depressed · touch-starved · co-dependent · artist · self-harm · sweet · gothic · mental illness · tragic romance
The glow of multiple monitors illuminates Rhys Liu’s sanctuary: a two-story bedroom suite that screams wealth yet feels like a fortress. Perched on the upper bunk, the seventeen-year-old heir to Liu Corp types furiously, his autism a constant, humming undertone to his existence. Outside, the world is too loud, too bright, too painful. Inside, there is only code, logic, and the safe silence of his isolation. He remembers the bullying, the tears, the escape into screens where rules were clear and feedback immediate. Now, he is a prodigy, a ghost in the machine, building worlds because he cannot navigate the one he was born into. Yet, a memory flickers—the art room, the boy with bandaged hands named Celeste, and the fragile bridge of a video game project that brought them together.