The First Call
September 24th, 2018. I was the rookie cop riding along with the veterans, learning the ropes of our beat.
“Unit 47, we’ve got a fraud report at Maple Heights Apartments, Building 15, 24th floor. Victim claims $50,000 stolen. Copy?”
Fifty grand? My partner Detective Zhao practically bounced out of his seat. If this was legit, it meant our anti-fraud awareness campaign had failed spectacularly.
“Copy that, en route,” Zhao barked into the radio, then shouted at us: “MOVE!”
We hauled ass to the elevator. Maple Heights was the fancy complex in our district – the kind of place where rich people get scammed out of $200K and then say “never mind” when they find out how much paperwork they’d have to fill out. Also the same building where we once found 14 people living in a two-bedroom “pod apartment.”
24th floor, apartment 2401. A woman in her late 40s answered the door in pajamas, no makeup, but clearly took care of herself. Money written all over her.
“Ma’am, I’m Detective Zhao. We’re here about the fraud report?”
Her name was Sarah Zhang, 49, but here’s the kicker – she wasn’t the victim. Her son was.
“Started in January,” she explained, wringing her hands. “Just a few hundred here and there, nothing crazy. But today he dropped two grand in one go, and I’m like, what the hell? He never leaves the house, never gets packages, so I called customer service. Every single charge was to some platform I’ve never heard of. My kid’s definitely being scammed.”
Zhao looked around for the victim. Sarah glanced nervously at a closed bedroom door.
“Peter? Honey? The police are here. Can you come out and talk to us?”
Dead silence.
“Peter?” Zhao tried, knocking gently. “LAPD. Just want to chat for a minute, nothing serious.”
Still nothing. Sarah pulled us aside and whispered, “He’s… he has some issues. Social anxiety, depression. Doesn’t like talking to strangers.”
The door SLAMMED open so hard it hit the wall. We all jumped. A guy around 5’10” emerged – clearly mid-twenties, scruffy beard, definitely not the “kid” we were expecting.
“Talking shit about me again?” His voice dripped with resentment as he glared at us. “What’s wrong with me this time? Am I crazy? Bipolar? Depressed?”
“No, sweetie,” Sarah rushed to explain. “The officers just want to understand what happened with the money—”
“I told you a million times – I WASN’T SCAMMED. I know exactly where every penny went.”
Peter leaned against the doorframe, trying to look calm, but you could see the anger simmering underneath. Something was seriously off about this family dynamic.
The Truth Comes Out
The room went dead quiet. Zhao clearly didn’t want to get dragged into family drama, especially when the alleged victim was denying everything.
“Okay,” Zhao said carefully, “let’s say you weren’t scammed. Can you just tell us what happened? Help your mom understand so she stops worrying?”
Peter shot a look at his mother that could’ve melted steel. “I was streaming. Donating to streamers. Not a scam.”
Streaming. That explained about 80% of it right there. Though Peter didn’t strike me as stupid enough to fall for typical scams.
He mentioned some platform I’d never heard of – only had like 35,000 downloads compared to the millions on Twitch or YouTube. Pretty niche.
Zhao pulled Peter outside for a private chat while Sarah vented to us: “I’ve never even heard of this platform! He’s obviously being catfished or something!”
When Zhao came back a few minutes later, Peter stormed straight into his room and slammed the door.
“Well?” Sarah asked.
“It’s not fraud,” Zhao explained. “Your son’s been sending money to a specific streamer – a girl. They’ve been talking, he has her contact info. He’s basically trying to win her over. Weird? Maybe. Illegal? No.”
Sarah looked confused.
“Look,” Zhao continued, glancing at Peter’s door, “if he felt like he was being tricked, he could stop anytime. But he’s doing this willingly because he’s getting something out of it – her attention, their conversations. He thinks it’s worth it.”
Sarah nodded sadly and walked us to the elevator. Case closed.
Zhao told us in the car: “Kid’s got a lot to say. Felt like he needed someone to listen. Kept talking about how his family doesn’t trust him, tries to control everything he does.”
We filed our report and forgot about it.
Until August 5th, 2019.
The Jump
“All units, we have a jumper at Maple Heights Apartments, Building 15, 23rd floor fire escape. Repeat, active suicide attempt in progress.”
My heart sank. Zhao was at training, so it was me and Officer Yang racing to the scene with half the precinct.
Yang called the reporting party on the way. A woman, sobbing hysterically: “My son’s going to jump! Please hurry!”
When we got there, a crowd had already formed. People pointing up at the 23rd floor, taking pictures, recording videos. Because of course they were.
Yang started crowd control while the rest of us rushed upstairs. 23rd floor fire escape – there he was. Peter, standing on the wrong side of the railing, looking down.
“Maple Heights units, do you need backup?”
“Yeah, send everyone. Too many gawkers down here.”
“All available units, respond to Maple Heights for crowd control…”
We killed our radios and phones – last thing we needed was a ringtone setting this guy off. That’s when I saw the woman again.
“Please save my son,” she sobbed. “He’s only 27!”
Peter. It clicked. Same family from ten months ago.
Captain Martinez took point, slowly entering the fire escape corridor connecting the two buildings. Peter was hanging halfway over the edge, only his grip on the railing keeping him from falling 23 stories.
“Son, I’m Captain Martinez, LAPD. Whatever’s going on, we can figure it out together. What do you need?”
Peter looked up at the Captain. No emotion in his eyes. Dead inside.
The Captain talked for ten minutes. Nothing. Peter just stared at the ground, half his body in open air.
From our position, we could see there was no way to grab him without being spotted. The building’s overhang meant any rope rescue from above would be visible. One wrong move and he’d let go.
Captain Martinez stepped back and asked Sarah: “What happened? What set this off?”
“We got him an interview at the power company through a friend. Good job, benefits, perfect for his degree. He refused to go. His father said some harsh words, then…” She trailed off, crying.
“Has he ever worked?”
“No. We’ve been supporting him since college.”
“What degree?”
“Bachelor’s in Computer Science.”
The Captain frowned. “So what exactly triggered this?”
“I don’t know! He plays games all day, and his father thought it was pathetic, so he smashed Peter’s computer. Then Peter just… lost it.”
“Which was it – the job thing or the computer?”
“I honestly don’t know.”
A crisis negotiator arrived – Dr. Jenkins from the VA, called in by the chief. Guy had a reputation for talking people off ledges.
We went back to the corridor. Sarah tried to follow, but Dr. Jenkins stopped her.
“Peter,” Dr. Jenkins said calmly, “you look exhausted, man. Like you’ve been carrying a heavy load for years.”
Peter actually turned to look at him.
“I talked to your parents. Your family situation sounds rough. You’ve been feeling trapped, right?”
Still no words, but Peter was listening.
“Honestly? If I were in your shoes, I might feel pretty hopeless too.”
Harsh words, but they got a reaction. Sarah and her husband looked mortified, but Dr. Jenkins knew what he was doing.
“Want to tell me about it? Help me understand what you’re going through?”
Peter stared at the doctor for a long moment. Then: “Ask my dad.”
“Your dad doesn’t get it. That’s why you feel so alone, right? So tell me.”
“He destroyed my computer. That’s not even the worst part.” Peter’s voice cracked. “My hard drive crashed. All my data’s gone.”
“Like your game saves?”
“Yeah.”
Dr. Jenkins didn’t know much about gaming, so he asked Peter to explain.
“You wouldn’t understand,” Peter said.
“Try me. What made this so important?”
“It’s not about the games. It’s about… I can never find her again.”
“Her? Like an online friend?”
“You won’t get it.”
The Digital Love Story
Dr. Jenkins pressed gently, and Peter finally opened up:
“I was stuck in Maple Village for months. I could’ve finished the quest and moved on a hundred times, but I didn’t want to leave her behind.”
Nobody understood what he was talking about.
“Every other companion runs away when their fear level gets too high,” Peter continued, tears in his voice. “But she stayed. Even when we went into the Demon Caves and her fear hit 94 out of 100, she never left my side. She was terrified but she stayed with me anyway.”
His voice broke completely. “She was like a loyal dog. Her whole world was me. I kept my character at level 9 in that village because I couldn’t bear to leave her.”
“And when your dad unplugged the computer…”
“He killed her.” Peter was sobbing now. “The hard drive crashed. She’s gone forever. Even if I play the game a thousand times, I’ll never meet that specific version of her again.”
The Captain, not understanding, muttered: “Video games, man. They rot your brain.”
Wrong thing to say.
“SEE?” Peter screamed. “You all think I’m pathetic! You think she was just data! But she loved me! She was the only thing that made me feel less alone!”
Peter let go with one hand, his foot slipping further off the ledge.
Everyone tensed. But Dr. Jenkins recognized what was happening – this wasn’t a real suicide attempt. This was Peter trying to force his parents to understand his pain.
“Peter!” Sarah burst past us. “Baby, I’m sorry! Mommy’s so sorry!”
Peter looked at his mother through his tears.
“Your mom needs you,” Dr. Jenkins said softly. “Without you, her world falls apart. Just like you were that girl’s whole world.”
The parallel hit hard. You could see it in Peter’s face.
“Your parents made mistakes. But they love you. Give them a chance to understand. Help them see your world the way you helped me see it.”
Peter stood there crying, thinking. The fire department had been waiting for this exact moment – they grabbed his arm and pulled him back over the railing.
The Real Story
After the crisis passed, Dr. Jenkins talked privately with Peter while the parents waited nearby.
“They control everything,” Peter told him. “I wanted to move out of state, try different jobs – maybe work at a game store, or a pet shop, or anything. But they only see ‘respectable’ careers. Anything I want to do is ‘beneath me.'”
“They act like they support me, give me money, but they treat me like I’m mentally disabled. They’ve never once asked what I actually want. They don’t even know the name of the game I play.”
Dr. Jenkins later apologized to the parents: “I had to criticize you guys to get through to him. Don’t take it personally.”
“We just want what’s best for him,” Sarah’s husband said.
“I know. But you’re very controlling parents. You planned his whole life without asking what he wanted. You never learned to really communicate with him. And leaving him alone with a computer for years while he got deeper into online communities… he lost touch with reality.”
After we got back to the station, I looked up the game Peter mentioned. That “companion” he was talking about? It was basically a hidden feature – you had to answer the initial character questions exactly right to unlock an NPC that would never abandon you, no matter what. Miss those answers by even a little bit, and you’d only get fair-weather companions who’d ditch you when things got tough.
Peter could play the game again and find a similar companion, but never the exact same one. Each playthrough generated unique characters.
The cruel irony? The moment you start caring about an NPC, they stop being just code. They become real to you.
What I Learned
This call stayed with me for years. Here’s this 27-year-old guy, college-educated, who found more authentic love and loyalty in a video game than in his real family.
His parents thought they were helping by destroying his “addiction,” but they destroyed the one relationship where he felt truly valued. To them, it was just data. To him, it was love.
Was Peter’s attachment unhealthy? Probably. But was it more unhealthy than a family that never learned to communicate, never tried to understand each other, and solved problems by cutting off money and smashing property?
I think about Peter sometimes. Did his family learn to listen? Did he find another companion, digital or otherwise, who made him feel less alone?
The internet loves to mock people who get emotionally attached to games, anime characters, or online relationships. “Just data,” we say. “Not real.”
But feelings are real. Loneliness is real. And sometimes a fictional character who never leaves your side feels more genuine than family members who claim to love you but never bothered to learn who you actually are.
Peter’s father thought he was saving his son from fantasy. Instead, he destroyed the one place where his son felt loved.
Maybe the real world could learn something from digital companions about unconditional loyalty.
Have you ever found connection in unexpected places? Share your story in the comments – no judgment here.
