The arrival of the audio recorder plunged Mira into a deeper well of despair and paranoia. He wanted to hear her. Every word she spoke, every cry of frustration, every whimper of fear, could be for his ears. She began whispering, or not speaking at all, even to Marley. The silence in her flat became absolute, a suffocating blanket.
Her mind, however, was anything but silent. It raced, frantically sifting through memories, searching for any connection, any explanation for Link's obsession. Why her? Why the Planet Link game? It felt like a distant, innocent echo from her childhood, yet he had twisted it into a tool of torment.
She remembered the game itself: an old, clunky PC adventure from the late 90s, obscure even then. It involved exploring a desolate, alien world, piecing together clues left by a vanished civilization, all set to that melancholic flute melody. She'd spent hours on it, fascinated by its bleak beauty and intricate puzzles. She'd even drawn pictures of its strange landscapes as a child.
Then, a forgotten memory surfaced, faint but insistent. A small, online forum. A tiny community of fans of "Planet Link," where people discussed theories, shared walkthroughs, and connected over their shared love for the game. She'd posted on it, years ago, when she was a teenager. Not often, just a few times, under a slightly different username, but enough to leave a digital trace.
Could that be it? Could someone from that obscure forum, someone who shared her esoteric interest, be Link? The thought was both terrifying and strangely plausible. It would explain the game music, the knowledge of her childhood interests.
Driven by a desperate need for answers, she broke her self-imposed digital blackout. She found her old desktop PC, dusted it off, and with trembling fingers, connected it to the internet. She navigated to the archived version of the forum. Her old username was still there. And as she scrolled through the dusty posts, a familiar username, one that had often engaged with her own, caught her eye: L1NK_0bsvr.
Her blood ran cold. The username was almost identical to the name he used. And his posts, even then, were eerily analytical, dissecting game mechanics, theorizing about the hidden meaning of the alien civilization's movements, always with a detached, almost scientific tone. He had even posted about the flute music, noting its "hypnotic effect" and "mathematical precision."
He had been there all along. Watching, observing, even then. He hadn't just found her recently; he had been connected to her, however tenuously, for years. The realization that this wasn't a new obsession, but a long-simmering, deeply disturbing fixation, stripped away any remaining hope. The echoes of her past weren't just background noise; they were the very foundation of her terrifying present.