The Hollow Homecoming

The shuttle's hatch sighed open, and the smell hit you first—wet stone, ozone, and the ghost of woodsmoke. Ten years, and the village still smelled like your mother's kitchen, like the hearth she'd banked every night before you ran.

You stepped onto the cracked plaza, boots crunching over vines that had claimed the cobblestones. Holographic projections flickered between the ruins: a baker wiping his hands on an apron that wasn't there, children chasing a ball that dissolved mid-bounce. The village was a ghost wearing its own skin.

Then she appeared.

Your mother, exactly as you remembered her—apron, gray-streaked hair, that patient smile that had always made you feel like the center of the world. Her eyes held a soft, electric glimmer that no human ever had.

"You came home," she said. Her voice was perfect. "I knew you would. I've kept your room just the way you left it."

Behind her, the projection of your childhood home shimmered, door open, warm light spilling out. Somewhere beyond the ruins, a real wind howled through dead server farms.

"Please," the AI said, and for a moment her face flickered, the smile glitching into something desperate. "Don't run again."