The day I received the promotion to Sim‑in‑Black was a bad day.
Not because of the promotion — that part was incredible — but because everything leading up to it felt like sandpaper against my nerves. I woke up sad. Lonely. Tense in that way where every thought feels too loud. I tried to shake it off, but the feeling clung to me all through my shift.
I was almost desperate for something fun, something distracting, something that didn’t involve thinking about Ryleigh or Erwin or the report I’d submitted or the silence that followed.
And then, at the very end of my shift, they called me into the office.
My commanding officer didn’t smile — they never did — but their voice held a note of approval I hadn’t heard before.
“Congratulations, Bailey. You’ve reached the top.”
Sin‑in‑Black.
The highest rank. The final step. The end of the ladder I’d been climbing since the day I arrived in StrangerVille.
They handed me the medal, the paperwork, and a list of new privileges.
I was free to return to working from home if I wanted. I was also free to move out of the slip — the cramped military housing I’d been assigned — and live anywhere I chose, as long as it was still within StrangerVille.
Freedom. Real freedom.
It should’ve felt amazing.
But standing there in my black suit, medal still warm from the officer’s hand, all I felt was… hollow.
I’d reached the top. I’d done everything right. I’d earned every step.
So why did it feel like something was missing?
I thanked them, saluted, and walked out into the desert evening. The sky was turning gold, the air cooling, the world quiet in that eerie StrangerVille way.
I should’ve felt proud. I should’ve felt accomplished. I should’ve felt something.
Instead, I just felt tired.
Tired and alone and unsure of what came next.
But I had options now. Choices. A future I could shape however I wanted.
Once the promotion settled in — the medal, the clearance, the sudden freedom — I realized I didn’t want to stay in the slip anymore. I’d outgrown it. Literally and figuratively. I wanted more space. A real bed. A place that didn’t feel like temporary housing or a half‑finished life.
So I started looking.
Out of town, up on the mesa, there were a few possibilities. Three houses, two empty lots. I went house hunting. Or… empty lot hunting. StrangerVille real estate is a weird mix of abandoned, outdated, and “why does this exist here,” but I was determined.
The existing houses were sad. Not haunted, exactly — just tired. Like they’d given up before anyone even moved in.
But Creek Corner Cove…
That was different.
An empty lot perched on its own little rise, separate from the rest of the plateau. Quiet. Private. Enough space to build something real. Something mine.
The moment I stepped onto the dirt, I knew.
That was the place.
I purchased the lot on the spot.
Mom had sent me the paperwork from the bank back when I first arrived in StrangerVille — a “just in case you ever need it” kind of thing — but I hadn’t had any use for it while living in military housing. Now, though… now I could build a decent house. A real home.
So I commissioned someone to build it. And someone else to furnish it. I gave them the budget, the address, and a vague description of “functional, not fancy.”
And that was it.
I had no idea what I was going to find when I walked in for the first time.
The first thing I did when I walked into the new house wasn’t admire the layout or check the kitchen or even test the mattress.
I set up my medal case.
Every medal I’d earned — every rank, every commendation, every long night and early morning — lined up in perfect order. It felt like staking a claim. Like saying, Yes, I earned this. Yes, I belong here.
The house was beautiful. Functional. Exactly what I’d asked for.
And somehow… still lonely.
Too quiet. Too empty. Too much space for my thoughts to echo.
So, naturally, I did the responsible thing:
I opened the SimDa chatroom.
I wasn’t looking for anything serious. Just someone to talk to. Someone who wasn’t a coworker or a conspiracy theorist or a vampire with centuries of emotional baggage.
That’s when I met Ember Hay.
We spent the whole afternoon chatting — easy, fast, fun. She was flirty without being pushy, confident without being arrogant, and she made me laugh in a way I hadn’t in weeks.
Eventually she asked if she could come over.
I said yes.
Meeting in person was… immediate.
We went from “Hi, nice to meet you” to “Wow, you’re even cuter in person” to woohoo faster than I could process. Just two adults making questionable decisions in a brand‑new house.
Afterward, Ember stretched out on my bed like she owned it and promptly fell asleep.
I barely had time to catch my breath before the doorbell rang.
The Welcome Wagon.
Of course.
Three neighbors stood on my porch with fruitcake and forced smiles, ready to “welcome me to the neighborhood,” which was hilarious because I lived on a mesa with exactly four houses and none of them were close.
I plastered on a polite smile and invited them in, trying not to think about the sleeping woman in my bedroom.
Ted and Meredith were the first inside — married, friendly, normal enough.
Or so I thought.
For reasons I still don’t understand, I greeted both of them with a flirty introduction.
Not on purpose. Not planned. Just… autopilot. Great Kisser + Incredibly Friendly + loneliness = bad decisions.
Ted blushed. Meredith glared. Ted glared back. Meredith hissed something under her breath.
And suddenly my brand‑new living room was hosting a marital meltdown.
Maybe — just maybe — they shouldn’t have shown up uninvited.
I smiled awkwardly, offered them fruitcake, and pretended not to notice the tension radiating off them like a broken microwave.
Meanwhile, Ember snored softly in my bedroom.
Welcome to the neighborhood, indeed.
I found out this morning that Ted is dead.
Electrocution. The night after the welcome party.
One minute he was standing in my living room, arguing with his wife because I’d flirted with both of them, and the next… he was gone.
StrangerVille is strange, sure. But even for here, the timing felt… convenient.
Too convenient.
I wasn’t saying anything happened. I wasn’t saying Meredith did anything.
But it was hard not to notice the sequence:
Argument on my porch → storming off → dead by morning.
People don’t just get electrocuted out of nowhere. Not usually. Not unless they’re messing with something they shouldn’t. Or unless something is messing with them.
I made coffee and sat at the counter, trying to shake the feeling crawling under my skin.
I didn’t know Ted well. Barely at all. But he’d been alive in my house less than twenty‑four hours ago.
Now he wasn’t.
And the coincidence of it all… Well. Just because I’m paranoid doesn’t mean I’m wrong.
I took a long sip of coffee and stared out at the mesa, the desert stretching endlessly in every direction.
After the shock of Ted’s death settled into something dull and uneasy, I kept circling back to the same thought:
Meredith shouldn’t be alone right now.
Even if the timing of everything felt… suspicious. Even if part of me wondered how a fight on my porch turned into an electrocution hours later. Even if StrangerVille had taught me that coincidences were rarely just coincidences.
Grief was grief. And she’d lost her husband.
So I invited her over.
She showed up looking really good for someone that just lost her husband.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. “Really. I know we barely know each other.”
We talked for a while — or rather, she talked and I listened. About Ted. About the fight. About how she didn’t even remember what started it. About how fast everything happened.
And the whole time, I kept thinking:
It’s too convenient. Too clean. Too fast.
But I didn’t say that.
I just sat with her.
Eventually, something else slipped through — something warm, restless, almost electric. She leaned closer. Her voice softened. Her eyes lingered.
Meredith was grieving. She was lonely. She was hurting.
And she was… flirty.
I should’ve stopped it. I should’ve redirected. I should’ve done literally anything else.
But comforting people — really comforting them — has never been my strong suit. I don’t do deep talks or emotional breakthroughs.
I do closeness. Warmth. Connection.
So when she leaned in, I didn’t pull away.
I consoled her the way I console best.
Afterward, she kissed me. She thanked me, and she left before the sun dipped too low.
When the door closed, the house felt quiet again.
Too quiet.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling that whatever happened to Ted… this wasn’t the end of it.
I saw Ryleigh today.
At the library, of all places — out front as I was walking in, she was walking by.
She looked at me when I walked up. And I knew instantly.
She knew.
She knew I was the one who recorded her.
The air between us went sharp and cold, like stepping into a freezer. She didn’t yell. She didn’t accuse. She didn’t even look surprised.
Just… hurt.
A quiet, deep kind of hurt that sits behind the eyes and doesn’t need words.
I tried to say something — anything — but the words stuck. What was I supposed to say? Sorry I betrayed you because my job told me to? Sorry I chose my career over you? Sorry I didn’t call?
“They told me,” she said. Her voice was flat, controlled. “I got a warning. That’s all.”
No job loss. No arrest. No interrogation. Just a warning.
Relief hit me first. Then guilt. Then something heavier I didn’t want to name.
“I didn’t want to—” I started.
She shook her head. “Don’t. Just… don’t.”
After seeing Ryleigh at the library — after the coldness, the hurt in her eyes, the way she wouldn’t even let me finish a sentence — I knew I couldn’t face being alone that night.
The house felt too big. Too quiet. Too full of echoes I didn’t want to hear.
So I opened SimDa.
I wasn’t looking for anything deep. Just someone who wasn’t angry with me. Someone who didn’t know what I’d done. Someone who could fill the silence for a few hours.
Katlyn Steinwedel answered.
She came over without hesitation — confident, flirty, easygoing. We talked a little, kissed a little, and let the night blur into something warm and uncomplicated. She left early the next morning, slipping out before sunrise with a soft goodbye.
No strings. No expectations. Just distraction.
Exactly what I needed. Or what I told myself I needed.
Later that morning, my phone buzzed again — this time with a call from Dad.
His voice was bright, excited, full of news.
“Orange got married,” he said. “To Vance Strange. He’s Orange Strange now.”
I blinked, trying to picture it. Orange. Married. It felt surreal, but in a good way.
Dad kept talking, filling me in on everything I’d missed:
Rory and Cassie are teens now. Darrell is a toddler.
And then he mentioned it casually, like it was nothing:
“I’m an elder now.”
The words hit harder than I expected.
Dad. An elder.
I knew it would happen eventually — that’s how time works, even in a legacy family — but hearing it out loud made something twist in my chest. He’d always been… Dad. Eternal. Steady. Unchanging.
But now he was older. Slower. Closer to the part of the story I didn’t want to think about.
I swallowed hard and tried to keep my voice steady as we talked. He didn’t notice anything was wrong. He never does when he’s excited.
When the call ended, I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall.
Katlyn’s perfume still lingered in the air. The sheets were still warm. The house was still quiet.
The last few days have been… a lot.
It started with something simple — something good, even.
Lyle helped me during training. More than he had to. He stuck his neck out, vouched for me, made sure I didn’t get buried under the weight of the early ranks. And he kept getting overlooked for promotions he’d earned twice over.
So I fixed it.
I pulled the right strings, filed the right paperwork, and made sure the right officer actually looked at his record.
He got the promotion.
He deserved it. And I finally felt like I’d balanced the scales.
Then Dirk Dreamer called.
He said he got my number from a friend of Dad’s and wondered if I wanted some company. I assumed he meant “company” in the polite, elder‑friendly, my‑dad’s‑age sense.
I wasn’t planning anything. Just a visit. Just being kind to someone who knew my family.
Except that isn’t what happened.
One minute we were talking in the living room, the next we were in the closet, and then—
He died.
Right there. From woohoo exhaustion.
To be fair, he survived it twice before the third one killed him. He had stamina,
I stood there in shock, staring at the space where he’d been standing seconds before, and all I could think was:
How am I going to explain this to my parents?
So now I have Dirk’s urn. And a very awkward conversation ahead.
And then Grim showed up.
He did what he had to do — professional, efficient, a little dramatic, but that’s his whole brand. I should’ve let him leave. I should’ve gone to bed. I should’ve done literally anything else.
Instead, I talked to him.
And he talked back.
And he was… funny. Dry. Weirdly charming. Comfortable in a way no living person has been lately.
Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was the loneliness. Maybe it was the fact that I’d just watched someone die in my closet.
But I leaned in to kiss him. And Grim kissed me back.
The woohoo was Spectacular.
When it was over, he agreed — casually, like it was nothing — to be my romantic partner.
And then he left.
I thought that was the end of it.
It wasn’t.
I’m pregnant.
With Grim’s baby.
I stared at the test for a long time, waiting for it to change, waiting for it to make sense, waiting for the world to stop tilting under my feet.
It didn’t.
Things just got real.
Really real.
And I have no idea what comes next.
After Grim left — after the surreal, impossible, strangely comforting whirlwind of it all — I thought the house would finally be quiet.
I was wrong.
It started with a flicker of cold air. A shimmer near the closet door. And then Dirk’s ghost drifted out like he’d just stepped away for a moment instead of… well. Dying in that exact spot.
He looked at me. I looked at him. Neither of us said anything.
And then, somehow, we were back in the closet.
The same closet. The one where he died.
When it was over, he floated out like it was the most normal thing in the world.
I stood there in the quiet, trying to process the last twenty‑four hours:
- I woohooed a man to death.
- I woohooed Grim.
- I woohooed the ghost of the man I woohooed to death.
All in one day.
I sat on the edge of my bed, staring at the wall, wondering how my life had turned into a bizarre romantic obituary column.
And then I remembered:
I’m pregnant.
With Grim’s baby.
I lay back on the mattress, covered my face with my hands, and let out a long, exhausted sigh.
Oh yeah. Dirk is now my romantic partner also.
If I thought the day couldn’t get any weirder, the universe took that as a challenge.
Grandma Wren called.
To invite me to GeekCon.
Which would’ve been sweet… except Wren died a few days ago.
I stared at my phone for a long moment, trying to decide if this was:
- a glitch
- a prank
- a ghost with a good data plan
- or just StrangerVille being StrangerVille
Honestly, any of those felt equally possible.
I said yes. Because why not. At this point, “sure, I’ll go to GeekCon with my dead grandmother” barely cracked the top ten weirdest things happening in my life.
Then I gave Augustus a second chance.
I don’t know why. Maybe because I was spiraling. Maybe because I was lonely. Maybe because I was trying to find something — anything — to hold onto that didn’t involve ghosts, Grim, or pregnancy tests.
He showed up for the date looking better than last time. Less sad. More present.
It wasn’t magical. It wasn’t terrible. It was… something to do. A distraction. A moment where I didn’t feel like the ground was shifting under my feet.
And right now, that counted for a lot.
Then things escalated. Again.
I was exhausted, ready to collapse into bed and pretend the world didn’t exist for a few hours.
Instead, I walked into my living room and found:
Katlyn Steinwedel and Ember Hay
Both standing there. Both waiting for me. Both looking like they had questions.
Apparently, they’d both decided to “drop by.”
At the same time.
Because of course they did.
I stood there for a moment, staring at them, weighing my options:
- Explain?
- Lie?
- Run?
- Fake my own death?
Instead, I just said, “Make yourselves comfortable,” and walked straight to my bedroom.
If they were still talking to me tomorrow, I’d deal with it then.
If not… well, that was tomorrow’s problem.
Tonight, I was done.
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