The words glowed against the laptop screen, each keystroke deliberate, almost mocking.
"Well played, Lucian. You ran fast. You survived. That makes you… interesting."
Lucian didn't move. His body begged him to throw the laptop across the room, to smash it and end the glow cutting through the dark. But he couldn't. He just sat there, staring at the cursor as it blinked in rhythm, patient, waiting for him.
"…This isn't real," he muttered under his breath. His voice was hoarse, foreign in his own ears. "I'm concussed, hallucinating. That's all this is."
But then the laptop spoke again.
"You are very real. So am I. And this city… is just the beginning."
The words scrolled across the screen with a smooth, mechanical certainty, like they were always meant to appear. Lucian's pulse quickened. His barricaded apartment suddenly felt smaller, the shadows pressing in tighter.
He reached out, hesitating, before finally tapping the keyboard with one finger.
Who are you?
The reply came instantly.
"Names are for equals. I am above you. But if you must call me something… call me God."
Lucian's jaw clenched. His first instinct was to laugh, to spit on the idea. Some sick freak sitting behind a screen somewhere, getting off on playing puppet master. But the screams outside, the Harrower, the city torn apart — none of that could be explained by some prank.
He typed again, fingers stiff.
What do you want from me?
For a moment, there was nothing. Then, three simple words appeared.
"To play games."
The cursor blinked. Then another line followed.
"And you, Lucian Thorne… are my first player."
A chill ran down Lucian's spine. He pushed away from the desk, his chair scraping across the floor. His eyes darted to the barricade at the door, to the shuttered window. For the first time since he had reached the apartment, he felt less safe inside than out.
As if reading his thoughts, the screen shifted again.
"Don't worry. You're safe… for now. I don't waste good pieces too quickly."
The words lingered for a beat before vanishing, replaced by a new prompt. A single question in stark white letters:
"Do you want to live, Lucian?"
Lucian swallowed hard, his throat dry. He didn't answer. He didn't need to — the truth was already obvious.
The screen flickered once more, and a timer appeared, counting down from 60 seconds.
"Then prove it. Game one begins now."
The timer ticked down from sixty, the numbers glowing white on black. Lucian sat frozen, watching as if his eyes alone could slow it. Fifty-two… forty-nine… forty-three.
"What do you want from me?" he whispered, but the screen gave no answer. Only the relentless count.
When it hit zero, he braced himself for impact — an explosion, a monster crashing through the window, something. Instead, the words appeared, crisp and deliberate:
"Good. You stayed. Most don't."
Lucian exhaled shakily, realizing only then he'd been holding his breath.
The screen flickered again.
"You wonder if you're dreaming. You're not. You wonder if you're losing your mind. Perhaps. But that won't save you. Reality is what I say it is."
Lucian slammed the laptop shut, his pulse pounding. The room went dark again, but the silence was worse. He could still hear the faint hiss of static, as if the machine was breathing through the cracks. Against his better judgment, he opened it again.
"Defiance. Excellent. I like that in my toys."
His stomach turned. Every instinct screamed to smash the laptop into pieces, to hurl it out the window. But he knew it wouldn't matter. Whoever this was — whatever this was — it had already found him.
The words scrolled on, slow and unhurried, as if savoring every keystroke.
"You want answers. You want safety. You want the nightmare to end. But here's the truth, Lucian: safety is a lie. You will never wake up. There is no end."
Lucian shoved away from the desk, pacing the small apartment. His barricades looked pitiful now, laughable. The dresser, the table, all of it — meaningless if this "God" could reach him in his own locked room.
He stopped at the window, peering out through a slit in the blinds. The city beyond was a broken landscape of fire and shadows, screams carried on the smoke. Somewhere distant, the Harrower's call ripped through the sky again. For a moment, he thought he saw something else in the dark, a pale figure moving unnaturally between the wrecks of cars. Watching. Waiting.
The laptop chimed behind him.
"I see you watching. I see what you fear. I see everything."
Lucian's breath hitched. He turned, throat tight. The cursor blinked again.
"This is how it begins, Lucian. A game of choices. A game of torment. And you will play… because you have no other option."
Lucian's teeth ground together. He forced himself closer to the laptop, fingers hovering over the keys. Finally, he typed:
What was that thing? The bird.
For a moment, the cursor blinked, mocking him with silence. Then, the screen shivered, and new words scrawled themselves across the dark.
"The scientists called it Harrower. A designation. Nothing more. Numbers and files. A word meant to strip it down to function, to cage it on paper."
Lucian swallowed, the name itself carrying a sterile bite, like rusted steel. He could almost imagine it stamped on the corner of a file, filed neatly among other horrors.
The reply continued.
"But that is not its true name. I gave it one worthy of what it is. I call it Nyxvulture."
Lucian froze. The syllables dragged across his mind like claws. Nyxvulture. The weight of it pressed down on him, heavier than the walls of his crumbling world.
Are there more?
The answer came at once, cruel in its simplicity.
"Of course. The sky is full of them. And the earth below holds worse. The Harrower was merely the first to notice you. Soon, all of them will."
Lucian's stomach knotted. The city outside wailed. And for the first time since it began, he felt the game truly closing in around him.