Takumi's heart raced as he stepped into the dark, unfamiliar corridor. The world around him was no longer the vibrant city he knew—it had been replaced by something much colder, something that felt wrong, despite the hyper-realistic graphics.
"Is this… still part of the game?" Ryo's voice echoed from behind him, his tone filled with a strange mix of awe and fear.
"Does it feel like part of the game?" Takumi snapped back, his hand instinctively reaching for the cold metal wall as if to steady himself. The feeling of the floor under his boots, the chill in the air—it was all too real.
The group had just passed through the gateway—a door that had suddenly appeared in the middle of the city streets, like a portal ripped from the world of fiction. At first, they thought it was just another illusion, a level they'd have to fight through. But nothing prepared them for the silence. The oppressive stillness of the new world was suffocating.
"I've seen these simulations before," said Haruka, her voice barely above a whisper as she glanced nervously around. "But nothing like this. It's… different. Like they've made it too real."
Takumi rubbed his temples, trying to make sense of it. The rules of the game—they had always been simple before. Survive, complete missions, and level up. But this? It felt like they were being pulled into a different reality altogether, where survival meant more than just completing objectives—it felt like their very lives were at stake.
Suddenly, the walls flickered.
"What the hell?" Ryo muttered under his breath, stepping forward to touch one of the walls. A moment later, the surface rippled like water disturbed by a stone. The flicker spread across the entire space, and Takumi's eyes widened.
"Wait, is it—?!" Haruka gasped.
Before Takumi could respond, the ground beneath them trembled. The entire corridor began to shift and morph, as if the very environment was adjusting to an unseen force. The air grew thick with static, the once-clear path ahead now distorting into an endless series of twisting passages. Takumi instinctively reached out to grab Haruka's arm, but before he could, the world around them fractured, splitting into several different directions.
"This isn't good," Takumi said through gritted teeth, pulling his group together. "We need to stay close. I have a feeling we're not alone here."
A booming voice echoed from above, suddenly reverberating in their heads.
"Welcome to the Maze of Choices. Your first trial begins now."
Takumi's grip tightened on the hilt of his weapon, the familiar weight reassuring him. But the calm was short-lived. The voice continued, cold and uncaring.
"Failure means erasure. Success means… a step closer to freedom."
The air around them shifted again, and the corridors began to twist and change. Some doors opened, while others slammed shut. The team was faced with a choice: follow the path to the left, where the walls seemed to grow thicker, or turn right, into an area bathed in an eerie green glow.
"Which way?" Ryo asked, his voice suddenly uncertain.
Takumi took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. Every instinct told him to choose the path that seemed safer, the one with fewer hazards. But something in the back of his mind nagged at him. There's always a catch.
He turned to the others. "We need to split up."
The group looked at him in shock, but he could see the same thoughts in their eyes. This was no ordinary test—it was a trial where the cost of failure was too high. They couldn't afford to waste time.
Haruka shook her head, but Takumi was already moving forward, stepping toward the left path. "Stay in touch. If anything goes wrong, we meet back here."
Reluctantly, Ryo and Haruka followed, but the group's unity was now strained. As they each took their respective paths, Takumi's mind raced. What's the real goal here? Was this a game, or something else? Something darker?
As the walls began to close in around him, he knew one thing for sure: the test had only just begun.