The Game Hall's light hit him like a slap.
Lin Yue flinched—an actual, physical flinch, the first uncontrolled reaction his body had produced in seven days—as the white glare of the ceiling panels flooded his vision.
After a week of gray skies and dead reflections, the brightness felt less like illumination and more like an accusation, like the Hall itself was demanding to know what he'd done to deserve walking back out of that instance alive.
Then came the noise.
It hit him second, and somehow it was worse than the light. Hundreds of voices layered over each other—players calling out to friends, vendors hawking recovery items near the concourse, the low mechanical hum of System terminals processing arrivals by the dozen.
After Mirrorhaven's suffocating silence, after seven days where even breathing too loudly felt like an invitation for something to notice him, the sheer volume of the Game Hall was almost unbearable.
