Insomniac Player

"Saint Mary’s?" The pedestrian scratched his head, then pointed down a wide avenue lined with glowing blue trees. "Head that way, past the old district line. Can’t miss it, or, well, whatever’s there now."

Damien nodded. "Thank you."

The man shrugged and walked off without another word, already pulling something up on the hologram floating over his wrist.

Damien turned and started down the avenue, his feet already moving towards the direction before his mind fully caught up.

The streets, the buildings, even the skyline had changed beyond recognition, and yet he gradually realized something. He had woken up exactly where the system had transported him two years earlier. The city around him had simply evolved past the point where he could recognize it at a glance.

Everything was different. Everything except the memories still sitting in his head.

After asking a couple more pedestrians to confirm he was still headed the right way, he eventually found the spot where Saint Mary’s Orphanage had once stood.

He stopped. The familiar building was gone. In its place stood a massive warehouse owned by a private trading company, workers moving crates in and out while automated cargo units floated overhead.

For a long moment he just stared. The laughter of the other kids. Sister Agnes calling everyone in for dinner. The tiny bedroom where he’d spent nearly his whole life. All of it, gone.

His jaw worked before he managed to get a word out. "Excuse me."

He approached an elderly shopkeeper standing nearby. "There used to be an orphanage here."

The old man nodded. "There was."

"What happened to it?"

"Didn’t survive the System Era."

Damien’s expression fell.

The old man caught it and offered a kind smile. "Don’t worry, kid. The children weren’t abandoned. The system reorganized everything once the tutorial era started." He pointed toward one of the distant towers. "Every adult player got government-assigned housing. Kids under sixteen were moved into system-managed orphanages. Probably living better than they were before."

Damien let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding, and his shoulders dropped an inch. "So... they’re safe."

"They are."

For the first time since waking from his coma, Damien genuinely smiled.

The orphanage itself no longer existed. The kids had made it out anyway.

He pulled up his profile without breaking stride. Every surviving player had received a residence after the world’s reconstruction, and his read out clean: Diamond Residential Complex, Penthouse Unit, Building A.

He said the name once under his breath and kept walking.

◇◇◇

The aerial train station appeared a few blocks later, shaped like a small telephone booth or a compact elevator. No queue. No ticket counter. No staff.

He stepped inside anyway, and the transparent door slid shut behind him. A blue circle lit up beneath his feet and a calm voice filled the tiny cabin.

"Welcome, Passenger."

The circle widened, and Damien went weightless. His feet drifted off the floor as the booth rose, less like an elevator and more like floating up through still water.

Seconds later the doors opened onto a platform that stretched out across open sky, rows of seats lining both sides behind transparent barriers, the whole thing hanging hundreds of meters above the streets. It looked more like an airport lounge than a train station.

"Please select your destination," the voice said, and a holographic screen bloomed in front of him, listing cities, districts, complexes, and government buildings by the hundreds.

He found Diamond Residential Complex and tapped it.

"Travel will cost ten silver coins."

He blinked. Right, paper money hadn’t survived the system either. He pulled up his wallet tab and found ten gold coins sitting there, untouched.

He frowned at the number for a second, then let it go. Tutorial reward, probably. He had money now. That solved itself.

A metallic exchange box stood beside the platform entrance. He dropped a gold coin into the slot, half muttering, "Could’ve just deducted it automatically," and ninety silver coins slid out in a neat little tray, dissolving into light and pouring back into his wallet the second he touched them.

A white aerial train slid up to the platform without a sound, floating with no wheels and no visible track beneath it. He stepped into an empty cabin, comfortable seats, wide windows, soft light, closer to a private railcar than public transit.

The doors closed. The train moved without any sense of acceleration at all, buildings outside smearing past the glass while a speed readout blinked near the entrance: 1000 km/h. Five minutes later, he stepped off at the station nearest Diamond Residential Complex.

A few people glanced his way as he crossed the plaza toward Building A. He kept his eyes forward and pulled up his residential information again anyway, just to be sure. Penthouse, Building A, the tallest tower in the complex.

"...First-generation privilege." He said it out loud to no one, the only explanation that fit, and left it at that.

The lobby was immaculate, polished marble, gold trim, an artificial waterfall running beside a row of elegant seating. Residents nodded to each other as they came and went. He caught his own reflection in the marble and didn’t recognize the room behind him, only the tiny space he used to share with three other kids.

The elevator doors opened on their own. The moment he stepped inside, the cabin spoke.

"Resident confirmed. Welcome home, Damien."

His throat closed around nothing. He stood there a full second before his hand found the railing.

Home. The orphanage had been shelter, nothing more. The rented room after that had belonged to someone else, and every month he’d counted coins on the same table, listening for a knock that meant the roof stopped being his. Nothing he’d ever slept under had actually been his to keep.

The elevator rose in silence. Through the transparent wall the city shrank away beneath him, and his own reflection watched him back, older, a little worn around the eyes, his mouth doing something it hadn’t done in longer than he could place.

When the doors opened, a wide corridor stretched ahead of him, empty except for a single door at the far end. One apartment. The entire floor.

He crossed to it slowly and stopped in front of it, hand hovering an inch from the surface before he let it drop to his side.

Then his mouth curved on its own. "...Nice." The words came out barely above a whisper. "I finally have a home of my own."

He pressed his palm flat against the door before the thought had even finished. A thin blue light swept across his hand and the lock released with a soft click.

Sunlight spilled out from inside, catching him full in the face. He stood there a second longer than he needed to, then stepped through.