"Fuck! Who the hell tied me up here?!"
The first thing Julian Graves registered was the smell.
It was a thick, coppery scent, like old pennies and rust, mixed with the damp, musty odor of a place that had never seen sunlight.
His eyes fluttered open, struggling against a heavy grogginess.
The world came into focus slowly, painted in shades of gray and black.
A single, naked bulb dangled from a wire overhead, casting long, dancing shadows that made the small room feel like a cage.
Panic, cold and sharp, began to prickle at the edges of his consciousness.
He was sitting on a hard wooden chair.
His hands were tied behind his back, the coarse rope digging into his wrists.
He tested the bonds, pulling instinctively, but they were brutally tight.
Looking down, he saw he wasn't in his usual jeans and hoodie.
Instead, he was wearing a loose, drab-gray robe, the kind you might see in a prison movie.
The last thing he remembered was walking home from his part-time job at the library, the city lights a comfortable blur.
There was no fight, no struggle, just… nothing. A complete blank.
His gaze swept the room.
The walls were stained concrete, the floor littered with filth. In one corner stood a grimy toilet, its porcelain cracked and yellowed.
And everywhere, there were dark, reddish-brown splotches. Blood. Some of it looked old and faded, but some… some looked frighteningly fresh.
Then he saw he wasn't alone.
Across the small room, slumped in an identical chair, was another man.
He was older, maybe in his forties, with a receding hairline and a cheap suit that was now rumpled and torn.
His face was pale with terror, his chest heaving with ragged, frantic breaths. He, too, was bound.
Julian's heart hammered against his ribs.
A kidnapping?
Was this for ransom?
He was a university student who barely made rent; he had nothing to give.
Just as his mind started to spiral into a full-blown panic attack, something impossible happened.
A shimmering blue rectangle materialized in the air directly in front of his face, hovering like a ghost.
It was translucent, like a video game interface, and glowing letters began to type themselves out.
[Serial Killer System Activated!]
Julian blinked.
He squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head, trying to clear the fog.
Was he hallucinating? Maybe he'd been drugged.
He opened his eyes again. The blue screen was still there, utterly indifferent to his disbelief.
[Welcome, Host Julian Graves.]
[Your path to becoming the ultimate predator begins now.]
What the hell is this? A prank? A very, very sick prank?!
Then, a new set of words appeared, and the playful tone vanished.
[Mission: Kill the man in front of you within 10 minutes.]
Beneath the text, a timer appeared, already counting down.
[Time Remaining: 09:59]
Julian's blood ran cold.
He stared at the trembling man across from him, then back at the glowing blue words.
Kill him? He couldn't even bring himself to step on a spider.
He was a literature major who spent his days organizing dusty books, not a murderer.
"Fuck," he whispered, the word a dry croak in his throat. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."
His gaze darted around the room, desperate for a way out. His eyes landed on a small, rickety table just to his right.
And resting on that table was a knife.
It wasn't large, just a simple kitchen knife, but its steel blade glinted menacingly in the dim light.
Escape.
That was the only thought in his head.
Forget the mission, forget the crazy blue screen. He had to get out of these ropes.
With a surge of adrenaline, Julian began to fight.
He twisted and pulled, the rough fibers of the rope scraping his skin raw.
The chair creaked under his weight.
He needed that knife. He started to rock back and forth, trying to inch the chair closer to the table. The movement was clumsy, exhausting.
The legs of the chair scraped loudly against the concrete floor.
The man across from him whimpered, his eyes wide with a new kind of fear.
He was watching Julian, watching the desperate struggle.
He probably thought Julian was trying to get the knife to kill him.
I'm not! I'm trying to get us out of here!
Julian wanted to scream, but the words were stuck in his throat.
The timer on the screen ticked down relentlessly.
[07:43]
[07:42]
He pushed harder, throwing his entire body weight into it.
The chair tilted, teetered on two legs for a heart-stopping second, and then crashed onto its side, taking him with it.
Pain shot through his shoulder as he hit the hard floor, but he was closer.
The knife was now just inches from his bound hands.
He shimmied his body, grunting with effort, his fingers stretching, straining.
His fingertips brushed against the cold handle. So close.
He contorted his arm at an unnatural angle, ignoring the fiery protest from his shoulder socket. Finally, his fingers closed around the handle.
Got it!
Awkwardly, he began to saw at the ropes binding his wrists.
The angle was terrible, and the blade kept slipping.
A sharp sting told him he'd cut his own skin, but he ignored it, focusing on the thick fibers.
One strand snapped. Then another.
The blue screen flashed.
[Time Remaining: 03:00]
"Come on, come on!" he muttered through clenched teeth.
The rope was starting to give way. Hope, bright and fierce, surged through him.
He could do this. He could get free, maybe free the other guy, and they could find a way out of this nightmare together.
And then another message appeared on the screen, extinguishing that hope in an instant.
[Warning: Failure to complete the mission will result in the host's termination.]
Julian froze, the knife still pressed against the rope.
Termination.
It didn't say punishment. It didn't say penalty. It said termination. A cold, final word.
This wasn't a prank. This was real.
Kill or be killed.
The knife felt impossibly heavy in his hand. He looked at the other man.
Tears were now streaming down the man's face, mixing with sweat and grime.
He was whispering something, maybe a prayer, maybe the names of his family. He was just a person. A terrified, helpless person.
How could he do it? How could he plunge a knife into another human being?
His stomach churned. Bile rose in his throat.
"I can't," he whispered, shaking his head.
"No. I can't. What the fuck is this? What the FUCK!"
[Time Remaining: 01:22]
He finally sawed through the last of the ropes around his wrists.
His hands were free. He scrambled to his feet, the knife clutched in his trembling hand. He could rush the man now.
It would be easy. He was terrified, weak.
But Julian's feet felt like they were nailed to the floor. His body refused to obey. He was a librarian, not a monster.
He looked from the terrified man to the ticking clock. His own life, or a stranger's.
The system was forcing him to make an impossible choice.
The other man watched Julian, his eyes following the knife.
He saw the indecision, the utter horror on Julian's face. He saw the countdown timer that was apparently visible only to Julian.
But he must have understood the situation from Julian's desperate cries.
The man's frantic whimpering stopped. His expression shifted from pure terror to a chilling, hollow resolve. He knew he was going to die.
As the timer ticked below thirty seconds, the man did something Julian would never have expected.
With a guttural scream that was part terror and part defiance, the man lunged forward.
His ropes were tight, but he used the momentum of his chair, tipping it over and propelling himself across the small gap between them.
Julian was too stunned to react.
It all happened in a split second. The man didn't try to attack him. He didn't try to grab the knife.
He aimed his own chest at the blade Julian was holding.
Julian felt a sickening jolt as the man impaled himself on the knife.
The man's eyes locked with his for a final, terrible moment, a silent message passing between them before the light faded.
He slumped forward, his dead weight pushing Julian back.
Julian stumbled, catching himself before he fell.
The knife clattered from his numb fingers to the floor.
The man's body slid down, leaving a warm, wet trail of blood on Julian's gray robe.
Silence descended upon the room, broken only by Julian's ragged gasps.
He stared at the body, at the blood pooling on the dirty floor, his mind a complete and utter blank.
Then, the blue screen chimed softly.
[Mission Complete!]
[Target Eliminated.]
[Calculating Reward…]
[Reward: Fear Sense Unlocked!]
Julian didn't have time to process what that meant before a new, overwhelming sensation flooded his mind.
He could feel the dead man's last moments as if they were his own: the despair, the hopelessness, the final, screaming plunge into darkness.
It was a psychic scream that vibrated in the very core of his being, a chilling whisper that promised it would never, ever go away.
[You can now sense the fear in the hearts of others!]