The rain fell like shattered glass against the world.
Kael Veyra pulled his hood tighter as he trudged along the narrow woodland trail. The forest stretched endlessly around him, twisted silhouettes of ancient trees swaying in the wind. His chest burned, his pulse racing, though not from the climb. He had been here before—not this forest exactly, but this moment.
The storm. The shadows. The sense that something watched from behind the trees.
It wasn't déjà vu. It was memory.
In his previous life, Kael had designed horror games. He'd spent nights hunched over screens, stitching together digital worlds that preyed on human psychology but he had also died there, at his desk, his heart giving way to exhaustion. His last thought before darkness had been bitterly ironic: If there is an afterlife, I'll probably end up inside one of my own games.
And now here he was.
Thunder cracked, rolling across the forest like a giant's laughter.
Behind him, Seraphine Dusk staggered, clutching her soaked scarf. Her pale face glistened with raindrops—or maybe tears "K-Kael… it's getting worse. We need shelter."
Orion Vale pressed his glasses higher on his nose, though they were already useless, blurred by water "We should've reached the cabin by now. I told you we took the wrong path." His voice was sharp, impatient, the kind of tone he used when he was cornered by uncertainty.
Nyra Callen cursed under her breath, wringing water from her fiery hair. She looked ready to punch the storm itself "Forget cabins. At this rate, we'll drown before we freeze. Just keep moving."
Kael squinted into the distance. Lightning slashed the sky—and for a heartbeat, he saw it.
A mansion.
It rose between the trees where there should have been only darkness. Vast, angular, too tall for the forest that cradled it. Its roof spires clawed toward the clouds like fingers. No light shone from its windows, yet Kael felt them watching.
And then the lightning was gone, leaving only night.
He swallowed hard. This is impossible.
The path twisted, mud sucking at their boots, but within minutes the outline of the mansion loomed clearer, massive iron gates yawning open as if in invitation.
Orion slowed, scowling "There's no way this is on any map. Places like this don't just… appear."
"Do you want to argue with the storm?" Nyra snapped. She shoved the gates and they swung without resistance, groaning like dying things.
The group hurried across the courtyard, shoes splashing through puddles that reflected broken fragments of the house. Kael's every step echoed with a whisper in his mind: I built this. I know this place.
The front doors towered above them, carved with reliefs of screaming faces. Lightning struck again, illuminating the grotesque artistry—eyes wide, mouths open, as if forever trapped mid-scream.
Seraphine shuddered "Kael… I don't like this."
Neither did he but the storm was merciless, and instinct pulled him forward. He pressed against the heavy wood. The doors groaned open.
The moment the last of them stepped inside, the storm vanished.
Not softened—vanished.
No rain. No thunder. Only the echo of the doors slamming shut with such finality that Seraphine gasped. Orion spun, grabbing the handles, but they did not budge.
"We're trapped," he hissed.
The mansion's foyer stretched endlessly, walls draped in faded crimson, chandeliers casting a faint, sickly glow though no candles burned. Dust swirled in the air, thick with age, but Kael smelled something fresher beneath it—metallic, coppery, like blood.
Nyra ran a hand across the banister of the grand staircase "Well… better than freezing to death outside. Place is ugly as hell, though."
Kael's heart pounded. His designer's brain was screaming. The scale of the architecture, the precise arrangement of doors and hallways—this wasn't random. This was intentional design. A game map, but one too intricate, too alive.
He turned slowly, scanning the foyer. The eyes of the portraits lining the walls seemed to follow. His skin prickled. It's feeding on us already.
Seraphine hugged herself, whispering, "Something's wrong here."
Then the voice came.
Low... Resonant.... Neither male nor female. It poured from the walls themselves, vibrating in the marrow of their bones.
"Welcome, players."
The group froze.
Kael's breath hitched. The voice was familiar. Not the tone, but the cadence—the way it echoed like a tutorial introduction in one of his own games.
"You have entered the Mansion of Shattered Spirits," it continued. "Every room holds a trial....every trial a truth. You may leave when you reach the final door… or remain forever as fuel for the house."
Seraphine whimpered. Orion shook his head violently "No.... This isn't real. We're hallucinating."
"Does this feel fake to you?" Nyra snarled, slamming her fist against the wall. The wood groaned beneath her strike, and for an instant her knuckles burned with black flame. She jerked back, eyes wide.
Kael stared. That wasn't adrenaline. That was… power.
The voice chuckled "Already, the mansion awakens your hunger. Negative emotions are your currency here. Fear, despair, rage—consume them, and you may survive. Deny them, and you will be consumed."
The chandeliers flickered.
The grand staircase shifted, each step rearranging itself with grinding stone. Doors appeared along the walls where there had been none, each carved with a different symbol—a crying eye, a gaping mouth, a fractured skull.
Kael's mind raced. He recognized the mechanic. This was a procedural dungeon—rooms reshaping to test them.
Orion staggered back, shaking his head. "This is impossible. Physics doesn't work this way. None of this—"
"Shut up," Kael snapped. His voice cracked sharper than intended, but silence fell "We need to listen."
The voice purred, "First trial awaits.....Choose your door."
The symbols pulsed faintly, like beating hearts.
Kael swallowed hard. His skin crawled, his instincts screamed to run, but another part of him—the part that had built worlds from shadows and screams—leaned forward in fascination.
He whispered, mostly to himself: "This is my design or something very close to it."
Nyra's head snapped toward him "What the hell does that mean?"
Kael didn't answer....Not yet.
Instead, his eyes roamed the doors. He knew this was the beginning. The game had started.
And if his instincts were right, survival would demand something far worse than courage.
It would demand feeding on the very emotions that would one day destroy them.
The silence after the voice faded was unbearable.
The chandelier's weak glow stuttered, casting long shadows that stretched unnaturally across the crimson walls. Every portrait's eyes gleamed as if wet with tears, unblinking, hungry. The air smelled of iron and damp wood, but beneath it lurked another scent—sour and sharp, like fear made physical.
Kael's heart hammered. Not from the storm, not from exhaustion. From recognition.
He had written this before. Not word-for-word, not room-for-room, but the rules were familiar. He had designed fear to be a resource in his games, a double-edged blade. The mansion followed the same logic.
"Choose," the voice echoed again, softer now, almost coaxing "Or I will choose for you."
Seraphine trembled, her fingers clutching the edge of her scarf until her knuckles whitened "Kael… what do we do?"
Nyra spat, pacing like a caged wolf "What do you think? We pick one and smash through whatever's inside. Better than standing around waiting for something worse."