Elias reached out to touch the monitor, his hand trembling. As his finger brushed the glass, the simulation didn't just show the water—it felt wet. Cold, dark water began to leak from the bottom of his screen, dripping onto his keyboard.
As the sun set in the simulation, the atmosphere shifted. The blue water turned to a reflective black. Elias noticed a small, blinking light in the center of the lake. He found a rowboat tied to the pier and began to click-drag the oars. File: Lake.zip ...
The further he rowed, the more his physical room seemed to change. The air grew colder; the smell of damp earth and pine needles began to emanate from his computer's cooling fans. He checked the file size of the running process. It was growing. Elias reached out to touch the monitor, his hand trembling