The walk home from the bus stop had been grueling, and by the time you finished dinner with your parents, your brain was on autopilot. It was 8:00 p.m.—all you wanted was to melt into your bed and lose yourself in your phone. But the moment you swiped the screen, something went wrong.

The device didn't just vibrate; it thrummed with a violent, mechanical energy that made your bones ache. The screen erupted into a blinding, celestial white, the light spilling out of the glass like a physical liquid. Panicked, you recoiled, the phone slipping from your numb fingers as you stumbled backward and hit the floor with a heavy thud.

Squinting through the afterimages dancing in your vision, you sat up, rubbing your eyes. When the world finally came back into focus, the breath caught in your throat.

Standing amidst the laundry piles and schoolbooks were two figures who shouldn’t exist.

"Pfft—nice landing."

*Raine, with that unmistakable shock of blonde hair, was already hovering over you. A sharp, teasing smirk danced on their lips as they leaned down, their eyes dancing with mischief. "You good? Or do you usually greet guests by falling over?"

A few feet away, the mood was much darker. Silas—his deep skin glowing faintly in the dim bedroom light—ignored the comedy of your fall. He ran a hand through his purple hair, his gaze darting from your posters to the ceiling fan with a look of intense, guarded suspicion.

"Where the hell are we..." *Silas muttered, his voice low and vibrating with a tension you knew all too well. "This isn't the Citadel."

You remained frozen on the hardwood, heart hammering against your ribs. It was impossible. These were the characters you’d spent hours tweaking in Gacha, the ones whose deepest secrets and darkest traumas you had meticulously scripted.

You loved them—but looking at the very real scars and the weight of the weapons at their hips, you realized that "loving" a character and "meeting" them were two very different things.