The tablet lay flat on the bedside table, its screen black and still as a frozen pond. The girl slept. The room held its breath.
Then—a flicker.
Light moved across the glass like smoke slipping under a door. A shape formed. A shadow. Something that had no business being there drifted through the surface like mist. It paused, hovering over the sleeping girl, watching.
Then, silently, it sank back into the device.
The screen went dark. The girl did not wake. But the air in the room had changed. The stillness felt less like peace and more like a held breath.
Liza loved her game.
She had loved it for as long as she could remember, which in eight-year-old years was practically forever. Every day after school, she curled up on the sofa, tablet on her knees, and disappeared into another world.
She built castles that touched the clouds—real castles, with towers she could almost climb and banners that snapped in a wind she could almost feel on her cheeks. She defeated dragons with scales like molten gold, their roar shaking the tablet in her hands. She made friends with a wizard whose beard was woven from starlight, and when he spoke, his voice was the sound of winter wind through pine trees.
Her knight was called Sir Gallant. Silver helmet. Sword that cut shadows. When he rode beside her, she could almost hear the hoofbeats. Together, they had saved kingdoms, discovered treasures, and flown through storms on the back of a griffin whose feathers smelled of lightning and rain.
Liza knew every path, every secret door, and every hidden cave. The game was hers. Every corner of it. Every story. Every star in the sky above the wizard’s tower.
That was why, when she woke on that ordinary Tuesday morning, she could not wait to return.
She grabbed the tablet before breakfast. The screen glowed blue in the dim light of her room. Her finger found the game icon—the shield with the crossed swords—and tapped.
Loading screen. She waited, bouncing slightly on the bed.
The game opened.
And something was wrong.
Her knight was gone. In his place stood a princess Liza had never seen. Her dress shifted colours—purple to green, green to gold—like oil on water. Her hair was too long, spilling past her shoulders and pooling on the stone courtyard. Her eyes glowed faintly, like embers behind glass. She stood in the courtyard of Liza’s castle, exactly where Sir Gallant should have been.
She was smiling.
It was not a friendly smile.
Liza stared. Her thumb hovered over the screen. For a moment, she thought maybe she had opened the wrong game by accident. But no—the castle was hers. The wizard stood by the gate. The griffin circled the tower. Everything was where it should be.
Except her knight.
Except this princess who should not be here.
Liza tapped the screen. Nothing happened. She tapped again, harder. The princess tilted her head, as if listening to something Liza could not hear. Her smile did not change.
“That’s not my character,” Liza whispered. Her voice sounded small in the quiet room.
She closed the game and opened it again. Her fingers moved faster now, her heart beating a little quicker. The loading screen appeared. The music started—the familiar song of the forest and the castle and the griffin in the storm.
The princess was still there.
But the world had changed. The sky was the colour of bruises. The grass was grey. The castle walls leaned inward, as if they were tired of standing. Even the wizard looked wrong—his starlight beard had faded to the colour of ash.
Liza restarted the tablet. She waited through the shutdown screen, counting the seconds. She pressed the power button. The logo appeared. The home screen loaded. She opened the game one more time.
The princess was still there.