Three days after dropping the bombshell about starting my own company, I found myself hunched over my laptop in the local coffee shop, surrounded by empty cups and crumpled napkins covered in illegible scrawls. The familiar buzz of caffeine and ambition coursed through my veins—a feeling I'd missed more than I realized.
"You look like hell," came a voice from behind me.
I turned to see Jake Morrison sliding into the seat across from me, his designer jacket and perfectly styled blonde hair making him look like he'd stepped out of a tech magazine. Which, knowing Jake, he probably had. In both lives, he'd been my closest friend since college, though in this world he'd actually managed to keep his startup from crashing and burning.
"Thanks for the pep talk," I said, taking another sip of what had to be my sixth espresso of the day. "Really feeling the support."
Jake laughed, signaling the waitress for his usual—some pretentious drink with more syllables than ingredients. "Emma called me. Said you'd lost your mind and decided to become an entrepreneur. I had to see this trainwreck for myself."
"Gee, I wonder why I haven't pitched you as an investor yet."
"Because you're smarter than you look?" He leaned back in his chair, studying me with those sharp blue eyes that had helped him close countless deals. "But seriously, Marcus, horror VR? That's your big idea?"
I minimized the design document I'd been working on—no need to give away all my secrets just yet. "It's a untapped market, Jake. Everyone's so focused on action and adventure that they're ignoring an entire demographic."
"The demographic of people who enjoy having psychological breakdowns?"
"The demographic of people who pay good money to watch horror movies, read horror novels, and play horror games," I corrected. "We're talking about a multi-billion dollar industry that VR has barely touched."
Jake's drink arrived—something with foam art that probably cost more than most people's lunch. He took a sip and made that annoying 'mmm' sound he always did when he was thinking.
"Okay, I'll bite," he said finally. "What makes you think you can succeed where others haven't even tried?"
This was the moment I'd been preparing for. In my previous life, I'd pitched dozens of game concepts to publishers, investors, and anyone else who would listen. Most had ended in rejection. But this time, I had something different. This time, I had knowledge of what worked.
"Because everyone else is approaching it wrong," I said, leaning forward. "They think horror in VR means making things bigger, louder, more violent. But real horror isn't about monsters jumping out at you. It's about dread. Anticipation. The fear of what might happen, not what is happening."
I pulled up a video on my laptop—gameplay footage from one of the most popular VR horror games currently on the market. "Look at this. See what the player's doing? They're running around with a shotgun, blasting zombies left and right. That's not horror, that's an action game with a spooky skin."
"So what would you do differently?"
I smiled. This was where my knowledge of Five Nights at Freddy's came in handy, though I couldn't exactly tell Jake I was adapting a game from another dimension.
"Picture this," I said, closing the laptop and leaning in conspiratorially. "You're a night security guard at an old family pizza restaurant. Animatronic characters that entertain kids during the day start moving around at night. Your job is to survive until 6 AM."
Jake raised an eyebrow. "That's it? No weapons? No way to fight back?"
"That's the point. You can't fight them. You can only hide, run, and try to outsmart them. But here's where it gets interesting—most people would expect you to be stuck in one room with cameras and doors, right? That's the obvious approach. But in my version, you can move freely through the entire restaurant."
"Doesn't that make it easier?"
"Does it?" I pulled out my phone and showed him the rough floor plan I'd sketched. "Sure, you can leave the office. But now you're exposed. Now you're in their territory. Every shadow could be hiding one of them. Every sound could be them getting closer."
I could see the wheels turning in Jake's head. He might be a pain in the ass, but he had good instincts for business.
"The AI would adapt to player behavior," I continued. "If you always hide in the same spot, they learn to check there first. If you run a lot, they start anticipating your routes. The game becomes personal. It learns your fears."
"Okay," Jake said slowly, "I'll admit that sounds... unsettling. But what's your business model? How do you monetize digital trauma?"
I laughed despite myself. "Same as any other game. Base purchase, DLC expansions, maybe subscription content for ongoing updates. But the real money is in licensing the technology."
"Licensing?"
"Think about it, Jake. If I can create an AI system that learns and adapts to individual users in real-time, that has applications way beyond gaming. Training simulations, educational software, therapeutic applications. The military would pay billions for training scenarios that adapt to each soldier's weaknesses."
Now I had his attention. Jake lived for the big picture, the massive market potential that made investors salivate.
"Plus," I added, "VR horror is practically recession-proof. When times are tough, people want escapism. They want to forget their real problems by facing fake ones."
"And when times are good?"
"They want new experiences. They want to push boundaries. Either way, we win."
Jake was quiet for a long moment, staring into his overpriced coffee like it held the secrets of the universe. I'd learned to recognize this look—it meant his business brain was running calculations.
"What do you need?" he asked finally.
"Are you offering to invest?"
"I'm offering to listen to your pitch. Properly. Not this coffee shop napkin bullshit." He pulled out his phone and started typing. "Friday, 2 PM, my office. Bring a real business plan, market research, technical specifications, the works."
My heart started racing. In my previous life, Jake had turned down every pitch I'd ever made. Too risky, too niche, too ambitious. But this time...
"I'll need a team," I said. "Programmers, 3D artists, sound designers."
"One step at a time, Marcus. First, convince me you're not completely insane. Then we'll worry about hiring people to share in your insanity."
After Jake left, I sat there for another hour, staring at my laptop screen and trying to process what had just happened. In three days, I'd gone from unemployed college graduate to potential startup founder. The speed of it all was making my head spin.
My phone buzzed with a text from Emma: "How's operation nightmare factory going? Dad wants to know if he should start clearing out the garage for your evil lair."
I smiled and typed back: "Tell him to wait on the garage. We might need something bigger."
The truth was, I was terrified. Not of the game I wanted to create, but of the responsibility I was taking on. In my previous life, my failures had only affected me. This time, I had a family counting on me. Friends who might invest their money in my vision. Employees who might depend on me for their livelihoods.
But as I looked at the design document on my screen—pages and pages of detailed plans for animatronic behaviors, environmental storytelling, and psychological horror techniques—I felt something I hadn't experienced in either of my lives.
Certainty.
This was going to work. Not because I was smarter or more talented than everyone else, but because I had something they didn't: knowledge of what came next. In my original world, Five Nights at Freddy's had become a cultural phenomenon precisely because it subverted expectations about what horror games could be.
Here, in this world of advanced VR technology, I could take that concept and push it further than its original creator had ever imagined.
I packed up my laptop and headed home, my mind already racing with possibilities. I had four days to put together a pitch that would convince Jake to invest in digital nightmares.
Four days to turn my second chance at life into something extraordinary.
As I walked past a toy store window display featuring colorful animatronic characters singing and dancing for delighted children, I couldn't help but grin.
They had no idea how much scarier those same characters could be when the sun went down.
But they were about to find out.