The cabin felt oddly peaceful.
Maybe it was the silence everywhere else. No voices. No laughter. Just the distant rage of something trapped where it didn't want to be.
Hao stepped out onto the front porch.
The night air folded around him, colder than before, clean in a way the inside of the cabin no longer could be. It slid over his skin, carrying away the smell of blood and old wood from his clothes, replacing it with pine and frost and damp earth.
The forest stretched out in front of him.
Trees swayed gently, black shapes pinned against a sky that felt too close, too low. The stars were faint, blurred behind a thin veil of cloud, like the world had dimmed the brightness knob a few notches for atmosphere.
It all feels real.
The rough wood of the porch under his hands. The cold biting his lungs when he breathed too deep. The ache in his ribs every time he shifted. The dull throb behind his eyes, like something had set up a permanent drill there.
If this was fake, his brain had put in more effort than school ever got from him.
He sat on the edge of the porch, elbows resting on his knees, fingers loosely laced together.
He watched the trees.
At some point, he lost track of it completely.
The first pale streaks of light slid between the trees, turning them from solid black into dark cutouts against a rising grey-blue sky. The sharp edge of night softened. The cabin behind him creaked once, as if adjusting to the idea of morning.
His phone was suddenly in his hand.
He didn't remember picking it up.
His eyes snapped open.
His bedroom ceiling stared back at him.
For a second, everything overlapped: the cracked wood above the porch and the familiar pattern of his own ceiling. Then the cabin dissolved, leaving only the faint impression of it burned into his thoughts.
The acidic metallic smell clung to the air as if it had followed him home. His head still throbbed, dull now but deep, like the pain had grown roots and settled in behind his eyes.
"My head still hurts…" he muttered.
He rolled onto his side and reached blindly for his phone on the nightstand.
Outside, through a thin crack between the curtains, the world was still dark. Early. Too early. No hint of sunrise yet, just the faint suggestion of a lighter patch of sky somewhere far off.
His thumb brushed the screen.
It lit up.
No lock screen wallpaper. No time. No missed calls. No notifications bar.
Just a flat grey screen.
It looked like a stripped-down chat app with all the color sucked out of it, a UI left unfinished.
A single message sat at the top.
No light.
No going outside.
Survive till morning.
Below it, a smaller line appeared on its own, like a quiet system note that had been waiting.
don't
His chest tightened.
The words weren't just text. They felt like the echo of that pain in his skull, the rules that had been hammered into him repeating themselves.
Before he could say anything, a familiar voice unfolded inside his head.
His voice.
Sharper. Amused. Less tired.
At the same time, new text appeared on the screen, typed by invisible hands.
Congrats. You've done it.
Your first trial.
Good for you.
The grey shifted.
New text rolled down like a notification log from a game he didn't remember installing.
Trial Completed: 100%
Goals Achieved:
• Survived
• Last Survivor
Reward Obtained:
Old Rope – "What a sturdy rope."
[ Claim ]
Secret Goal Achieved:
• Blessed by ████
Reward Obtained:
Blessing of Voratrix – "Once their God fell, they quickly ceased to exist without its protection."
[ Claim ]
The voice in his head spoke again, casual, like they were just chatting after class.
Tip? Claim those and check the main menu.
You can use points.
Hao stared at the screen.
He felt the urge to question everything rise up: what "Blessed" meant, who ████ was, why the redacted name looked like the interface was actively hiding it from him.
The urge passed.
He huffed once, a half-laugh, half-sigh.
"If this is still a dream, then whatever. I don't want to wake up yet," he said.
He tapped Claim on both rewards.
The grey flickered. The text rearranged itself. Three icons appeared at the top of the screen, neat and minimal.
[ Status ] [ Inventory ] [ Trial ]
He tapped Status first.
STATUS
Name: Hao
Race: Human
Anchor: Unlocked
His eyes paused on Anchor.
That's me, the voice said.
We get stronger by doing more trials.
I don't know more than that yet.
"Comforting," Hao muttered.
He scrolled down.
Blessings:
• Voratrix
The name sat heavy in his head, unfamiliar but sharp, like a foreign word with teeth.
Voratrix.
The moment he read it, he could almost feel something old and hungry looking his way, then losing interest. Like he'd inherited a fragment of a god that no longer existed.
Don't ask me, the Anchor added. Blessings are unique. They don't exactly come with manuals.
"Of course they don't," Hao said.
He closed Status and opened Inventory.
INVENTORY
Points: 1000
Items:
• Old Rope – "What a sturdy rope."
His eyebrows lifted.
"What can I do with the points?" he asked.
Right now? Not much, the Anchor replied. I can convert them to money.
"All of them," Hao said. "Do it."
The words were barely out of his mouth when his eyes drifted back to the rope's description.
"'What a sturdy rope.' It better be," he muttered. "How do I clo—"
The interface vanished.
His regular home screen flickered back into place like nothing had happened.
Just his usual apps. Usual background. Usual layout. As if the grey UI had never existed.
He stared at it for a heartbeat, then another.
His banking app pinged.
A notification slid across the top of the screen.
He opened it.
+1000 USD credited.
No sender he recognized. No clear source. Just numbers.
For once, his brain didn't flood with questions.
He just stared at the screen, then let out a low breath.
"This thing isn't that bad," he said softly.
A decent month's wage.
For surviving a nightmare in his sleep.
He dropped back onto the bed, phone resting on his chest, and stared at the ceiling.
For the first time in a long time, a small, real smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
When he fell asleep again, it was easy.
No racing thoughts.
No late-night negotiations with his own anxiety.
No dread of morning.
Just the quiet knowledge that when he woke up, the money would still be there.
It was.
He didn't go to school that day.
He took the day and handed it to himself like a rare gift. Ate what he wanted. Walked where he felt like walking. Let his mind drift without yanking it back toward productivity every time it wandered.
At some point, the idea slid through his thoughts, uninvited but not unwelcome:
I might've actually died in there.
The thought stayed for a moment, hovering.
Then it drifted away, like so many others.
Who cares now?
He had made it through. He'd killed something that shouldn't exist, broken a nightmare that wanted him small, and walked away with a blessing and a grand.
Somewhere deep in the shape of his awareness, beneath all his usual noise, something else watched.
The presence that called itself his Anchor stayed awake.
Waiting.
Listening.
Hungry for the next trial.