The screaming didn't stop. It just echoed. For a split second, the fire was still eating him. Adrian could feel the phantom sensation of his skin bubbling, the absolute, blinding heat of the explosion searing his nerves.
He thrashed in the void, his hands flying up to his face, expecting to touch raw, wet meat where his jaw used to be. He slapped his cheeks, frantically trying to smother flames that didn't exist.
He gasped, a desperate, ugly sound, like a drowning man breaking the surface. His hands clawed at his chest, frantically searching for the shrapnel, the blood, the hole where his lung used to be.
"F*ck!" he shouted, the word tearing out of his throat. "Medic! I'm hit! I'm—"
He froze.
His hands were gripping a pristine black t-shirt. Underneath, his ribs were whole. He slapped his legs. Solid. No blood. No freezing river water.
'What the hell?'
The adrenaline was still pumping, a chemical fire in his veins that had nowhere to go. He spun around, looking for cover, looking for the enemy technicals, looking for anything.
There was nothing. Just an endless, vibrating gray static. No floor, no ceiling. Just him and the hum of empty space.
"Okay," Adrian breathed, his voice trembling slightly. He forced himself to check his pulse. It was hammering like a trapped bird. "Okay. Calm down. Hallucination? Coma? Did the extraction team drug me?"
"You're overthinking it, G.I. Joe," a voice drawled from behind him. "You got blown up. Boom. Game over."
Adrian spun around, instinctively reaching for the sidearm that wasn't there.
A young man was sitting in a beanbag chair that definitely hadn't been there a second ago. He looked like a college student—messy hair, hoodie, holding a bag of chips. But the hoodie's logo kept changing every time Adrian blinked, and his eyes... his eyes were like two television screens tuned to a dead channel.
"Who the f*ck are you?" Adrian barked, falling into a defensive stance. "Where is my unit?"
"Dead," the kid said, crunching a chip. "Well, your unit is fine. They got away because you decided to play hero and eat an RPG for breakfast. Very noble. Very cliché."
The kid waved a hand, and a massive screen appeared in the air. It showed the wreckage of Adrian's SUV at the bottom of the ravine. It was a twisted metal coffin. There was no way anyone survived that.
Adrian stared at it. The training, the discipline, the "Ghost" persona—it all cracked. He wasn't a soldier right now. He was a guy looking at his own grave.
"I'm... dead?" Adrian whispered. The word felt heavy, like lead on his tongue.
"As a doornail," the entity agreed, dusting crumbs off his chest. "I'm Aion. I run this sector. Usually, you'd go to the processing center—long lines, lots of paperwork, very boring. But I saw your file. 'Ghost-1.' 'The Cleaner.' You've got skills."
Aion stood up, and the beanbag chair vanished into pixels. He walked closer, and the air around him crackled with ozone.
"You like TV, Adrian?"
Adrian blinked, the whiplash of the conversation making him dizzy. "What?"
"Shows. Movies. You watch them to decompress after you blow up bad guys, right? I saw your file. You like the creepy stuff."
Aion snapped his fingers. The screen changed.
It showed a town. A run-down, overgrown town with a single road leading in. A Colony House on a hill. A diner. And a forest that looked suffocatingly dense.
Adrian's eyes widened. He knew that town. He knew that road.
"No f*cking way," Adrian breathed. "That's... that's From."
"Ding ding ding!" Aion grinned. "The place with the monsters that come out at night and rip your face off while smiling. Nasty little parasitic dimension."
Adrian took a step back. "Why are you showing me this? Is this hell?"
"It's a closed loop reality," Aion corrected, his tone dropping its playful edge. "It mirrors the show you know, but the blood and the terror in there are very, very real. And honestly? I want it broken. I'm sending you in."
"Me?" Adrian laughed, a short, hysterical sound. "You want to send me into a horror show? I just died! Can't I just... rest? Go to heaven? Or wherever?"
"You could," Aion shrugged. "But you're a soldier, Adrian. You don't know how to rest. You'd be bored in a week. I'm offering you a second deployment. A new mission."
"To do what?" Adrian asked, the absurdity of it warring with his tactical brain. "Fight the monsters? You can't kill them. They're... magic. Or curses. Or whatever."
"That's why I'm giving you a handicap," Aion said. "I'm giving you a Car."
"A car?" Adrian stared at him. "There are no roads out of that town. It loops!"
"Not just a car," Aion rolled his eyes. "The Phantom. It's a tank disguised as a muscle car. But here's the best part: it's not a rental. It's soul-bound."
Aion poked Adrian in the chest. "I'm coding the keys directly into your spiritual DNA. Only you can open it. Only you can drive it. You want to change the paint job? You think it. You want to lock the doors so tight a god couldn't pry them open? You think it. It's yours, Adrian. Forever."
Aion's face shifted, becoming serious for a split second. "I'm offering you a chance to flip the board. You go in. You break their little cycle. You survive."
"And if I do?" Adrian asked, skepticism dripping from his voice. "I just get my life back? Go back to being a broke soldier?"
Aion laughed, a sharp, electric sound. "Go back? To what? Paying taxes and taking orders from bureaucrats? Boring! No, kid. If you beat the nightmare... you keep the set."
Adrian froze. "What?"
"The dimension. The reality. It becomes yours," Aion spread his arms wide. "You don't just survive; you take over. You become the God of that world. The System, the powers, the monsters? They all bow to you. You trade a life of following orders for an eternity of giving them. Your world. Your rules."
Adrian looked at the screen. He saw the monsters—the "smiling people"—walking down the street. He remembered watching the show in his barracks, thinking, 'Why don't they just fortify the perimeter? Why don't they set traps?'
He felt the fear, yes. But beneath the fear, beneath the shock of his own death, something else was twitching.
The itch. The greed. The need to secure the objective.
'I'm insane,' Adrian thought. 'I am literally losing my mind. But... to be a God?'
"Why me?" Adrian asked, his eyes narrowing. "What do you get out of this?"
Aion smiled, a cold, electric expression that offered absolutely zero answers. "Let's just say I have a vested interest in seeing the architects of that dimension lose control. And you, Ghost-1, are the perfect anomaly to drop into their laps."
Aion's smile faded slightly. "If you say no, I wipe your memory and send you to the void. Total ego death. Lights out. Forever."
Adrian rubbed his face. He looked at his hands—the hands that had held rifles, detonators, and the hands of dying men.
"I need weapons," Adrian said, his voice hardening. "Real weapons. Not a talisman and a prayer."
"The System provides," Aion winked. "But you gotta earn the ammo."
Adrian took a deep breath. He looked at the god.
"You're a sick bastard, you know that?"
"I'm a god with an agenda, Adrian," Aion corrected. He extended a hand. It wasn't a formal handshake. It was a dare. "So? Are you gonna stand there and bleed out metaphorically, or are you gonna go kill some nightmares and become a legend?"
Adrian stared at the hand. He thought about the darkness of the river. He thought about the power waiting for him.
"F*ck it," Adrian said.
He grabbed Aion's hand.
"Send me in."
"Attaboy!" Aion laughed, his grip tightening like a vise. He leaned in close, his static eyes burning.
"Oh, and Adrian? Read the fine print. If you die in there? No void. No reset. You go straight to the basement. Eternal screaming, fire and brimstone, the whole Dante's Inferno package. Gotta balance the scales, right? Infinite power or infinite suffering."
Aion winked.
"Don't lose."
He shoved Adrian backwards.
"Wait—!" Adrian yelled.
The floor disappeared. The static screamed.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
[Soul Binding Complete.]
[Vehicle: The Phantom - Owner Authorized.]
[Welcome to the Show, Adrian.]
Adrian fell, screaming, straight into the nightmare he used to watch on Tuesday nights.