(POV Shift: First Person)
I found myself on the threshold of the artifact room, the "Exorcist" in hand. The silence was my enemy. An enemy that allows you to think too much, feel too much. Fear and guilt are creatures that hunt in silence. So I decided to make noise. A lot of noise. The stupidest kind possible.
I turned my camera-hand to face me, a bright, completely fake smile plastered on my face. I put on my best children's show host voice.
"Hi, friends!" I exclaimed, my voice sounding absurdly cheerful in the gloom. "I'm Alex! And this is my old buddy, Mr. Pistol! Say hello, Mr. Pistol!" I waved the "Exorcist" at the camera. "Today we're on a super special adventure! A naughty doll named Annabelle has escaped her display case. Our mission? Find her and... put her in time-out!"
The chat took a second to process the shift in tone. Then, confusion gave way to bewildered hilarity.
LaChicaGamer92: Is he... is he doing Dora the Explorer??? TacoDestroyer: HAHAHAHA OH MY GOD HE'S LOST HIS MIND!!! xX_GamerGod_Xx: THIS IS THE BEST STREAM EVER!!!
"But we can't do it alone!" I continued, ignoring the torrent of laughing emojis. "We need your help! And we also need... better gear! Let's check our mission map!"
In my HUD, I mentally created a new graphic. It was a childish drawing of a house, with a dotted path leading to a question mark. Beside it, a donation bar.
MISSION: Find Annabelle! TEAM GOAL: $1450
$1200 - "Peacemaker" Rifle
$250 - Pack of 3 "Lux Aeterna" grenades
"That's our goal, friends!" I chirped. "Every donation helps us get our explorer gear! Now... let's go! Let's go!"
I entered the artifact room, adopting an exaggerated march, as if exploring a cartoon jungle. "Okay, explorers. We're in the Temple of Cursed Trinkets. Annabelle's display case is broken. Can you see any clues? Look with your eyes!"
I swept the room with my flashlight, pausing at objects as the chat exploded.
Theorist_Prime: The samurai armor! To the right! In the movie, it's one of the strongest conduits. GhostHunter_PRO: Negative. Too obvious. She'd seek out a place with residual power. Near another object in the artifact room. The samurai. Uses a strong anchor to mask her own signal.
"Correct!" I said, pointing the flashlight at the samurai. "Good job, friends! Let's take a closer look."
I approached the imposing Japanese armor. It stood motionless, but the feeling of contained violence emanating from it was suffocating. "Hello, Mr. Samurai. Have you seen a very naughty doll around here?"
In response, the sheathed katana at the armor's waist detached, levitated in the air for an instant, and then launched directly towards my head.
My host's smile didn't waver. I ducked, the sword whistled past me and plunged into the wooden wall. I stood up, dusted imaginary dust off my shoulders, and wagged a finger at the armor.
"Samurai, no taking it! Samurai, no taking it!" I sang to a children's tune. The chat completely lost its mind. Donations began to pour in.
[Thousands of users have subscribed]
The progress bar jumped to $300. "Oh no! Mr. Samurai is grumpy!" I exclaimed. I raised the "Exorcist." "Mr. Pistol says he needs to calm down!"
I fired, not at the armor, but into the air just above it. The holy blast resonated, and the energy animating the samurai seemed to recoil, the pressure in the room lessened. The katana fell to the floor with a metallic clang.
"Alright! Mr. Samurai isn't grumpy anymore! Let's keep exploring, friends!"
(POV Shift: Third Person)
Alex, completely immersed in his role as a deranged "explorer," left the artifact room. His limp was now an exaggerated hop. He left the basement behind and ascended to the main floor of the house. The silence here was different. More tense. He had left Judy asleep on the living room couch, protected by a salt proximity mine he had purchased with the first donations. A small island of security in an ocean of madness.
Based on the most popular theories from his chat, his next destination was the main living room. The piano.
He moved through the dark hallway on tiptoe, putting a finger to his lips in a pantomime of stealth for his audience. "Quiet, friends!" he whispered to his camera-hand. "We don't want to wake the sleepy ghosts!"
He reached the living room entrance. Moonlight filtered through the large windows, bathing the furniture in a silvery, ghostly light. And in the center, like a sleeping beast, stood the dark wooden piano.
Alex paused, tilting his head. "Friends, do you think Annabelle is hiding in the piano?" he asked in his sing-song voice. "Say it with me! Pi-a-no! Pi-a-no!"
Just as he uttered the last syllable, a single key on the piano, in the highest register, struck with a discordant, solitary note. Then another. And another. Slow, deliberate, forming a twisted, off-key nursery rhyme.
Alex clapped softly. "Excellent! Someone's home!"
As he approached, the figure of a small girl, translucent and pale, appeared beside the piano. It wasn't a violent manifestation like the Bride. It was sad, pathetic, a simple, trapped echo, manipulated by Annabelle's will to act as a distraction.
"Oh, look!" Alex said. "It's the Shy Ghost Girl! Hello, Shy Ghost Girl!"
The girl looked up, her face a smudge of sadness, and pointed towards the piano.
"Do you want me to play a song? Sorry, no time. We're on a very important mission," Alex explained with condescending patience. He crouched down, opened his salt jar, and, with methodical precision, drew a perfect circle on the floor around the piano and the spirit girl. "But you can stay in our safe play corner, okay?"
The spirit looked at the glowing salt line and recoiled, its form flickering. It couldn't cross. Alex hadn't wasted a bullet. He had neutralized a minor threat with intelligence and a ten-dollar jar of consecrated seasoning.
The chat loved it. Donations poured in. The progress bar surged past $1000. He was about to reach his goal.
(POV Shift: First Person)
"Fantastic teamwork, explorers!" I cheered, patting my invisible "Backpack." "We've created a safe zone and learned that Annabelle likes to use other ghosts as minions. What a cowardly boss!"
I stood in the middle of the living room, watching my progress bar. [$1150 / $1450]. So close. I needed one last push. One last big event.
"Okay, friends. We're almost there. We need one last big discovery to get our super explorer gear. Where do we look now? Where's the scariest place for a little girl?"
The chat's answer was unanimous.
LaChicaGamer92: Her room. Judy's room. Theorist_Prime: It's the most logical. It's the emotional epicenter of the house, besides the parents. Angel_Investor: Where innocence resides, evil seeks to nest. Go to the girl's room.
I nodded. "Alright! Our last stop before the payoff is... the Scary Bedroom! Let's go!"
I climbed the stairs, this time without exaggerated stealth. Now my march was that of a hero approaching the final confrontation. I reached the door to Judy's room. It was ajar. A soft pink light emanated from within, from her night light.
I pushed the door open. And I saw her.
It wasn't a manifestation. It wasn't a spirit. It was the doll. Annabelle. Sitting in the middle of Judy's bed, in her white dress, her red hair braided, and that painted plastic smile. She looked harmless. But I felt her. The energy pulsing from her was the nexus, Valak's repeater. It was the heart of the infestation.
"Well, well, well," I said, my Dora voice finally fading, replaced by a low, dangerous tone. "Look what the cat dragged in. Hello, Annabelle."
The doll's head turned 180 degrees with a plastic-and-old-wood creak. Its glass eyes seemed to focus on me. The crucifix on the room's wall slowly inverted.
"There it is! The big finale!" I exclaimed, my host voice returning with manic force. "We found it, folks! We did it!"
[An avalanche of final donations fills the bar][TEAM GOAL REACHED!]
"We did it!" I sang, doing a little victory dance. "We bought it, we bought it, yes, we bought it! Hooray!"
Just as my ridiculous song ended, a bright green light filled the room. In front of me, floating in the air, two objects materialized. A black, lethal-looking assault rifle. And a pack of three round, silver grenades.
I grabbed the "Peacemaker" AR-15. It was lighter than I expected, balanced, a lethal, holy work of art. Then I picked up the "Lux Aeterna" grenades. The power they contained hummed in my hand.
The "Alex the Explorer" smile vanished from my face. The performance was over. The fundraising had been a success. Now, the game phase gave way to reality.
I stood in a little girl's room, holding a consecrated assault rifle, facing a possessed doll that served as a repeater for a prince of hell. The chat cheered. The doll watched me in silence. And I... for an instant, the weight of the absolute, demented madness of my situation hit me full force.
Then, I chambered a round in the rifle. The metallic, definitive sound cut through the silence. Playtime was over. It was time for cleanup.