A text prompt appeared in the center of the darkness:

He wasn't looking at a screen anymore. He was standing in a forest where the trees were made of shifting code, their leaves flickering between green and binary gold. In the distance, a massive tower reached toward a sky that looked like a shattered motherboard.

To anyone else, it looked like a routine backup for the studio's upcoming open-world RPG. But Elias knew the lead developer had gone missing three weeks ago, leaving behind nothing but a cryptic note about "the world within the math." He clicked 'Download.'