After some time, Mark slowly woke up, the room around him cloaked in near-complete darkness, save for the faint glow of the moon sneaking through a crack in the window. Without any other light, it would have been pitch black if not for that thin, silvery streak. His eyes flicked around the plain, unremarkable room, feeling a strange weight in his chest.
A prompt suddenly appeared before him, flickering softly in the darkness: "After a rest, you start to feel hungry. Check out the eatery that the innkeeper told you about."
Mark hesitated, then cautiously got to his feet. He moved toward the door and pushed it open. Outside, a faint flickering of lantern light spilled from the few lanterns lining the wall, casting long, trembling shadows. As he stepped a few paces forward, the door suddenly slammed shut behind him with a resonant click. The lock engaged with an ominous finality. He gulped, his pulse pounding. The hallway now looked even more unsettling, dimly lit, the flickering lanterns making the shadows dance in strange, unnatural patterns. The silence was oppressive, broken only by the faint creak of the building settling.
He took a shaky breath and started to walk down the corridor. At the end, the door to the eatery loomed, locked. He reached out, hesitating, confusion flooding his mind.
A prompt appeared: "Maybe the innkeeper can open the eatery door."
Desperation mounting, Mark shuffled toward the entry door and pushed. To his disbelief, it swung open, yet instead of the warm, bustling inn hall, he found himself back outside his room, standing once again at the threshold.
His heart quickened. A cold dread, sharper than any hunger pang, snaked through him. "What is happening?" he wondered, frustration and fear rising like icy tendrils. He stepped back into the hall, the air thick with an unseen pressure, the silence a suffocating blanket. As he rounded the corner, he saw the back of a tall figure, a shadowy silhouette, like a wraith sculpted from the very darkness itself. No discernible features marred its form, only an unsettling, inhuman stillness.
A tremor, an almost imperceptible shudder, ran through the very stones of the corridor. Mark felt a prickle of unease, an instinctual fear deeper than any he'd ever known. Thinking it was just another guest, perhaps lost in the labyrinthine inn, Mark moved forward, his footsteps echoing hollowly in the oppressive silence. But suddenly, a rattle, not of metal or wood, but of something inner, something hollow, echoed behind him. His heart leaped into his throat, a frantic bird trapped in his chest.
He spun around, eyes darting in the oppressive darkness, searching for the source of the sound. Nothing. Silence. An unnerving, unnatural quiet that pressed down on him like a physical weight. He exhaled shakily, trying to steady himself, then turned back, only to find the figure had vanished. Completely. As if it had never been there.
His skin prickled. Slowly, he looked around, eyes darting from shadow to shadow. The dim light flickered and dimmed, and he swore he saw a face peering at him from the wall, a hungry grin stretching across a face that kept flickering out of sight whenever he looked directly at it.
His steps slowed, cautious, trembling. He finally reached the eatery door, only to find it still locked. Frustrated, he turned back to the main entrance, pushing through it once more, and immediately found himself outside his room again.
Mark's eyes darted frantically as the lanterns flickered violently and abruptly exploded into darkness. The hallway was swallowed in an oppressive blackness, thick as ink. Every heartbeat echoed loudly in his ears. Slowly, trembling, Mark back stepped, feeling his way toward the small desk outside his room, hands fumbling blindly over the surface, desperately searching for something, anything, that could help him.
His fingers closed around a small box of
matches. His trembling hand struck one, sparks sputtering to life. A tiny flame flickered, casting weak light over his panicked face. The moment the match ignited, a grotesque, twisted smile flickered into view, filling the flames with an unnatural glow. It was the innkeeper's face, stretched into that ever-present, unnervingly wide grin.
Startled, Mark's body jerked in shock. His foot caught on the uneven floor, and he stumbled backward. The match sputtered out, plunging the hallway into blackness again. His heart hammered so loudly he feared it would burst. Panicked, he fumbled for another match, fingers trembling so badly he could barely hold the strike.
Finally, the flame caught again. In that brief flicker of light, Mark saw the innkeeper once more, his face illuminated with that sickening grin, eyes gleaming with a predatory hunger. A cold sweat broke out across Mark's forehead.
A fragile flicker of hope ignited in him, maybe, just maybe, the innkeeper was real. Maybe he could explain this nightmare, this loop of endless terror. With trembling voice, Mark started to speak, desperation bleeding into each word. "Listen… I... I don't know what's happening. I've been stuck in this loop. I can't get out, please___."
But as Mark took a step closer, the innkeeper's smile widened unnaturally. Without warning, the creature lunged. Its arms shot out, grabbing Mark with terrifying strength. Before he could react, the innkeeper lifted him into the air with ease, Mark's legs flailed helplessly.
He gasped, feeling the grip tighten around his throat as the innkeeper's face drew close. Mark thought he was about to die, his vision fading to black. But then, with a sudden, brutal toss, the innkeeper flung him into his room's door.
Mark crashed into the door with a sickening thud. Pain shot through his body as he slumped to the ground, gasping for breath. Just as he thought he might black out, the floor beneath him shattered, an endless, gaping hole yawned open beneath him. It was as if reality itself had split apart.
He screamed a high, raw, desperate scream as he was plummeting into the abyss. The fall felt endless, when he landed it felt like he fell into an ocean of sticky fluid, like syrup, slow and viscous. Movement became almost impossible, every attempt to fight the sinking feeling met with resistance.
His limbs felt heavy, and then numb. Panic surged as he looked down at his arms, no hands. Just blank, featureless stumps where his hands should have been. His vision then blurred, the darkness closing in tighter and tighter.
Then, before he could even comprehend what was happening, the screen faded to black. A single, cold message appeared: "You have been consumed."
Mark's consciousness fought desperately to tear off the headset, his body trembling uncontrollably as heavy, raspy breaths echoed through his apartment, each one a mirror of the suffocating dread he'd just endured. The terror clung to him like a physical force, vivid and raw, as if the nightmare had left a permanent scar across his mind.
In the shadows, Deimos watched with dark delight, his divine hunger feeding on Mark's pure terror, helplessness, and despair. This was only the beginning, a mere prelude to many more horrors yet to come.
Later, as Mark gradually recovered, though the fear still lingered beneath his skin, he couldn't deny that, in some twisted way, it hadn't been a bad game. Yet he also couldn't review it properly, having not yet completed it. "I'll just let others find the story," he thought, trying to shake off the lingering unease. "There's no way I'm going back in there." With a resigned sigh, he clicked 'approve' and moved on.
A twisted smile curled across Deimos's face as he savoured the echo of Mark's screams, the helplessness, the fear that clung to him like a shroud. Yes… this was only the start. The true nightmare had just begun.
End of Ch 9: A Hunger Awakened