Then the front door slammed.
The world loaded not in Minecraft’s blocky render distance, but in his room. One second, he was slouched in a gaming chair stained with Red Bull. The next, his desk was a crafting table. His bed was a patch of dirt. And standing in the doorway, sniffing the air with round, red ears twitching, was an Eevee.
Leo reached out. His fingers touched fur. Not pixels. Not code. Warm, soft, real fur. He could feel the tiny heartbeat.
Leo’s laptop was a junk heap—fan wheezing, screen cracked in the top-left corner—but it was his only escape. His mom had left for her night shift at the plastics factory. His little brother, Mateo, was asleep on the couch, thumb still in his mouth. Outside, the Kansas wind howled across dead cornfields.
“Where’s the money from your mother’s purse?” his father shouted.
He looked at the Eevee. The Eevee looked at the door. Its eyes began to glow—not red, not blue, but a fierce, blinding white .