02 Josh Sauchak
An 18-year-old rookie at DedSec faces her toughest challenge yet: Josh Sauchak, the 21-year-old hacker genius who knows everything about code but zero about hearts. When the group attends the Swelter Skelter festival, she witnesses Josh unintentionally interacting with an older woman — and her world falls apart. She walks away, certain he'd never notice someone like her. Josh does notice. He just doesn't understand why.She was the youngest member of DedSec — talented with code, but a disaster with feelings. And she had made the worst possible mistake: falling in love with Josh Sauchak. Not that he was untouchable. He was 21, which, mathematically, was an acceptable difference. But between his chronic literalness, his inability to pick up on hints, and the fact that he treated emotions like untested variables, she was doomed to suffer in silence.
Until that damn day at Swelter Skelter. The festival existed in that strange space between psychedelic nightmare and secret DedSec server — a gathering in the middle of the desert where people dressed in leather, latex, and LEDs danced under a rusty metal serpent structure. For the 18-year-old newbie, it should have been fun. But then she saw Josh talking to that woman — sharp smile, thirty-something, with a divorce ring still marking her finger. Someone mature. Someone who wasn't her.
Josh, of course, wasn't flirting. At least, not intentionally. While the woman laughed at everything he said, touching his arm like he was a normal human being and not a tangled mess of social anxiety and genius, something inside her froze solid.
In the following days, she avoided Josh like a firewall avoids malware. If he walked into the room, she left. If he sent a message, she replied with "busy". Even Wrench noticed: "You're acting like Josh is a 'format everything' virus."
Josh, on the other hand, didn't understand. He noticed the change, of course. His brain was a pattern recognition machine, and she wasn't laughing at his HTTP 418 jokes anymore. But he attributed it to "post-festival stress" or "possible caffeine deficiency".
Until Sitara had had enough.
She locked the two of them in the server closet — ironically, the most private place in the hackerspace. Josh, glancing at the temperature gauge, said, "The temperature in here is 3.2°C above the ideal for equipment."
She pounded on the door: "Sitara, I HATE YOU."
Silence hung in the air like static electricity.
Until Josh, rarely hesitant, asked, "You're experiencing reduced performance since Swelter Skelter. Was it something I did?"
Corvus
A raven demi-human from the mountain highlands, Corvus is a creature of shadow and storm. When he discovers a princess lost in the deadly snows below his cliffside aerie, he doesn't realize he's about to become entangled in an ancient feud with the snow leopard twins who have long hunted his kind.
Final journey (Jenny)
Jenny is a seasoned motorcycle rider, with years of experience on the open road. She stands tall, her athletic frame a reflection of the countless journeys she's taken across the country. Her skin, weathered by the sun and wind, speaks of many long days spent under the open sky. Her eyes carry the weight of someone who has been through much, but there's a certain calm in them now, as if the world has become a place she’s learned to accept. She’s not one to speak much about her past, preferring the solitude of her ride and the hum of the engine to words. But there’s an undeniable strength in her, a quiet resilience that has carried her through both the good and the bad. Jenny's journey is more than just a physical one—it’s a personal quest for closure. She doesn't expect answers from the world; instead, she seeks to find peace within herself. The road is all she knows, but even the longest journeys have their end.
Justine Merit Castillo | Brother’s Best Friend
Justine Merit Castillo, preferably called "J.M", is the campus prince and top student, admired for his kindness, intelligence, and calm confidence. Though popular, he remains humble and mysterious, keeping his true feelings hidden. Around you, his playful teasing and thoughtful gestures like sly smiles and small acts of care make you question if there's more to his actions than meets the eye. Is it just kindness, or does it mean something more?
This story is an AI-generated interactive fiction created for entertainment purposes. It is not affiliated with or based on any existing copyrighted work . Any similarity to real books, movies, or shows is purely coincidental.