The silence was the loudest thing. After the sickening CRACK that sealed their fate, a profound hush fell over the thousands of players sprawled across the desolate, sickly green landscape. It lasted only a second, maybe two, but in that moment, Caden felt the collective, terrified understanding ripple through the air.
Then came the screams.
Not the controlled, in-game shouts of a skirmish, but raw, primal terror. Players scrambled, tripping over their own dream-feet, eyes wide and unfocused. Some pounded frantically on their non-existent UI, searching for the log-out button that was no longer there. Others just collapsed where they lay, sobbing, rocking themselves as if trying to wake from a nightmare they knew wouldn't end.
The landscape itself seemed to mock them. The jagged, energy-fissured sky glowed with an unnatural light, casting long, distorted shadows from the skeletal, clawing structures that pierced the horizon. This wasn't a familiar part of Aetheria. This was a wasteland, a chaotic, broken reflection of the dimension they had so carelessly overloaded. Dust, thick and acrid, stung Caden's eyes, kicked up by the panicked movements of the crowd.
"What's happening?!" A young woman, her avatar a bright pink pop-idol, shrieked, clutching her head. "I can't feel my bed! I can't wake up!"
A burly male avatar, decked out in what looked like heavy plate armor, started punching the ground. "It's a bug! A massive bug! Someone contact dev support!" But his voice cracked, betraying the sheer terror behind his bluster.
Caden, still reeling, forced himself to breathe. His gamer instincts, honed by countless high-pressure moments, kicked in. Panic was a contagion, and it was spreading fast. He needed to find his bearings, to see past the immediate chaos. He noted the types of avatars around him: some were clearly high-level, meticulously designed players like himself; many more were crude, default-looking characters, the tell-tale sign of new tech-users. They were the most lost, the most terrified.
Suddenly, the ground trembled. One of the skeletal structures groaned, a sound like tortured metal, and a chunk the size of a car broke off, plummeting to the ground with a thunderous crash that sent up a cloud of debris. More screams erupted.
This was Aetheria now. Broken. Unpredictable. Deadly. And millions were trapped inside its crumbling confines. Caden could feel the suffocating weight of it all, the sheer, unimaginable scale of the catastrophe. He clenched his fists. He had to think. Panic wouldn't save anyone.