Three weeks later, I stood in front of what would either become my company's headquarters or the most expensive mistake of my life. The office space Jake had helped me lease was a converted warehouse in the arts district—high ceilings, exposed brick walls, and enough room for a small army of developers. Right now, though, it felt cavernous and empty, like a stage waiting for actors who might never show up.
"This place smells like old pizza and broken dreams," came a voice from behind me.
I turned to see Danny Rodriguez wheeling in a cart loaded with computer equipment, his programmer's uniform of faded jeans and a t-shirt reading "There are 10 types of people in the world" making him look exactly like central casting's idea of a code monkey. Which was unfair, because Danny was brilliant. In my previous life, we'd worked together at three different companies before I'd died. In this one, I'd poached him from his cushy corporate job with promises of equity and the chance to build something revolutionary.
"That's just the scent of untapped potential," I replied, helping him unload monitors. "Give it a few months and this place will smell like energy drinks and existential terror."
"Can't wait," Danny said dryly. "Nothing says 'healthy work environment' like existential terror."
The next hour was a blur of deliveries and setup. Desks, chairs, whiteboards, a coffee machine that cost more than most people's rent—all the essentials for a modern game development studio. By noon, we had something that almost looked like a real office, if you squinted and ignored the fact that half our equipment was still in boxes.
"Okay, team meeting in five minutes!" I called out to our grand total of four employees. "Let's see who we're working with."
I'd managed to assemble what I hoped was a core team capable of bringing Freddy Fazbear's Pizza to terrifying life. Danny for programming, obviously. Lisa Chen—no relation, despite the shared surname—was our 3D artist, a recent graduate with a portfolio that made me wonder why she'd taken a chance on an unproven startup. Marcus Webb handled sound design and had somehow convinced me that footsteps could be scarier than screams if recorded properly.
And then there was...
The front door opened with a theatrical creak that would have been perfect for our horror game if it hadn't made my heart nearly stop for entirely different reasons.
"Sorry I'm late!" called a familiar voice that sent me tumbling back fifteen years to high school chemistry class. "Traffic was insane and I couldn't find the—Marcus? Marcus Chen?"
Standing in the doorway with a laptop bag slung over her shoulder and looking exactly like the girl who'd occupied approximately 90% of my teenage fantasies was Sophia Martinez. Same long dark hair that somehow always caught the light perfectly, same warm brown eyes that had made me forget how to form coherent sentences during group projects, same smile that could probably power a small city.
"Sophia," I managed to croak out, my voice apparently deciding this was the perfect time to crack like I was going through puberty again. "What are... I mean, you're... here?"
She laughed, and I swear time slowed down like some cheesy romantic movie. "Jake Morrison referred me. Said you needed a UI/UX designer with VR experience? Though he didn't mention it was you who'd be running the show."
Of course Jake hadn't mentioned it. That smug bastard probably thought this would be hilarious. Which, to be fair, it probably was from his perspective.
"Right," I said, trying to regain some semblance of professional composure. "The designer position. Yes. That's... you're hired. I mean, you were already hired, but... welcome to the team?"
Danny cleared his throat loudly. "Should we leave you two alone, or can we get this meeting started before the sexual tension suffocates the rest of us?"
I felt my face turn approximately the same color as Freddy Fazbear's bow tie. "Danny, I swear to—"
"Oh my god, you're the Marcus from high school!" Sophia said, her eyes lighting up with recognition. "You had that massive crush on me junior year and never said anything about it."
The silence that followed was so complete I could hear my own heartbeat. Somewhere in the distance, I was pretty sure Danny was trying not to laugh himself to death.
"I... what? No, I never..." I stammered, which was basically confirmation of guilt in the court of public humiliation.
"It was adorable," Sophia continued, apparently oblivious to the fact that she was systematically destroying what remained of my dignity. "You used to turn bright red whenever I asked for help with calculus. Sarah Thompson and I had a whole theory about it."
"Can we please focus on the business at hand?" I pleaded, shooting Danny a look that promised swift and creative revenge if he didn't stop smirking.
"Right, sorry," Sophia said, though she was still grinning. "Professional mode. I'm here to design user interfaces for your horror game, not reminisce about high school crushes. Though we should totally catch up later."
Lisa, bless her soul, chose that moment to speak up. "So what exactly are we building? Jake's description was pretty vague. Something about terrifying people with animatronic animals?"
I took a deep breath, grateful for the chance to talk about something other than my pathetic teenage romantic history. "We're creating the first truly immersive horror VR experience. A game called 'Five Nights at Freddy's' where players have to survive in a haunted pizza restaurant."
I walked over to the whiteboard and started sketching out the basic concept—the restaurant layout, the animatronic characters, the survival mechanics.
"The core innovation is freedom of movement," I continued, my confidence returning as I got into the technical details. "Players aren't stuck in one room. They can explore the entire facility, but that mobility comes with risks. The AI learns from player behavior and adapts accordingly."
Marcus Webb raised his hand. "From a sound design perspective, how do we handle spatial audio? If players can move anywhere, we need to create convincing 3D soundscapes for the entire restaurant."
"Exactly," I said, pointing to him. "Every footstep, every mechanical whir, every distant music box needs to be positioned perfectly in 3D space. Sound is going to be one of our primary tools for building tension."
"What about the user interface?" Sophia asked, and I tried very hard not to stare at the way she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear when she was thinking. "VR interfaces need to be intuitive and non-intrusive. How do we display information without breaking immersion?"
"Diegetic design," I replied. "Security monitors, wall-mounted clocks, papers scattered on desks. All the UI elements exist as physical objects within the game world."
Lisa looked up from the concept art I'd spread across her desk. "These character designs are really detailed. How did you come up with them?"
I hesitated. I couldn't exactly say I'd borrowed them from a parallel universe. "I wanted to tap into nostalgic childhood imagery but subvert it. Characters that should be friendly and safe, but aren't. The uncanny valley effect of animatronics makes them naturally unsettling."
"It's brilliant," Sophia said, studying the drawings. "Freddy looks like he should be hosting birthday parties, but there's something wrong with his eyes. It's subtle but deeply disturbing."
"That's the idea. We want players to feel that cognitive dissonance—their rational brain knows it's just a game, but their lizard brain is screaming danger."
Danny was already pulling up development tools on his computer. "What's our tech stack? Unity? Unreal? Custom engine?"
"Unity for now," I said. "We need to prototype quickly and iterate based on testing. The AI behavior system is going to be complex, so we want a stable foundation."
"Speaking of AI," Lisa said, "how intelligent are we talking? Basic pathfinding or genuine machine learning?"
I grinned. This was where my knowledge from both lives really came in handy. "Neural networks trained on player behavior data. Each animatronic will have its own personality, learning patterns, and adaptive strategies. The more someone plays, the better the AI gets at scaring them specifically."
"That's either genius or completely terrifying," Marcus Webb said. "Probably both."
"Definitely both," Sophia agreed. "From a user experience standpoint, we need to be careful about the learning curve. Too easy and it's not scary. Too hard and players give up in frustration."
"Which is why we need extensive playtesting," I said. "We'll start with basic mechanics and gradually ramp up the AI sophistication based on feedback."
Danny cracked his knuckles in the universal programmer gesture that meant 'let's write some code.' "When do we start?"
I looked around at my team—four talented people who'd taken a chance on my crazy vision. In my previous life, I'd always worked alone or in dysfunctional corporate environments. This felt different. This felt like something special.
"We start now," I said. "But first, we need some ground rules. One: we're building entertainment, not torture devices. If something is genuinely traumatizing rather than entertainingly scary, we dial it back. Two: we test everything ourselves first. If we're not willing to play it, we can't expect customers to."
"And three?" Sophia asked.
I paused, trying to think of something profound and leadership-worthy. "Three: the coffee machine is sacred. Anyone who finishes the pot without starting a new one buys lunch for everyone."
"Now those are priorities I can get behind," Danny said.
As my team scattered to their workstations and began the process of turning digital nightmares into reality, I felt a familiar thrill. It was the same feeling I'd had in my previous life when a particularly tricky piece of code finally worked, or when a game mechanic clicked into place perfectly.
But this time, it was amplified by the presence of people I cared about. Danny's dry humor, Lisa's artistic vision, Marcus's attention to audio detail, and Sophia...
Well, Sophia was going to be either the best thing that ever happened to this project or a distraction that would drive me completely insane. Possibly both.
"Hey Marcus?" she called from her desk, where she was already sketching interface mockups. "About that catching up we mentioned? Want to grab coffee after work? I'd love to hear about what you've been doing since high school."
I nearly dropped the box of cables I was carrying. "Coffee. Yes. I mean, sure. That would be... professional. For project planning purposes."
Her laugh was the same musical sound I remembered from chemistry class, except now it came with the added context of adult workplace dynamics and the terrifying possibility that maybe, just maybe, the girl I'd been too shy to ask out in high school might actually be interested in the man I'd become.
"Definitely for professional purposes," she said with a grin that suggested otherwise.
As I went back to unpacking equipment, trying not to think about the fact that I was now working in close quarters with my teenage crush while building a horror game designed to exploit people's deepest fears, one thought kept running through my mind:
This second life was already infinitely more complicated than the first one.
And I was pretty sure that was exactly how I wanted it.