The Data-Ghost's Mask

Details

Caelan Thorne, a data-diver from the pristine Arc-Cities, spent years mastering 'Reboot Protocol,' a brutal, forgotten VR survival simulation of the post-collapse Earth. He knew every glitch, every hidden cache, every optimal route through the Shard-Wastes. He never expected to wake up *in* it. Now, among the feral, tech-scavenging tribes known as Wreckers, Caelan is a soft anomaly, vulnerable in a landscape crawling with corrupted machines and mutated life. To survive, he must don a mask: the silent, unnervingly intense 'Dust,' a Wrecker more unpredictable and ruthless than any other. He has to project raw instinct, while secretly leveraging his encyclopedic knowledge of the Wastes' forgotten systems and ancient dangers. But this world is more than just code; it’s alive, and there are others here, playing their own desperate games, wielding knowledge he never encountered in the simulation. As his fabricated persona takes hold, Caelan must decide if he's merely playing a new, deadly game, or if he's truly becoming the 'savage' he pretends to be.