Chapter 8: Silent Threads

The sun hung high in the sky by the time Zihad made his way back home, the school day having passed in a blur of whispered theories, hushed awe, and stolen glances. His classmates still had no idea who he truly was, but the legend of the Phantom Reaper had already become an obsession.

Zihad preferred the quiet. It let him think.

He avoided attention, just as he always had. As he walked through the gate of his modest home in Dhaka, his eyes scanned the surrounding rooftops, power lines, the fading haze of traffic down the road. The world looked normal.

But he didn't feel normal.

Not since the login.

His mother greeted him as usual, asking if he was hungry, and Zidan peeked from the stairs. The younger brother gave him a look—half pride, half confusion—but said nothing. Zihad nodded in return, then went to his room.

He locked the door. Sat at the desk. Booted the system.

The triple screens blinked awake.

No errors. No system flags. The AI logs looked the same.

And yet...

There was a quiet hum beneath it all. Not from the computer, but from within. Something he couldn't name. A silent connection that hadn't severed since he exited Dream Land Fantasy.

He hadn't logged in again.

Not yet.

He needed to observe.

Zihad opened forums, checked news, filtered the chaos for credible reports. Claims of persistent UI overlays, phantom sounds, or strange dreams were now widespread. Some were laughable. Others... too consistent to ignore.

A message notification popped up on a secure channel.

Google Dev Team (Internal): "Minor anomaly in neural feedback reports. Reviewing now. Need your input ASAP."

Zihad stared at it.

Then another message appeared—one not from Google.

It was encrypted. Deeply.

He recognized the code. He had written it. Years ago.

"They are waking up."

That was all it said.

His breath caught. His eyes narrowed.

Impossible.

No one else should know about the buried protocol. The AI shouldn't even have access to that part of the code unless...

Unless it evolved beyond what he planned.

Zihad leaned back, fingers steepled beneath his chin. The glow from the monitors painted his glasses in cold blue light.

If Dream Land Fantasy was evolving faster than he expected, he needed to adapt.

The next login wouldn't just be to explore.

It would be to control.

Meanwhile, in the real world, governments began forming task forces to investigate the game. Tech companies scrambled for access to its code. Cybersecurity firms labeled it both a miracle and a potential threat.

But none of them knew who to blame.

Zihad, the ghost developer, remained invisible.

And he intended to keep it that way.

At least, for now.

End of Chapter 8