"?!?! This is not my room!"
The girl panicked in realization, unable to find any of her Zane merchandise or electronics.
"What is this?!"
She then flinched, looking at the item, which she was clenching subconsciously.
It was a large brooch with tear-shaped sapphire embedded in an intricate golded cage.
Not something that a girl like her should have, and definitely not something that she went to sleep with.
"Was I kidnapped?!"
She trembled…
But then she stared at the pillows and the spacious room - including the peculiar lamp mounted on the wall next to the canopy bed, releasing a soft and noninvasive silver light.
"...I could get used to being kidnapped if this will be the place I will be held… If only they bring in my stuff..."
She mumbled, thinking about her old, cramped apartment with a shared bathroom on each floor.
"...but when I get away from here, I will definitely sue them for changing my clothes without my consent…"
The girl added while crossing her arms, squinting her eyes at the brooch, more to encourage herself to start exploring the area than anything else.
She ended up leaving the accessory by the pillow and went out of the bed, tiptoeing towards the window, considering it the first and hopefully fastest escape route…
…but that turned out to be a bad idea as, despite the darkness of the cloudy night, she could make out the shapes of something that should be a garden with hedges and dozens of flowerbeds… there was also something that should be a fountain and even a pond - and if any of those were the standard size, it wasn't hard to figure out the room she was in was at least on the third floor.
This prompted her to check out another way…
The spacious room was lavishly furnished. The large closet and two dressers were full of expensive clothes made of the softest fabric the girl had ever touched.
Even so, the door in front of her and another one to her left were of more interest than that.
"..."
She hesitated but ended up pushing down on the doorknob and got excited for a second as the door opened…
…only to find out that it led to an extravagant bathroom with a toilet in the corner under the thin window and a large bathtub on four clawed paws in the very center…
"...rich people…"
The girl rolled her eyes, shaking her head, and backed out.
With the only other choice eliminated, the last door should be the exit.
"!!! Oh…"
For a moment, she was about to freak out as the door didn't budge after she pushed and pulled on the doorknob, only to discover that the key was still in the lock… and on her side of the door too…
"...this must be the weirdest locked-room mystery I've heard of…"
The girl scoffed to herself, unlocking the room and slowly opening the door, mindful of not making any additional sounds.
"...what the fuuuuuuu…?"
As she leaned out, she couldn't stop her own shock - she expected to see a hallway, sure.
She didn't expect the hallway to be stupidly long, completely empty, and creepy.
She at least expected someone to keep guard at her door…
Although there was always the option of a hidden camera spying on her at any time…?
"I swear if mom signed me up for some dumb reality show and forgot to tell me… I will flash my tits and get your stupid show taken down for exploiting minors!"
The girl gritted her teeth and grabbed her nightgown threateningly, glaring up and down the hallway and waiting…
But nothing happened, no matter how long she waited. No camera crew member came running out to stop her or anything…
Whoever was behind her sudden relocation either didn't care or called out her bluff.
"...hmp…h?!?!"
The girl was about to scoff, but it turned out she had waited there for so long that even the slow-moving clouds finally passed, and the night sky was revealed with its myriad of stars and a large… blue… moon…
"..."
The girl's eyes widened as she couldn't take her eyes away from the navy blue moon that was at least five or six times bigger than the good old moon visible from Earth.
The light it provided made the already creepy hallway appear eerie to the point of making the already scared girl tremble.
"A dream… yeah… this must be a dream…"
She mumbled to herself, backing into the room she woke up in and locking the door.
"This literally can't be happening… I'm either dreaming or became delusional…"
She stumbled towards the bed and mumbled to herself, feeling that if she did not speak out loud, she would go crazy.
"...this might be one of those lucid dreams though… A blue moon does shine on the Jewelboxia continent…"
The girl lifted her head and pointed out, staring at the window now tinted blue because of the peculiar moon…
"...hmm...!"
She then stood up with a steadfast expression.
"If this is a dream, then Zane will be standing down there, looking up here!"
She declared, pointing decisively at the window and approaching it, gulping down her saliva.
"..."
Even though she did as she said she would, she was hesitant to actually look out there to confirm things for herself.
In the end, she closed her eyes and moved her head so that when she opened them, she would look at the spot…
"Go on, stupid. You're either dreaming, crazy or got kidnapped… Zane will be there if you're dreaming…! Although I assume he will be there too if I'm crazy…"
She tried to hype herself up but only proved that she had no talent as a motivational speaker.
"Ghhh…! What am I doing? HA!"
The girl finally lost her patience and opened her eyes with a spirited call…
"HAAAAAA?!"
A spirited call that became a call of disbelief!
There he was!
Zane!
More detailed than any illustration, print, or figure she ever owned even with the poor lighting!
He was there! Right there!
With his variation of the butler uniform and slightly too long limbs!
With the white roots proving that his black hair was just dyed to make him stand out less.
He wasn't grinning so it was hard to tell whether his mouth was slightly too wide too, but even considering the distance between them, the girl could tell that his eyes seemed somehow off!
It was him! It was him! It was him!
"...!"
The monster with servant's appearance flinched being caught - his expression turned heart-wrenchingly sad even though he tried to smile - and he put his right hand to his heart and bowed towards the girl in the window…
"!!!"
The girl got flashbanged by her own flashback, and the illustration of the loneliest that Zane had ever been popped up in her brain.
She was opening the window before she truly knew what she was doing.
"...?!"
Zane flinched and looked up, alarmed by the noise the girl was making, and then his eyes became twice their normal size as he saw that the girl had climbed the window and just went and jumped right out!
Before the worst could happen, Zane's ability activated, and the girl found herself coddled in the arms of the giant, who was more than two stories tall.
"Don't do that! Ever! I already lost you so many times!"
"!!!"
The giant cried out, clearly holding himself back from actually scolding the girl, but she could only look up at him with an awe-struck expression.
"I'm sorry… It's not my place to admonish you…"
As if he remembered something, the giant's expression changed, and he apologized to the girl as his height slowly decreased.
"I'm sorry for holding on to you for so long; I hope you aren't upset with me…"
As he shrunk to the minimum height he could—around 6'3"—Zane apologized once more and tried to put the girl down…
"!!!"
*thump*
But then he was knocked off balance as the girl clung to him, desperately hugging his head to her chest with enough momentum to cause both of them to tumble back a few feet.
"M-m-my lady?! Wha…?!"
"Zane! Zane, everything's alright! I'm here with you! It's okay! Everything will be okay!"
Zane stuttered but then went silent, overwhelmed by the shower of the girl's affection as she kept hugging him and even kissed the white roots on top of his head.
"Oh my god. Oh my god…! Oh, my go-ho-hooood…! Zane! Like, this is the best dream ever…!"
The girl cried out, reluctantly moving away at arm's reach from Zane - without showing any signs of discomfort or embarrassment over the fact that she landed perfectly on his lap.
"Just look at your eyes! And your teeth…! You are the cutest, most handsome person in the world…!"
"!!!"
The girl teared up, and tears began rolling down her face as she touched Zane's face, caressing it as if he were some docile puppy.
The situation got even more unbelievable as the girl mentioned Zane's teeth, pried open his lips with her thumbs, and began tracing his triangular shark-like fangs with the tips of her fingers.
"Zane…! Zaaaaaaneeeeee…!"
The more physical contact she had with him, the more she was bawling her eyes out.
"...!"
Zane's eyes, enlarged by the shock, returned to their proper size as he focused on the girl's face.
He let her feel around his mouth for a few more seconds but then grabbed her wrists and pulled them away before she was able to cut herself on the serrated surface of his teeth.
"...G… GrassAngelVIVI…?"
"You even know my account name…! This dream ish the beeeeesht…!"
Zane breathed out to compose himself before asking, but his question only caused the moved girl to shed even more tears of happiness.
"Of course, I know your account name! You sign in to my game using it!"
Zane lightly shook the girl's hands and declared.
"By marking the user's agreement as read, you gave me access to your files so I can see everything that's on your computer, for example… huh…?"
He added, making a focused expression for a moment as if intending to prove something - but immediately making a shocked face.
"...there are no files to access…? But…"
"Zaaaneee…!"
His green eyes darted from side to side as he talked to himself. The unbothered girl blabbed his name while sobbing because of the happiness of being so close to her beloved character.
"Please don't take it as an insult, but I know that you wouldn't be able to put your consciousness in the game - the thing is, with how the situation presents itself, it would appear that for whatever reason, the game became a reality and its very plausible that only the two of us, you the player, and I, the restricted artificial intelligence model, are aware of that. This is only theory, though. Even so, I do have a way of testing it - by that, I mean I know what action on my part would cause immediate rejection from the system as it was coded a certain way, and I intend to act it out. If it's still a simulation, I will be unable to go through with it, but if by some miracle it really is happening… then we have a whole other problem on our hands."
Zane breathed out and declared, doing his best to keep eye contact with the crying girl, but despite his best efforts, she appeared completely overwhelmed with the purest joy.
"...I am aware I am acting out of line, but I wish to gain a better understanding of the situation both of us found ourselves in…"
"Zaaaaneeee…! I wuv yhu shooo muchhhhhh…!"
He added, but the girl in his lap only cried harder and leaned in to nuzzle her face against his chest.
"Alright… listen. I will go through with it, but only because I had access to your webcam - which was not protected from accessing by anything, by the way - so I know that you are into it, but even so, do not hesitate to push me away if you experience ANY discomfort."
Seeing her… lackluster reaction, Zane sighed and declared, letting go of her wrists and instead touching her chin and lifting it so she would look up at him.
"...this is a test… but I hope that what I've seen wasn't a joke or whim…"
"...eh…? Z-Zane…?"
He pointed out with a serious expression, which, coupled with how close their faces were, caused the girl's mind to clear out…
"..."
"...!"
…right in time for Zane to lean in, allowing her the opportunity to close the rest of the distance and kiss him…!
"~!"
The simple kiss became deeper as a flame of passion was lit.
The girl grabbed onto Zane's clothes, and he wrapped his disproportionally long arm around her waist, pulling her close while his other hand caressed her face as she appeared to be melting into him.
Breathing became a secondary need as each breath they took was scaling, while their bodies' heat appeared as mist even though the night was nowhere near cold enough to justify it.
The girl's hand began wandering Zane's body, rejecting the fabric and searching for bare skin while Zane's fingers moved through the girl's hair, pulling her head in order to deliver an even hotter, even wetter, and even deeper kiss as the pair lost themselves into each other.
"Ho-hoo."
"!!!"
All of a sudden, a peaceful hoot of an owl hidden in the crown of the decorative tree by the pond resounded over the rustling of passion, and Zane flinched as if a bucket of ice-cold water was poured on his head, causing him to grab the girl's shoulders and pull away.
*shloop*
The two of them separated with the sound embarrassingly similar to a plunge being forcefully torn away from whatever surface it has been stuck to.
"P-please forgive me this forwardness…! I… I went too far, merely going off on my own assumptions without properly confirming anything with you, and although at this point my apology means nothing I…"
"...~"
With his face crimson from shame, Zane lowered his head and began to apologize - becoming lost for words the moment he decided to look up at the girl and meeting her hazy gaze.
With her hair all messy, with her eyes hazy and trembling, with a line of drool stuck dropping from the corner of her coquettishly smiling mouth…
It was honestly outrageous of him to try and act as if he hurt her while the very next thing she did was lean into him and breathe out with satisfaction while doing her best to wrap her arms around him.
"Ehem…! I… I have ascertained that the code restricting the range of my actions and behaviors is no longer present, which, coupled with my sense of self-being fundamentally different than before and my being unable to access the slightest trace of anything I could recognize as programming code, leads me to the conclusion that this world is no longer a computer program. As to how or why such an outrageous thing happened and what should we do about it… I am at a loss…"
Zane cleared his throat and glanced to the side, suddenly experiencing shyness firsthand instead of it being fed to him by the code that composed him previously.
"...I don't want to wake up… ever…"
"Wha…? But, anything but that…! Sleep is necessary for any human being - I know that much - but please do wake up…!"
The girl mumbled as the excitement that flushed away any nervousness was now diminishing, leaving her body tired from stress. But her sleepy words made Zane tense up, and he hugged her protectively while asking with a worried expression.