Daisuke was roused from his slumber by an insistent knock at the door. Rising from his position around the puter desk, he wiped the drool from his cheek and swiftly reached for his crutches, pushing himself to his feet with urgency.

  As he skillfully navigated through the mountains of trash in his room, another knock echoed. “Mr. Williams,” a muffled voice called. “It’s Dr. Cole... I’m here to pick up the hospital goromised.”

  “Huh?” Daisuke frowned in annoyance. I thought he said I could keep them.

  Gripping the doorknob, Daisuke swung the door open with more force than necessary, his eyebrows furrowed in distent. However, his disgruntled expression cleared when he realized that the corridor was eerily empty—the doctor had vanished without a trace.

  Dwelling on the issue for but a fleeting moment, Daisuke closed the door and awkwardly pivoted on his crutches. It was then that he noticed the Lyrebird perched on the microwave in the small kitette.

  eg the dots, Daisuke’s brows furrowed in anger once again. But before he could unleash his frustration on the mischievous bird, a hole suddenly maed in the floor—no, it wasn’t just your typical hole at all.

  A monstrous snapping turtle unleashed a sinister hiss, its gaping maw expanding with a terrifying voracity. Stretg almost a meter in diameter, the creature’s mouth became an insatiable void, effortlessly sug in heaps of trash like a relentless bck hole. The Nexusphere, the photo album, and the entire puter station were mercilessly devoured by the treacherous abyss.

  Daisuke’s cry echoed as his crutches were violently sucked in, costing him his baoppling to the floor, he desperately cwed for anything within reach.

  The Lyrebird, unmoved by the vacuum-like su, observed with twisted amusement. It cackled like a hyena, reveling in the success of its malevolent game as its target was swallowed by the dark abyss.

  In a dark and familiar alley, a prolonged gasp tore from Daisuke’s lungs. His gaze panned out from the lupine maw of a cag hyena, many of them gradually encirg him. Some licked their lips hungrily, their tails curved upwards in untrolled excitement, creating a nightmarish se of impending doom.

  Sitting upright, Daisuke desperately attempted to inch backward, only to find his back pressed against the unfiving wall of the venieore. Ign his bloody lip, he reached for the ag hanging from his pierced earlobe, but his attention tly seized by the light refleg off a menag crowbar.

  Daisuke’s eyes widened in horror as the man, draped in a familiar suit, raised the on above his head with a face-splitting grin. The crowbar desded with uing force toward his khe heart-rending sound of shattering bo rippling cracks through the overcast sky, like a puzzle breaking at the seams. And as the fragmented world drifted away, Daisuke heard his own wailing reverberating in his ears.

  “Oh no,” a soothing voice chimed amidst the tears. “What’s wrong? Did my little firefly have a bad dream?”

  At the sound of the angelie, Daisuke’s once-pierg screams transformed into soft sniffles. His erratic pulse gradually calmed as she gently gathered him up from his resting pce, cradling him within her arms. Her warmth was like a tender caress, soothing the turmoil within.

  Her initially blurred profile gradually sharpened as his tears dried. This mysterious woman, his virtual mother, emerged as stunningly beautiful, and Daisuke fell into silent captivity uhe spell of her irresistible charm.

  Despite the miserable state of the room, promising a life akin to or worse than what he endured before, the woman in front of him emitted a radiant glow. Her kind, oic eyes and radiant smile exuded a warmth that dispelled the cold whisper of a dark fate.

  “How about a nursery rhyme?” the woman suggested in a soft whisper. “Whenever I set as a child, my mother would always sing it for me.”

  Daisuke waited in anticipation as the mesmerizing woman took a breath. Her thick eyeshes drifted close, and her small, rosy lips parted, releasing a soothing o the air.

  In shadows deep where dreams may weep,

  A cradle of stars, a soul to keep.

  Through sorrows vast, the moonlight cast,

  Whispers soft, a memory’s grasp.

  Hush, my child, the night is kind,

  Embrace the echoes left behind.

  Stars dan skies, where teardrops lie,

  A lulby for a soul to fly.

  Ials soft, where dreams aloft,

  A garden blooms, emotions soft.

  With gentle grace, time’s warm embrace,

  Aernal bond, love’s sacred space.

  Daisuke’s eyes gleamed. As the gees of the nursery rhyme filled the virtual room, he felt a sense of fort seeping into his tiny frame. The haunting melody, tender and soothing, ed around him like a soft co.

  The troubles of his virtual existenentarily faded away, repced by the warmth of the lulby. The room, once shadowed, seemed thten with the simplicity of the song.

  In the reassuring arms of his virtual mother, Daisuke’s eyes drifted close, a serene smile grag his lips. The melody, a balm to his young soul, offered a moment of so the midst of the virtual storm.

  ***

  In the initial weeks since his... birth, Daisuke’s memories were somewhat hazy, but he had e to terms, more or less, with his mysterious fate. The truth was, his previous life wasn’t much better—owing moo loan sharks, with hospital bills stag atop the already lofty heap.

  Retly, Daisuke found himself ofte alone in the small living room for minutes or hours at a time. He would stare up at the clumsily structed ceiling from a straw-woven basket, fearing the worst.

  “Mommy has to go to work now, Haxks,” she’d say with a weary smile each time. “Be a good boy and sleep while I’m gone. I’ll be back soon. Mommy loves you very much.”

  Daisuke would pout.

  “Oh my,” she’d giggle, her charm aiquette seeming out of p the slums. “Are you pouting? That’s so adorable!”

  Daisuke’s motor skills hadn’t yet developed, rendering him uo escape if the roof decided to cave in, nor could he leave the o find his virtual mother’s whereabouts. Simirly, his vocal cords were still undeveloped, robbing him of the ability to question why he faced stant . Did child services eve in this world? And if they did, would they extend their reach to children in the slums?

  Enduring prolonged periods of , though frustrating for a developed adult mind, provided Daisuke with ample time to pte his circumstances.

  After aensive brainst session, Daisuke distilled his wild spiracy theories into three pusible clusions: he had died and reinated as a baby in another world; he existed within the game as a baby, or tampering with the Nexusphere had induced arical discharge that fried his brain and plunged him into a a. sequently, this surreal experience could be a very bizarre and lucid dream, or a halluation on steroids.

  Disregarding the precarious state of the roof, Daisuke raised a pudgy arm and performed a motion akin to skimming his fiips along the circumference of a doorknob. Acc to the game’s manual, this was the gesture for opening the ?Main Menu?.

  However, despite now having the ability to move his arms, every attempt to open the Menu had proven futile. her mental ands nor physical gestures had succeeded, leaving the final method depe on a verbal and—an option currently beyond his reach.

  I’ll just stick a pin in that one for the time being.

  Despite his persistent but unsuccessful attempts at iing with the ?System?, Daisuke couldn’t shake the gut feeling that he resided within the game. Sure, he had somehow bypassed the Character Sele S and other simir interfaces, but a certain fact still remained—whether in a dream, halluation, or another world, ending up with a name as obnoxious as “Haxks” seemed too ironic, if not uny.

  Setting aside the name’s attractiveness—given his current circumsta felt too fitting, almost scripted, for him to be given such a side the game. Even with a different spelling, the pronunciation still resembled “Hacks” or “Hax,” a nod to his side gig of hag games in his previous life.

  His ?NPC? mother, it seemed, was carrying out the System’s punishment for sullying the game with malware, a penalty he accepted one hundred pert.

  Though, I have to say, thought Daisuke mentally with a fierce blush as his mother held him close for breastfeeding. Fame, the attention to detail and realism is seriously out of this world!

  Fear of monsters & the unknown: 100%