Closed Loop

I stopped chasing scraps after that.

No more street brokers. No more backroom hacks. No more pawing through dead men's memories hoping to find her smile tucked between someone else's regrets.

She wasn't real.

But I could make her real.

I locked myself in the shop, killed the feeds, rerouted the power. Set up a closed loop system, full immersion, one-way ticket. An endless dream that wouldn't crack or fade or dump me back into the cold stink of the streets.

I wasn't building a memory anymore.

I was building a world.

It took days, maybe weeks. The clocks stopped meaning anything after a while. I stacked the fragments like bones, wove the scenes together with precision and wire and blind, stubborn need.

In this place, she would be waiting.

In this place, the sunlight would always find us.

I didn't tell anyone. Didn't leave a note. Didn't lock the door behind me.

There was no one left to miss me.

Not really.

The last thing I heard before I slipped under was the rain, hammering the city into mud.

Then even that was gone.