When indie cartographer and VR world‑builder Talia Mendez walks into the mirrored lobby of Torre Arboleda in Mexico City to interview reclusive simulation tycoon Cassian Rook about a grant for community-built worlds, she meets a man as dazzling as the skyline above Chapultepec. Brilliant, methodical, and intimidating, Rook commands rooms and servers with the same unblinking intensity. Talia, armed with a cobalt sketchbook, a battered field recorder, and a laugh that loosens knots, is startled by how quickly she wants his attention—and how fiercely she wants to keep her friends, her crew of testers and artists, close. Against his own habits, Rook is drawn to her stubborn curiosity and independent streak, but he insists on collaborating on his terms: quiet hours, nonnegotiable versioning, strict boundaries, and a design covenant that dictates every flicker of light in their shared simulation.
Shocked yet intrigued by his exacting protocols and the glass-walled studio that hums over Paseo de la Reforma, Talia hesitates. For all the trappings of success—multinational servers in Toluca, a private observatory in Valle de Bravo, an obsidian chess set that never gathers dust—Cassian Rook is a man marked by early failures and a ruinous beta that taught him to control everything he can. When they embark on a daring, intensely intimate creative alliance, their late-night builds become a map of trust and power, code and confession. As the world they are crafting blooms with salt flats, paper pigeons, and star wells, Talia uncovers the secrets that shadow Cassian's brilliance and tests the edges of her own boundaries, choosing where to surrender and where to stand her ground.
Lyrical, slyly funny, and deeply moving, How I built my own world without losing friends is a story of attraction, authorship, and the fragile architectures between people. It will draw you in, challenge you, and leave you with the strange ache of having walked through a place that should not exist. Themes, situations, and language are intended for mature audiences.
