My Entire Character is Gone?

Got the game yesterday. Put in about 5 or so hours non stop playing.
Log in today and it's like my first time logging in.
Have to create a new character.
Name is taken cause apparently my previously created character, while I can no longer access it, is still holding that name?

When I first got the game, it said my account had no access to Early Access and had to link my steam ro my POE account so I came here and figured I needed to create an account and link it. So I created an account (kittikat#8333) but suddenly my Steam got access to the game and when I linked the accounts, I now have TWO accounts linked to steam (kittikat#0826)

Could this be an issue that is causing my sudden loss of a character?

Logging out and back into the game did not bring my character back.

Currently I do not want to create another character to play the game (basically means I am not playing the game I paid for) because I do not know the status of my account and what caused my character to suddenly disappear and if it will just randomly happen again in the near future and waste even more of my time with losing more characters.

Can go ahead and close this. Got the game refunded, don't care anymore.