The chair was cold.
The metal band sealed around Noah's wrist with a soft, final hiss. He wasn't in a small room anymore. He was in a cathedral of silent suffering.
Walls of glass stretched into the dim distance. Behind them, row after row of people sat in identical metal chairs.
Hundreds of them. A forest of captured souls. Some sat perfectly still, eyes closed like they were sleeping. Others trembled, a full-body shake that made their chairs rattle on the polished floor. A girl with bright blue hair was crying without a sound, tears carving clean lines on her face.
On massive screens above, hellscapes flickered. A desert under a sun that wept fire. A forest where the trees slowly twisted, their bark splitting into silent screams.
Agent Tim followed his gaze. "Processing," he said, his voice cheerful. Like this was a popular ride at an amusement park. "You're in good company. Everyone gets a ticket."
Agent Harry was at a sleek console, fingers dancing. A low, building hum vibrated up through the floor. The tablet in his hand glowed with the familiar, swirling green logo of Mindstreamer Online.
Noah's throat was tight. "Anything I need to know?"
Harry didn't look up from his screen. "One rule. Don't flatline in the first five minutes." He finally glanced over, his eyes the colour of old ice. "The neural bridge between your body and the game is fragile at initiation. If it severs before it sets… you don't wake up here. You just don't wake up."
Five minutes.
Tim leaned in, his breath smelling of stale coffee and mint gum. "So don't be a hero. Be a roach. Run. Hide. Stay quiet." He winked. "Easy."
Harry tapped a final key. The tablet screen flashed a sharp, electric green.
[ Neural Synchronization Complete. ]
[ Subject: Noah Slater. ]
[ Designation: Lilsprout. ]
[ Entry Protocol: Immediate. ]
"See you in sixty," Tim said. He wasn't smiling anymore.
The hum drilled into Noah's teeth, into the marrow of his bones. He stared at the ceiling, at a water stain shaped like a clenched fist.
His mind, betraying him, flashed an image: his mother's hand, so thin he could see every blue vein, resting on the rough hospital blanket. Then Ellie's voice, frayed with a fear she tried to hide: "It'll be fine, Noah. Be good and don't get into trouble."
Too late. He was already in trouble.
The world didn't go black.
It unwove itself.
The ceiling stain bled, colours running like a wet painting. The walls softened, lost their edges, became suggestions of walls. The sound of Tim's breathing, Harry's keyboard clicks, they thinned, and snapped into silence. It was like being forgotten by reality itself.
---
The world returned with the violence of a car crash.
Icy wetness soaking through his pants. Thick, cloying mud under his palms. A rich decay smell, like a forest floor, but underneath it, the sharp, sting of blood.
Screams. Not human movie screams. Raw, guttural sounds of pure terror, cut short. Chittering, skittering, a chorus of hungry clicks.
He was on his hands and knees in a small, muddy clearing. The light was a sickly green-grey, filtering through a canopy of twisted, black-barked trees.
All around him, the air cracked.
Bodies blinked into existence. A man in a business suit materialized standing up, stumbled, and fell. A woman appeared mid-stride, crashing into the mud. A kid no older than sixteen popped into the air and dropped with a yelp.
They weren't alone.
The monsters were already waiting. They moved in a low, skittering wave. Giant shrews. The size of large dogs, their fur patchy and mangy, eyes like pools of spilled ink. Their mouths were full of needle-sharp teeth, dripping with saliva.
"Form up!" the man in the suit yelled, his voice cracking. He held up his hands. A weak spark of electricity jumped between his fingers. "Use your powers!"
A shrew didn't hesitate. It shot forward, a blur of matted fur. It ignored the spark and sank its teeth into the man's calf. He shrieked. A second shrew lunged for his arm. A third went for his throat. The shriek became a wet gurgle, then silence. The electricity died with him.
The kid tried to run. He made it three steps before a shrew launched itself onto his back. They went down in a tangle of limbs and a single, piercing cry that was swallowed by the mud.
Noah understood. This wasn't a spawn point. It was a feeding ground. A designed, systematic culling.
His mind, cold and clear with terror, locked onto the rule. Five minutes. Survive five minutes.
His body moved before he could think. He scrambled, crablike, away from the open clearing. His eyes fixed on a cluster of giant, moss-covered roots erupting from the base of an enormous tree. A cave of tangled wood and shadow.
He dove into it, pressing himself deep into the damp, dark hollow. The smell of wet earth and rot filled his nose. He curled into a ball, making himself small.
Through a gap in the roots, he had a fractured view of the slaughter.
A woman with rough hair summoned a whip of flame. It lashed out, searing the side of a shrew. It screeched, recoiled. For a second, hope flared. Then five more shrews converged on her. The fire snuffed out under their weight.
Another player respawned right in front of a shrew. He had time for one wide-eyed breath before it was on him.
Noah watched, his own breath held. He saw the mechanics of it. The shrews weren't mindless. They hunted in packs. They targeted the ones who fought back first, the ones who shone with power. The ones who hid… they took their time with.
The minutes stretched, long and cruel.
A soft, melodious chime pinged inside his skull.
A rectangle of cool blue light seared itself across his vision. It was transparent, but it hovered right in the center of the horror.
[ Welcome to Mindstreamer Online. ]
Behind the cheerful text, he saw a shrew calmly tear a strip of flesh from a still-twitching leg.
[ USER: Lilsprout ]
[ CLASS: Shaman/Oracle ]
[ RANK: Novice ]
[ TITLE: None ]
[ See STATs? (YES) / (NO) ]
Are you kidding me? Now? Hysteria bubbled in his chest. He screamed at it in his mind. NO! GO AWAY!
The box flickered and vanished.
The sudden silence was worse.
The screeches had stopped. The wet tearing sounds had ceased. The clearing had gone quiet.
Too quiet.
A new sound began.
Slow. Deliberate. It came from the other side of his giant tree.
A low, wet tearing. Like something massive and strong was pulling thick, fibrous roots from deep, unwilling earth. It was followed by a heavy, rhythmic puff of air. A sniff.
Snnnnfff. Pause. Tear. Snnnnfff.
It was circling the tree.
The sound moved with a dreadful, patient weight. Whatever it was, it was big. It knew he was here. It was taking its time.
Noah pressed his forehead against the cold, damp wood. He could feel his pulse in his throat, in his temples. The five-minute clock was a phantom in his mind, ticking down.
Snnnnfff.
The sniff was right at the gap in the roots. The air current changed. It was drawing his scent in.
He saw its shadow first. It oozed across the muddy ground in front of his hiding place. It was all wrong. The silhouette was hunched, too many joints, a head that seemed to sit on a thick neck.
The shadow shifted. The thing was moving. Coming around the tree trunk. Coming to look.
The roach strategy was over. The hiding was over.
Every instinct he had, every ounce of will to live for his mother, for Ellie, for himself, coalesced into a single, white-hot command.
RUN.
He exploded from the roots. He didn't look. He didn't plan. He just ran, legs churning the mud, arms pumping, charging away from the tearing sound, away from the tree, into the deep, waiting darkness of the forest.
He ran, and did not dare to learn what was behind him.