After dropping off his last delivery, Ryan was pretty sure his body was falling apart.
He leaned the electric scooter against the hallway wall and dragged himself up three flights of stairs, legs heavy as concrete. The door to his rental never closed right. He shoved it open, and the chair screamed under him as he collapsed into it.
For a while he just sat there, boneless, not even willing to move his fingers.
His phone had been blowing up lately with ads for Resident Evil 9. He'd scrolled past them a dozen times, and every time that itch flared up in his chest. But an itch was all it'd ever be. New release? Not on his budget.
Older titles, though. Those he could manage.
He pulled up the piracy site he'd bookmarked ages ago. Same as always. Pop-up ads breeding like roaches, impossible to close fast enough, download speeds slow enough to make him want to put his fist through the monitor.
"Unbelievable. Even pirate sites are phoning it in now?"
He cursed, but he waited. The download crawled to completion. He unzipped it. Buried in the mess of files was a modifier program. Ryan glanced at it and snorted. A cheat bundled with a pirated game? How thoughtful. He didn't think twice. Clicked install.
The game launched. Choppy frames, muddy lighting, character models sliding around like the floor was made of soap.
"What garbage optimization." He kept grumbling as he steered his character toward the looming silhouette of the mansion.
On screen, the front doors swung open.
Then his computer shrieked. A raw burst of static, like tearing metal.
Before he could react, the screen flashed white. Light swallowed everything. A jolt of numbness shot up through the mouse and into his hand, sharp as a fist clenching around his bones.
The world spun out from under him.
When his eyes opened again, the air was cold.
A rotting, iron-tinged kind of cold.
Ryan stood frozen. Slowly, he raised his head. A chandelier swayed overhead, its shade crusted with something dark. Cracked tiles spread beneath his feet, the gaps stained a deep, ugly red.
He knew this place.
The mansion's main hall.
He was standing inside the screen he'd been staring at five seconds ago.
One thought cut through the static in his brain: You've got to be kidding me. I play one pirated game and it literally sucks me in? People who actually pay don't even get this kind of treatment.
Panic surged up from his stomach. He wanted to run, but his legs had gone soft, not from exhaustion but from pure animal fear. He stumbled back a step and his spine hit a stone pillar. The shock of cold stone jolted through him like a slap.
That was when he heard it.
From deep in the corridor. Footsteps. Heavy. Slow. Dragging across the floor.
And beneath them, a low, wet growl.
His heart slammed against his ribs. Instinct took over. He pressed himself behind the pillar, back flat to the wall, and held his breath.
The footsteps grew closer.
Then he felt something.
Strange. A soft ding rang through his skull, and something bloomed outward from the center of his mind like a pulse of warm static. Through the pillar, past the stone, he caught the outline of a shape.
Not with his eyes.
The silhouette was hazy, like a smear of shadow drifting through fog. It moved one shuffling step at a time, closing the distance toward the pillar where he hid.
Ryan blinked. Rubbed his eyes. The outline sharpened. Not a hallucination.
Ding.
Again. This time he recognized it. The same chime from before. The modifier's notification sound.
A strange new strength flooded up from somewhere deep in his core. His hands stopped shaking. His breathing leveled out. He could even sense, with a certainty that made no logical sense, exactly how far away the shape was.
Less than ten meters.
Everything clicked at once.
The pirate site. The modifier. Getting pulled into the game. That thing packed one hell of a punch. Shipped him right into another world.
He wasn't dreaming. Wasn't hallucinating. He'd actually brought the damn thing in with him.
So I've got a cheat now? The thought flickered through his mind, but the grin died before it reached his face. A cheat was great. Wonderful.
He was unarmed.
Sensing the enemy didn't mean a thing without a weapon. No gun, no knife. He'd die just the same.
The footsteps closed in. A thick wave of rot hit him, so foul it clawed at the back of his throat.
The shambling figure was about to round the corner.
Ryan pressed himself tighter against the pillar, eyes locked on the edge of the wall.
One thought. Just one.
Survive first. Figure out the rest later.