This is great writing, engages and involves the reader. This piece uses the combinations that Vladimir Propp (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Propp) examined as the movements of the cultural folk tales of the culture that most relies on stories — Russia. Having done graduate work on Propp it ruined all books, movies and stories for me for months because I could not stop calculating the possible next moves because like math, chess, music or computer programming there are only certain moves that will work given where a piece is at a point. All workable stories are, among other things, artificial reality. We lose senses into the story. Since our very existence is almost certainly artificial reality with our body (touch, smell, hearing, taste, sight) providing the illusion of the story it makes sense, to me, any artificial reality we create would need to follow the same structure.

It is interesting to me my fellow commentators are mostly women who, by far, are by orders of magnitude braver, more courageous, more insightful, comprehending of things involving relationship. I have many handicaps not the least of which is being born as a privileged white American male so relationships will always be to me what reading is to someone with dyslexia. I do know story structure, congratulations on immersive story.