Wow, fancy,” Nina sarcastically commented, side-eyeing his suit and tie. “Steal more bottles from your boss, would you?” 

“Yeah, whatever.”

“Oh, and Elliot!”

“Yeah?”

“Are you sure that you’re still 100% into this? Destroying the simulation? ‘Cos sometimes I feel like you’re just dragging this out to live your perfect family fantasy, no offense,” Nina remarked, as she continued typing in front of her screen. “Promise me you’re not done, will you?”

Elliot hesitated to answer for a bit. 

“Of course, I’m committed.”

Dinner with the Deckers had always sucked the soul out of Elliot, but he had no choice but to play along with their social niceties because he owed them the meager success of his art career and his access to Singleton Studios. 

“Hey, Alfred! So glad to see you!” Mr. Decker’s wife, Katherine, hugged Elliot in a cold, half-committed way, stepping nearer by an inch and placing her hands on his back stiffly, as if the browns of his worn-out blazer would stain her Prada dress.

The Deckers’ flat felt more like a museum than a place to live in — every wall had at least one framed painting on it, and the space reeked of neoclassical influences, such as tall pillars, elaborate chandeliers, and golden rectangular wall trims. Elliot imagined if his parents lived in such a place — they would make no efforts to keep it polished, and it would have mathematical diagrams and journal articles taped all over the walls within a week. 

Mr. Decker welcomed Elliot with a firm handshake by the archway leading to their long dining table, which was already occupied by familiar faces from the New York art scene. Elliot ate as much as he could, and lied his way through conversations with Mr. Decker’s boring old guests. “Yes, my name is Alfred… No, I’m not their son, but they’ve been really good to me. They’ve sponsored my exhibitions… Yes, that’s me, the guy who makes paintings of beetles in different landscapes… No, I just work as his assistant for Singleton Studios’ creative department. It’s been very fulfilling.”

Mr. and Mrs. Decker didn’t have children of their own. They also spent little time together, which Elliot only learned after being Mr. Decker’s assistant. 

“Marriage… you know, it’s an arrangement between two people who can cater to each other’s needs, physical or emotional or social. It’s not always love,” Mr. Decker expressed once while they took a smoke break outside the office. “What about your folks?”

Elliot shrugged. “I don’t know. I used to think they were always in love. But then I realized they only showed the good side of things.” He thought about what Mr. Decker said. Was his parents’ marriage an arrangement? Partly, maybe. Maura wanted to escape her family, while Daniel needed someone who made him feel like he belonged. 

“Are they still together?” 

“That’s funny, because I’m not really sure,” Elliot confessed. For once, he didn’t lie.

Elliot had a soft spot for Mr. Decker, who started working for the Singletons after being part of a successful trial on PTSD therapy through simulations. Both of his parents died when he was young, and he often gave Elliot the awkward pat on the back he needed when he opened up about his own parents in a vague way.  

Before Elliot left dinner, Mr. Decker approached him and gave him a linen card with an illustration. “I remembered it’s your dad’s thing today. Might be nice. You said he made lots of bird sculptures. It’s my mother’s favorite painting.”

Elliot raised his brows in surprise. He had no idea Mr. Decker was capable of advanced levels of workplace boss thoughtfulness. The artwork on the card was a bird chained to its perch — it was a popular painting that he forgot the name of.

“Thank you so much. It means a lot.” He almost went in for an embrace but just fumblingly waved goodbye instead, feeling guilty for using his clearly depressed boss for his personal interests. 

Mrs. Decker gave Elliot more money than he needed for his cab ride going home, so he used it up to buy a single red rose instead. When he entered the flat, Nina was still busy on her computer and only grunted to greet him. 

Elliot ducked to fit under the upper deck of the bunker bed, and placed the red rose and Mr. Decker’s card next to an unassuming vase on a shelf built in above the headboard. All 9 birds that Daniel made for Elliot were displayed beside the vase.

“ Even the birds up there have their own prison, ” Elliot recalled what Jerome said to Clemence on one of the first episodes of the simulated reality TV show. 

“Hey, dad. I’m sorry. And I love you I guess.”

Elliot visited Wales once with his aunt. In the cemeteries there, red roses were traditionally planted on the graves of people who have been kind. 

Nina once suggested to spread the ashes in that cemetery, instead of Elliot having to keep a dead person in his room. But he wasn’t ready. He wanted to do it with his mom when she woke up.

Elliot felt bad about it. He was using the remaining bits of his father’s consciousness to bring back his mother. 

And if Maura did wake everyone up, Daniel wouldn’t be there. 

But he was the only one who could trigger her memories back. Not even Uncle Ciaran knew the extent of this. From a practical standpoint, as Nina pointed out, Daniel was the perfect virus to release into the simulation. All Elliot had to do was connect his Pyraminx to Singleton Studios.

The only part Elliot had no plan for was how to deal with his parents when they both find out the truth of how Daniel died. 

“How’s your daddy there? Can I have him?”

Elliot turned around in horror. He knew that voice from the interviews he’s watched. 

“Oh Elliot!” exclaimed a man with a diamond-studded mask that covered the left half of his face. He barely looked human, emerging from the entrance. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced, which is a shame, because I’m literally your uncle. You know, if I had known you’d been living in this crapshit flat, I would have taken care of you. And your parents would appreciate that, wouldn’t they? Anyways, not to stir drama for no reason, but it’s your friend here who gave the tip. Unlike you, she just really wants to torture her dad and get money, which is obviously my specialty. See? If you thought about your parents the same way, we’d get along more.” 

“Sorry, buddy,” Nina droned as she continued to stare emotionlessly into her computer. “They gave me a better offer.”

Elliot thought about jumping through the window and hoping for the best that he’d land in an open garbage bin, which is what his father would have done.

But wait.

Daniel once told Elliot that Uncle Ciaran liked to play games. 

Elliot confidently stood up — and almost toppled, which ruined the mood of what he was about to say: “L-let’s make a deal about my parents then.”