He tilted his head. Then he trotted past me and started barking at the air three feet to my left.

The first few hours were a blur of radroaches and existential dread. I stumbled through Vault 111’s corpse-littered corridors, my pip-boy beeping a cheerful welcome. When I reached the vault door, the hydraulic seal groaned open, and the Commonwealth hit me like a feral ghoul’s fist: gray, unforgiving, and smelling of rust and rain.

You’re looking at yourself.

The pip-boy beeped one last time. Resolution: Both are true. And then the screen went dark.

Locate your body.

Below it, in smaller text: Note: You are currently observing from Camera A. Camera B’s biometrics show: pulse 0 bpm. Core temperature: 32°F. However, retinal scan indicates active observation. It is watching you back. Dogmeat whined. Then, slowly, he stopped barking at the empty space and looked directly into my eyes. Not at me. Into me. As if my pupils were windows, and on the other side of the glass, something was finally home.

And you realize: you never left.

The pip-boy crackled. A voice I didn’t recognize—metallic, clipped, like a pre-war military AI—said four words: I yanked my hand back. The body’s head lolled, and its lips moved. No sound came out. But I could read them.