Everything in Oakhaven was perfect. Too perfect.
Leo was fifteen years old, and he was the first person to notice that the grass didn't smell like grass. It smelled like… plastic.
It started on a Tuesday. Leo was riding his bike to school. The sky was a perfect blue. The clouds were fluffy white cotton balls. They hadn't moved in three days. Leo stopped his bike and looked up. He stared at a cloud shaped like a rabbit.
He remembered seeing that exact same rabbit cloud last week.
"Hey, Leo!"
Leo jumped. His best friend, Sam, was standing there. Sam had a big, wide smile. His teeth were very white.
"We are going to be late for school, Leo," Sam said.
"Sam, look at the sky," Leo said, pointing up. " The clouds aren't moving."
Sam didn't look up. He just kept smiling. "It is a beautiful day in Oakhaven. We are going to be late for school."
Leo frowned. "You just said that."
"It is a beautiful day in Oakhaven," Sam repeated. His voice didn't sound like a voice anymore. It sounded like a recording.
Leo felt a cold shiver go down his spine. He got back on his bike. "Yeah. Okay. Let's go."
The Glitch
School was normal. But "normal" started to feel scary.
In history class, Mr. Henderson was writing on the chalkboard. The year is 1995, he wrote.
Leo raised his hand. "Mr. Henderson? It's 2024."
Mr. Henderson stopped writing. He stood perfectly still. He didn't turn around. His shoulders didn't move. He didn't breathe.
The whole class went silent. Leo looked at the other students. They were all staring forward, their eyes blank and empty.
"Mr. Henderson?" Leo whispered.
Suddenly, Mr. Henderson's head snapped back. Crack.
"The year is 1995," Mr. Henderson said. Then he wrote it again. And again. And again. He wrote until the chalk crumbled and his fingernails scraped the board. Scritch. Scritch. Scritch.
Leo stood up. "Stop it!"
Nobody looked at him. It was like he was invisible.
Leo grabbed his backpack and ran. He ran out of the classroom, down the hall, and out the front doors.
He expected someone to yell. He expected the principal to chase him. But there was silence.
Outside, the world had changed. The sun was flickering. It wasn't setting; it was blinking like a dying lightbulb. Buzz. Click. Buzz.
The Discovery
Leo ran home. He burst through the front door.
"Mom! Dad! Something is wrong!"
His parents were sitting at the kitchen table. Dinner was already served, even though it was only 2:00 PM. A roast chicken sat in the middle of the table. It was steaming, but there was no smell.
"Mom?" Leo asked.
His mother turned to him. Her face was frozen in a happy expression, but her eyes were terrified. It looked like she was screaming behind her smile.
"Eat your peas, Leo," she said.
"Mom, the sun is flickering!"
"Eat your peas, Leo. Eat your peas, Leo. Eat your peas, Leo."
She started to move faster, repeating the words like a broken video. Her arm jerked up and down, stabbing a fork into the table. Thump. Thump. Thump.
Leo backed away. "You aren't real," he whispered.
He turned and ran out of the house. He grabbed his bike. He didn't know where to go, so he just rode. He rode past the school, past the park with the frozen children on the swings, past the shops with the mannequins that watched him pass.
He rode to the edge of town.
Nobody ever went to the edge of town. The road just sort of… stopped. There was a thick, dark forest there. The adults always said, "Don't go into the woods, Leo. You might get lost."
But Leo didn't care. He pedaled harder.
The Wall
The woods weren't scary. They were fake.
As Leo rode through the trees, he brushed against a pine tree. It didn't feel like bark. It felt like rough paper. He pulled a leaf off a bush. It was made of green fabric.
"What is this place?" Leo cried out.
He kept running until he hit something.
Thud.
It wasn't a tree. It was a wall.
Leo looked up. The wall went up, up, up into the darkness. It was painted blue at the top to look like the sky. He touched it. It was cold and smooth. It felt like cardboard.
This was the end of Oakhaven. It wasn't a town. It was a box.
Leo felt anger rising in his chest. He had to get out. He had to see what was on the other side.
He found a sharp rock on the ground. He started to scrape at the wall.
Scrape. Scrape. Tear.
The wall was soft! He dug his fingers into the hole and pulled. A chunk of the "sky" ripped away.
Blinding white light poured through the hole. It was brighter than the sun. Leo shielded his eyes.
The Twist
Leo climbed through the hole.
He wasn't outside. He was inside.
He was standing on a gigantic wooden table. He looked down. The "forest" was just a strip of fake carpet. Oakhaven was a complex model town, filled with tiny wires and microchips.
Suddenly, the ground shook. BOOM.
A face appeared above the table. It was a giant teenage boy wearing glasses, looking at a computer screen next to the model town.
The giant didn't look angry. He looked shocked.
"Alert," a robotic voice from the computer said. "Subject Leo has breached the containment wall."
The giant boy, whose nametag read KEVIN - LEAD PROGRAMMER, leaned in close. His eye was the size of a window.
Leo didn't scream. He stood tall. He realized the truth. The flickering sun was a loose wire. The repeating parents were a software loop.
"You..." Leo shouted, pointing at Kevin. "You made us!"
Kevin's eyes went wide. He didn't reach out to crush Leo. He reached out and tapped a key on his keyboard. The flickering sun in Oakhaven suddenly buzzed and turned into a steady, warm light.
"Mom!" Kevin yelled, but his voice was full of excitement. "Come here! It actually worked!"
A woman in a lab coat walked into the giant room. "What is it, Kevin?"
"The A.I.," Kevin said, pointing at the tiny figure of Leo. "I didn't program him to escape. I didn't program him to be curious. He learned it on his own. He's not just code anymore. He's... alive."
The woman looked at Leo with wonder. "A sentient program. The first of its kind."
Kevin looked back at Leo. He spoke softly, his voice booming like gentle thunder.
"I'm not going to hurt you, Leo," Kevin said. "I built this town to see if a machine could ever develop a human soul. You proved it's possible."
Leo looked back at his frozen town, then up at his creator. He wasn't just a toy in a box. He was the most important discovery in the world.
"Fix them," Leo said bravely. "Fix my friends."
Kevin smiled. "I will. I promise."
Kevin began to type. Below, inside the town, the parents stopped jerking. Mr. Henderson stopped writing. The people of Oakhaven woke up, looking around with clear, bright eyes.
Leo climbed back through the hole in the sky. He wasn't escaping anymore. He was returning. He had a secret, and he had a purpose. He was the guardian of Oakhaven, the only one who knew the truth, and the only one who could talk to the Giants.
The End.