Verdell Walker
Simulacrum: A Cottage in a Deep, Dark Wood
As soon as I clocked in for my shift, my boss Minerva tapped my elbow. “I’m adding a manual order to your queue. A Cottage in a Deep, Dark Wood.”
“Oh! Thanks a lot,” I said, meaning it. That was a premium offering, with the highest base rate and tip share. Rent was due next week, and this shift would pay better than wrangling food delivery drones. “What story?”
“Little Red Riding Hood variant,” Minerva replied. “Details are in your packet.”
I sighed. “No one wants the original stories anymore.”
Minerva narrowed her eyes. “If the guest’s parents wanted a uniform experience for their child, they’d take her to one of those retro amusement parks.” She shuddered. “We’re above that.”
“Of course,” I agreed quickly. I didn’t want her to regret giving me this opportunity, normally reserved for tier one performers. Two years in, I’d only moved up to tier two, which meant that I had speaking roles and had some wiggle room in terms of interpreting characters, but I still didn’t have completely free rein.
Even so, I liked amusement parks. They were fun 21st-century relics, and I envied the actors who got to perform live, even if they were stuck in sweaty costumes. My own acting career had gone nowhere, which was how I ended up here — playing wolves, witches, and wicked stepmothers for seven-year-olds in a simulated dreamscape. But I couldn’t complain too much; at least I got to perform, after a fashion. Even if I wasn’t writing my own content for Simulacrums.
Only tier one performers got to create new experiences. One day, I’d be one of them. Until then, I played my part.
Minerva departed, and I stepped into my Simulacrum booth. The door slid shut behind me, and dim blue light bathed the space as my monitor flickered to life. Cottage was first in my queue. Beatrix, age seven, wanted tea with the Big Bad Wolf. No mention of whether this was before or after the Wolf devoured Grandma.
I pressed a button on my chair’s armrest console. The chair flattened out, and my control device — a slim silver headband that tapped into my neural pathways — descended onto my forehead. The haptic sensors in my bodysuit, dispersed all over my arms, legs, and torso, hummed to life with a tingling warmth. I closed my eyes, and the Simulacrum pulled me in.
For a moment, there was nothing but static behind my eyelids. Then—
An ache, but the good kind, like stretching sore muscles. Then came the other sensations — the ones that never stopped being strange, no matter how many times I shifted. My bones realigned themselves into a quadrupedal stance. My jaw unhinged, stretching forward as my teeth multiplied and sharpened, my tongue thickening to accommodate the new, lupine dimensions. My ears pricked, lengthening into points.
Then came the fur, racing over my skin like a fast-growing weed. It was the last step, and I always felt it — an odd, tingling sensation, as if my nerve endings were momentarily on fire before settling into their new form. I shook myself as it finished, exhaling through my newly widened snout. The air smelled different here: sharp pine, damp leaves, a hint of woodsmoke.
Hunger gnawed at the edges of my awareness, an instinctual reaction coded into the character. The Algorithm had gotten better at that lately — at making the experience feel real without letting us forget who we were underneath. Not for the first time, I wondered if a film or theater director helped develop the Algorithm.
I woke up in a bed of green grass, the blades prickly and wet with rain. I’d traded my brown skin and black hair for gray fur, three-inch fangs, and claws that sank into the soil as I stood. Somewhere beyond the trees, a cottage chimney puffed out smoke.
I trotted over and nudged open the door with my snout, stepping into a warm little house. The Algorithm had set the stage well: a crackling fire, a rustic bed with a thick patchwork quilt, and a porcelain tea set decorated with pink roses waiting on a round wooden table. A costume of a pink nightdress and a white, frilly cap was laid across the bed. My avatar’s lack of opposable thumbs made donning the getup a chore, but I eventually wrestled it on before climbing into the bed.
“Computer, make a note: it’s best to arrive in costume when not in human form.” A chime registered the system’s acknowledgment.
I had barely pulled the covers up when Beatrix entered.
She was adorable — small for her age, with brown pigtails, olive skin, and hazel eyes that beamed when she saw me.
“Come in, my dear,” I growled. “You look good enough to eat.”
“Thank you, Mr. Wolf.” Beatrix sat down at the tea table and opened a wicker basket almost as big as she was. “I brought treats.”
I sat up. “Wolf? I am your own beloved grandmother.”
“No, you aren’t,” Beatrix said firmly, setting out scones.
Not indulging me, then. Fine. Be that way, kid. I sighed dramatically, throwing off the covers and padding over to the table, my claws clicking against the wooden floor. “Can I call you Bea?”
She nodded, pouring tea. “Sure, you can.”
“Wouldn’t you rather have tea with a princess, Bea?”
Bea scrunched her nose. “No. Wolves are cool.”
“They blow down houses,” I reminded her. “Do you know that story?”
“Yes. Maybe he was mad that the pigs didn’t let him in. Maybe he just wanted friends.” She hesitated, staring into her cup. “That’s what I’d want.”
My right ear twitched. It dawned on me that Bea was alone. Most guests came with siblings or a posse of agemates.
“Depends on the friend,” I mused. “Not everyone is good company.”
Bea nodded seriously. “That’s true.”
The tea was perfect — not too sweet, not too hot. The scone, to my surprise, had a savory meat filling, and in this body, it tasted divine. So thoughtful of her.
“A good friend is hard to find,” I told her, licking a crumb from my fangs, “but worth searching for.”
Bea smiled into her teacup.
“Also,” I added, leaning forward, “I ate your grandma.”
“How did she taste?” she asked sweetly.
We stared at each other. Then, I was the first to laugh — a snarling, barking sound that made Bea giggle.
“Your grandma tasted like old lace and butterscotch candies,” I said, snapping my jaws. This earned me another peal of laughter.
Something about Bea’s delight made my chest ache — not the simulated wolf body, but me, the person underneath. I’d taken hundreds of these jobs, played the villain for so many kids. Most squealed, a few cried. None of them looked at me like I was real.
But Bea did.
It had been a long time since anyone had. Most days I told myself performing was enough. It wasn't. I wanted to make something, something new that would matter to my audience. Even if it was an audience of one.
Bea was the first guest who'd ever made me feel like that was possible. In just a few minutes, she had elbowed her way past the stock character and engaged the person buried under layers of pre-programmed narrative.
I didn’t want to leave. Not yet.
I could make so many stories for her. Not just perform them — create them. Something new, just for her. I’d be so good at it, and it would mean something to her.
My gaze flicked to the session timer in the corner of my vision, ticking down with precision. I tapped a hidden button beneath the table.
Computer, I thought. Redistribute the rest of my jobs today.
A chime acknowledged my request. My schedule cleared.
Bea didn’t notice — she was cutting another scone in half, carefully placing one piece on my plate.
I reached for it, claws clicking against porcelain.
“Tell me, Bea,” I said, grinning, “what other big, bad creatures do you like?”
She lit up. “Definitely dragons! Do you like dragons?”
And just like that, we had all the time in the world. I was going to get into so much trouble for this. Minerva was going to flip her shit.
Worth it.
Verdell Walker is a writer of speculative fiction from rural Georgia whose work is inspired by her heritage and her research. Her stories are published and forthcoming in Tractor Beam, Reckoning, Adventitious, Zooscape, and other fine publications. Her nonfiction writing has appeared in Bustle, Vox, Forge, and ZORA. Verdell is a graduate of the Your Personal Odyssey Writing Workshop and Clarion West. She is a recipient of the Horror Writers Association’s Diversity Grant, the Gotham Writers of Color Creative Writing Scholarship, and the John Lewis Writing Grant for Fiction. She is also a 2026 Periplus Collective and 2026 Voodoonauts Collective fellow. She can be found on Instagram: @verdellwalkerwrites, as well as her book review podcast, The Book Up.
