I hate death

I hate cemeteries.

I hate how people use death as a shield, a reset button, just like you did, Dad. Do you even realise that you left me to clean up after you in both lives? What a mess!

So, yes Dad. You’ll always be remembered as a coward and a hypocrite by me.

But don’t worry, the world still calls you a legend here and even in reality.

A man with a big heart, leaving behind a legacy no one dares to question. You’re safe in their story. You egotistical bastard.

And here I am again, standing in front of your virtual grave. I know you can hear me through the transmitters and I'm not here to remind you to treat me as your daughter, far from it. I came to vent.

Don’t ask me why I'm here. I get that I'm wasting my time with these pent up emotions... I'm asking myself the same damn thing because, I know how much you love playing deaf to my cries.

I don’t miss you.

I don’t yearn for your recognition, wisdom or your protection anymore. Not when I spent my life learning how to survive without any of them.

I’m not that little girl you threw into the world like a pawn on a chessboard, some guinea pig to your experiments, a lab partner_, Let me tell you now, I'm me, your daughter, Annette. Not Anderson, not Alex.

I’m a big woman now. A force to be reckoned. Thunder Group's very own shark.

They have no idea, do they?

They didn't even realise that I was performing the whole time, reading from a script that even the tiniest mistake meant death in both these worlds.

But, it's true what you said before that Power is a shield. But, you know what I learned from all that? It wasn’t a gift. It was the price I paid to stay alive here.

Time’s a weird thing, isn’t it? You’d be old now in reality. Probably even soft. Sentimental even. That thought alone makes me laugh.

Feels like just yesterday someone pointed at this very grave and said, "That’s your father". I honestly wanted to have a laugh then but, I didn't, You know why? I hated you enough not to gave out a single reaction.

And maybe when I log off from this life, I’ll wake up in the reality with you next to me, like none of this ever happened. That scares me, Dad. So much.

How could you send me, your daughter, into a battlefield with no armor, no map, no escape plan? Nothing.

I wasn’t meant to fight, was I? That wasn’t part of the great "design". You wanted some flairs and dramas but, my side of the story would mean weakness to the plot. You didn’t want me to be brave, just powerful.

Well. Mission accomplished.

I survived. I gave it all back to the rightful heir.

There’s nothing left in our name here.

And still, I wonder… Did you ever love me? Even just once? On a good day? I know I won’t get an answer from you... It’s pathetic how hard it is to ask and you are not even here!

I hope you miss me when I’m gone because, I’m done following the script. From now on, I’d be writing my own.

Oh, and Mr. Wesley? He always hated your plan. You’re lucky you were already dead or he’d have skinned you alive. He died just yesterday from here and I suppose he'd be already awake into reality now. Guess you two can fight it out. Personally, I hope he wins.

Goodbye, Dad.

I do love you. In a crazy, twisted way. But this time? I’m choosing me.

Let my life begin.

Ten Years Ago — Real World

“Dad! Dad, please… you can’t keep doing this to us!”

My voice bounced down the white hallway, sharp and desperate. It scraped my throat raw, like it didn’t belong in the sterile silence of our wing. But he didn’t stop. Didn’t flinch. Just kept typing into the airpad with that familiar glassy-eyed grin, whispering in rapid-fire code only he could understand.

He was humming with excitement the entire walk from the funeral to our wing. I trailed behind him like a forgotten shadow, listening to him mutter half-formed thoughts under his breath. Equations. Algorithms. Strings of logic so dense they felt like spells.

I mean don't get me wrong, I was actually surprised and glad that he left his cell to see Mom off but, can't he just turn and see me? I was still here. Still breathing. Still trying to be seen.

We arrived home — if you could call it that — and without even glancing at me, he broke into a sprint toward the basement lab. The door hissed open. The heavy lock clunked shut behind him.

And just like that, I was alone again with echoes of Mom's shenanigans and laughter. How did someone that radiant fall in love with someone so cold to the point that without her, our home felt like a mausoleum. Too clean. Too quiet. Too full of genius and not enough of love.

They called it the Gifted Wing, a place reserved for elite minds like Dad’s. But for me, it was a lonely, sprawling crypt. A cage built with glass and silence.

My father, Samuel Demdon, was once considered the greatest computer scientist on the planet. His name echoed in digital corridors, worshipped by scholars, innovators, and rulers alike. If wealth still held meaning, he’d have been royalty.

But power had replaced currency.

And the more powerful he became, the further he drifted from us. From me.

So that day, I did something I hadn’t dared in years.

I walked to the lab, keyed in his override code, and stepped into the cold glow of his world.

The air was heavy with ozone and electric hums. Holograms floated like ghosts around the room. And in the center stood my father, eyes bright, mouth curled into a grin that didn’t belong in the world I knew him from.

"Anderson!" he called for me, beaming. "Son! Come and see this! The prototype is ready!”

The air left my lungs. Not from shock, mostly from recognition. He didn’t even notice his mistake. Didn’t see me freeze. Didn’t see the wound reopen. I felt sick to my stomach. Anderson? Son?

But I walked closer, careful not to disturb the tangled cables and fragile machines. If I broke something in there even by accident, I didn’t think I could survive what comes after.

“What is it?” I asked, my voice tight.

His eyes glittered, "A full-immersion virtual system" he said, practically vibrating. "The system maps your brain and transfers your consciousness into a second life. Not just a simulation... A parallel existence! Whatever you want to be, whoever you want to become… you can live it in there"

He laughed, the sound high and strange, almost inhuman.

I swallowed the bitterness rising in my throat as looked for words of discouragement, "Dad… we already have those kinds of games here"

He shook his head furiously, "No, no, no. This is different. In other systems, your real life continues while you’re online. But with this… your life pauses. Time itself suspends until you return. No consequences. No clocks. Total freedom!"

His face softened. His hands trembled as he reached toward me, voice barely a whisper, "Now son, we can be a family again. You, me… and Mom. Starting over. Together. In there"

And that was it.

That was the moment something snapped inside me.

I stepped forward, clenched my fists, and looked him dead in the eye, "Dad! My name is Annette. Your one and only daughter!"

His expression didn’t change.

"And Mom?" I choked. "Your wife is dead. She’s not coming back — not in here, not in there, not anywhere! We just came back from her funeral for crying out loud!"

I screamed the words. Screamed it loud enough to rattle the lab walls. And then I ran out of the lab, down the corridor, through the house that no longer felt like mine.

I didn’t stop until I reached the farthest corner of our wing, the one place where the walls didn’t echo his name.

Why was it so hard to be yourself in your own family?

Why was it easier for him to build a new world

than to love the one person still standing beside him?

REAL WORLD - TEN YEARS AGO

I was trying my best not to panic.

But, how could I not? He was my dad, after all. My father, lying there lifeless on a steely bed that still smelled nothing but, plastics.

I stood there, frozen at that moment, my hands clenched into useless fists, eyes glued to the sight of him lying still. He looked like a stranger. Pale. Cold. Finished.

I had to relearn on how to breathe for the next quick seconds. Breathe in, breathe out. Exhale, Inhale.

Even though I spent most of my life hating him, blaming him for the way everything broke around us, nothing prepared me for this. I had rehearsed this moment before in nightmares, after our last fight. I thought I’d feel relief or nothing at all. But all I felt was sick. Empty. Terrified.

And so fucking alone.

The silence in the lab felt obscene. This was supposed to be a place of discovery, of breakthroughs. This was the only place that he ever felt alive and human to me Instead, it was a tomb. Was he really dead?

I didn’t even know who to call and ask for help? Who do you call when your estranged father, the man you both feared and craved approval from, collapses at the center of your shared history and leaves you holding the weight of it all?

I took almost half an hour combing through his call book, a wrinkled thing with no names, just numbers. No emergency contacts. No family. Not even friends he chose over us. Over me!.

Turns out it wasn’t just me he isolated. That realization came like a cracked mirror... shocking, splintered, and oddly comforting. I wasn’t the only one who didn’t exist in his world. But still, I was the one standing over his body, too afraid to touch him, too numb to cry.

Then the machine buzzed.

It was his lab phone, buried deep in his coat pocket. I hesitated, then grabbed it with a shaking hand and answered.

"Dr. Dad... I mean, my dad is cold and not moving!" I screamed. My voice cracked like glass.

Silence.

Deafening silence that made my heart race faster than it already was. I stared at his motionless chest, my mouth dry. Was that it? Was our fight going to be the last thing we did together? How sad was that?

"Hello?" I asked again, this time softer, desperate.

"Oh… hello there," said a voice on the line. Male. Calm. Maybe too calm for my comfort.

"Yes, I'm here. Hello! I need help at our south quarter wing!" I shouted, my voice rising again as I took a few cautious steps back toward the bed to check in on Dad. Just to be sure.

"You sound awfully young to be his lab partner," he said casually on the line.

What the hell? Was that what was important here? I thought to myself.

"Please, send help!" I snapped, my voice venomous with panic. I stared into the ceiling as if my glare could travel through signals and strangle him.

The man chuckled. A soft, warm laugh, like I was some amusing child playing pretend.

"Don’t worry, child," he said, almost kindly. "The doctors are already outside your wing. Why don’t you open the door for them?"

I didn’t wait. My legs carried me to the door like they had minds of their own. Hope flickered or maybe it was a fire burning in my lungs as I ran to the door.

But the people outside weren’t doctors.

There were six of them, maybe more. Clad in black uniforms with masks over their heads, like security. Not one of them had a stethoscope or a friendly stance.

I turned to look at the phone and returned it to my ear but before I could ask the man on the call, I felt a cold object on my forehead before seeing the extended hand holding it there.

The man was standing in front of me now, no longer just a voice.

"I’m sorry to intrude, child," he said, smiling. That same soft, now that I'm certain it was just a fake warmth dripping from his lips. "But I may need some directions to the lab. Care to help?"

And that was when I knew.

Knew I had been played. That I walked right into it.

Knew that I had just become the one thing my dad always said I was growing up to be.

Just a stupid girl.