A high wall and an iron gate protected the house. Peering through the iron bars, I regarded the small house inside, walls dirtied with age and creepers swallowing all but a few areas on the outside walls. From where I stood I could see one window on the second floor, frame broken and glass smashed, some still lying buried under long grass after years of neglect. On the wall beside me lay a small wooden plaque with writing engraved on it, ERMITAGE.

The Hermitage.

One wonders what such a quaint house would be doing here of all places, buried away deep in the forest near the school. Its owner had been a teacher there many years ago, before he mysteriously disappeared.

I rested my hand against the rusted gate, feeling the corroded metal fall away beneath my fingertips. All of these sensations were still so new to me, and The Hermitage brought on so many emotions, feelings I didn't understand. But I wanted to understand them. I had to.

The gate opened with a creak, swinging back and hitting the wall nearby. I paid no attention to it, instead walking down the path, the stones making it up barely visible under the overgrowing grass, and up to the front door of the house. It was slightly ajar as it had been forced open, the knob too disfigured to allow it to close anymore. I walked into the dust-covered hallway.

Why were my friends and I interested in this man, Franz Hopper? Technically he was my father; he created me along with an entire virtual world and the evil virus that rules it. Finding more information about Hopper may be the key to stopping the virus. But his name seems strangely familiar to me. It too brought on foreign and confusing emotions like the house I was standing in.

I'd come across it by accident, while running away from the wolves. Jeremie says that they were probably just hallucinations, and that there were no wolves out here. But they were so real, their eyes seeming to pierce my very soul. They were too real to be my wild imagination.

I walked up the stairs and headed into the room I was seeking out. It seemed to belong to a young girl. Everything was pink, and stuffed toys lay about the room. Like the others, the room had been ransacked. That poor girl must have been so scared.

I stepped over a teddy bear on the floor, its back torn open and stuffing falling out, before changing my mind and picking it up. It smiled at me despite its injuries, and I smiled back. I placed it on a shelf in front of a mirror, gazing at my reflection.

Pink hair, green eyes...the reflection looked familiar. Like something past forgotten.

I touched my fingers to the glass, its cold surface sending a chill from my fingertips to the rest of my body. It was my reflection; why should my own reflection hide so many secrets just out of my grasp? Why do this house and that old, bearded man stir up so many feelings in me? What are these visions that rightfully shouldn't belong to me?

"Who am I?"