It's been a month now.... hah.... ha! ha! ha! and I've been glued to this game like a shadow that forgot the sun. Day blurs into night down here. I don't even keep track anymore.
The screen glows like a god, and I obey. My character berserker.... he's everything. Chaos incarnate. Clicky-ta-clack, clack-click.... that rhythm? That's my heartbeat now. Yeah.... that's the spirit. Crush them all.... No mercy!!!
I went on a rampage, tearing through NPCs like some mad god of war, massacring everything in sight. Seriously, this one NPC responded with pleading...
[Don't kill me. Just forgive me.]
I looked at it but still I felt funny and crazy.
Just burn!!! And die!!! You brought this on yourselves, right? This is your fault. Not mine!!.
I think I'm losing it. This game.... it's doing something to me. It doesn't feel normal anymore. The people scream now. But somehow not in code. I feel like it's a bit realistic.... guttural screeches. One of them shouted,
["You'll pay for this! You destroyed my town!"]
As I looked around at my surroundings for a moment, I thought.... this NPC is oddly weird?
I kept scratching my head. Huh? What did I ever do to you?
Oh, right. That.
Well, whatever. I better end him before he gets his revenge. He's a demon, after all. And this is the demon land. No rules here. Just me, my blade, and the endless slaughter.
"Yeah, I might become a psychopath at this point but who cares!!" I grinned, looking at it.
After I wiped out the entire demon-infested town, it was time to loot. The silence was heavy.... just the crackle of flames and the faint hum of victory in the air. I moved slowly, boots crunching over ash and bone, my giant berserker blade slung over my shoulder. It gleamed faintly, still wet from the last kill.
My armor.... black, worn, and a bit distorted.... it matched the dead knights who once guarded this cursed place. Their red, glinting eyes still stared, even in death. Useless now.
I stepped over their bodies one by one, scanning for anything worth my time. Stargems.... a pair of Regislets.... yeah, not bad. I picked them up with a grunt and dropped them into my inventory. Click. Click. Just like Minecraft.
All done. Clean sweep.
Funny, isn't it? I've been describing the atmosphere all this time, but now.... I can feel it. The heat. The ash. The weight of what I've done. What a joke.
But still.... no time to dwell. Another town waits ahead of me. More demons to hunt.
As I turned to leave the wreckage behind, I walked down the broken pavement.... a road soaked in slaughter. The blood still steamed. My armor creaked with every step, thick with the stench of death.
Then I heard it.
A voice. A mother clutching her young son. ["Thank you,"] she whispered. ["For slaying the infected. You're a hero."]
A hero?
I stopped, turned around, my eyes fixed on their backs as they disappeared into the smoke.
"I'm no hero. I'm a mad berserker."
Even now, I still don't understand why things turned out this way. Why this world feels so twisted. Why the screams sound like songs. Why the sky feels like it's watching me. Smiling.
Like the whole place is laughing.... through a burning bloodbath.
Well.... I guess my time as a berserker is done.... at least for now. Time to switch things up. I cracked my fingers and smirked.
Secondary character: Alchemist Support Mage. Yeah, I know. Big shift. Funny though. "Ahhhahahahahah!!!" My first was a blade-swinging madman, and this one's.... an elf girl. Graceful. Precise. I named her Dila.
I chuckled to myself. It's just an avatar. I'm not actually turning into a girl or anything. Just pixels and code. Still, something about her feels different.... calmer. But focused. Even though I didn't let it.
I tapped away at the keyboard, selecting herbs, processing them with a few clicks, then dragging the stargem and those leftover Regislets into the mix.
A soft glow.
Walah!!! One healing potion, infused with steady mana regeneration.... with tilting the vial trickling like a tick, tick, tick sound, every second i shake it. The most important thing is, Clean. Efficient. No blood. Just quiet power.
Huh. That's.... odd?
Why does everything around me feel like it's fading? The air shifted.... heavier, colder. Fog crept in, slow and thick, swallowing the corners of my room like a dream closing in on itself.
I glanced at my screen. It was glowing now. Not normal light. A strange, pulsing blue hue that bled across the walls. I blinked. My heart kicked up like a beating of unease. As I looked around, the only things still visible were the keyboard, the mouse, and the screen. Everything else.... gone into the mist.
And my hands.... they were shaking.
What is this?
Then.... out of nowhere.... a voice.
"Hello. How was your experience playing The Halo World?"
I flinched. Yanked my hand off the mouse. The keyboard clattered slightly as I pulled back.
What the hell was that?
Then suddenly.... static.
The screen flickered, distorted lines crawling like insects across the glow. A shape emerged. Vague at first, then solid.... too solid. A face. A hollow, grinning face. Its eyes were black voids, crackling with static, staring straight into me.
A voice followed. Cold. Mechanical. Too calm.
"Are you ready to enter the Halo world?"
(As I looked at it I questioned and wondered for a moment.)
What.... who are you and it's none of your business?
(I think. Maybe I was just hallucinating, tired of whatever I did in this past month.)
"You've been glued to your computer for so long.... but now it's time to explore it. Really explore it to your heart's content."
"This is nonsense," I muttered, shaking my head. "What the hell are you talking about?"
But the voice didn't stop. It cut deeper.
"We've seen you. You've made no connection to the real world. You abandoned your mother.... your father. For what? Pixels? Quests? Glory in fake blood?"
The figure on the screen grinned wider. That horrible grin stretching into something inhuman.
The static intensified.
I couldn't look away.
"So what.... what is your answer?" the voice whispered through the static, the grin stretching wider, darker.
"What's your call? Will you touch the screen.... and venture into this new world?"
I hesitated. My breath caught.
"If I go into your Halo World...." I asked, voice trembling, "what's my main goal? What's the reward?"
The face twitched, then smiled again.... cold, crooked, and full of malice.
"Oh, that's easy."
It leaned closer, as if pressing through the glass.
"You just need to kill every infected demon in that world. And as for reward.... you will find out later, at the end of your journey, if you are still alive after that."
I stared, stunned. "What are you talking about? That's.... impossible. There's no way I can kill them all plus i don't think i can follow it. And what do you mean if I'm still alive after that?"
The grin never faded.
The static hummed louder. My fingers hovered over the screen. I could feel my pulse pounding in my ears.
My eyes widened.... worry twisting into despair.
Was this a challenge? A trap?
Or had the game become something else entirely?
I hovered my hand closer to the screen.
The glow pulsed.... blue and unnatural.... casting shadows across my trembling fingers. The static figure leaned in, its smile twitching, broken and hungry.
"Do it...." it whispered.
"Do it."
The voice wasn't just from the screen anymore. It echoed in my mind.... deep, layered, wrong. Like a chorus of something ancient and otherworldly, ringing inside my skull, vibrating through my bones.
I repeat it's voice in my head. "Do it."
The pressure built. My ears buzzed. The room felt far away now, as if reality itself was peeling back.
I should pull away.
But my hand kept moving.
"No.... I didn't sign up for this madness. I refuse.... I refuse to cooperate," I muttered, my mind weak as if I was heavily drunk. My hand still inches from the screen.
I started to pull away.
But it was too late.
The static figure lunged.... its arm bursting out from the screen like a glitch made flesh. A hand, crackling and warped, grabbed my wrist.
I screamed.
"Noooooooo!"
Panic surged through me as I fought to pull back, but its grip was ice-cold and electric, dragging me forward, closer.... into the light.
Then everything exploded into a blinding white glow.
Sound vanished. The room disappeared.
Only light.
And falling.