Aiden's eyes fluttered open.
For a moment, he didn't move. He just stared, blinking up at the ceiling. Rough wooden planks crossed overhead, some warped with age, others stained from years of moisture. Dust clung stubbornly to the corners, undisturbed. Light barely filtered into the room—only a faint, grayish glow seeped through a small, dirt-smudged window high up on the wall.
His head throbbed dully, and his body felt like it had been through a blender. He rolled his shoulders with a wince, muscles sore and joints stiff, as though he'd been tossed from one world and dropped into another without warning. Again.
He sat up slowly, letting his hands sink into the scratchy fabric of the blanket beneath him. The bed creaked underneath, revealing itself to be nothing more than a slab of wood with a thin, uneven mattress stretched across it.
His eyes adjusted to the low light.
The room was quiet.
Too quiet.
No hum of electricity. No distant voices. No wind howling through trees. Just silence… and stillness. As if the air itself were holding its breath.
There wasn't much to see. A small wooden table sat in one corner, one leg shorter than the rest. Beside it, a chair with a cracked seat leaned awkwardly against the wall. A single, splintered shelf hung crooked above the bed, completely empty.
Then he saw it.
His breath caught.
Mounted carefully on the wall, held in place by worn leather straps and iron nails, was a sword. His sword. The DaneSword—battered, chipped, and heavy with memory. He'd pulled it from a decaying corpse back in one of the earlier games. Back when he still thought this was all temporary. A trial. A glitch in reality he'd soon escape.
Beside the sword leaned a crossbow, its limbs slightly warped but strung tight. The grip had marks—his marks—from the last time he'd fired it.
Both weapons were real. Tangible. Familiar.
Which meant he was still inside it.
Still inside this.
"...Where am I?" he muttered, his voice dry and raw.
He stood, unsteady at first. His boots touched the creaky floorboards, stirring up a thin layer of dust. He rubbed the back of his neck as he scanned the cabin one more time.
This wasn't the forest. And it definitely wasn't the desert. It was… somewhere else. Somewhere new. But the feeling? It was the same.
A shift. A transition. Another place.
Another game?
As if to answer him, his phone—long silent and presumed dead—vibrated suddenly in his pocket.
DING.
Aiden pulled it out slowly, almost afraid to look.
On the screen, a single notification glowed:
"Game #5 Started: The Hollow Prey."
He stared at it, blood draining from his face.
He hadn't charged the phone. Hadn't touched it since the last level ended. And yet here it was—alive, alert, and mocking him with those familiar words.
His fingers tightened around the device.
"…Not again," he whispered.
With a deep breath, he tucked the phone away and grabbed his sword, slinging the crossbow over his shoulder. The cabin door creaked as he opened it and stepped outside.
Fresh air hit him.
Cool, crisp, and pine-scented. The kind that filled your lungs and made your chest ache. The forest stretched out in front of him—tall oaks with twisting branches, golden light dripping through their leaves. A dirt trail wound through them like a path drawn in haste.
Birds chirped somewhere in the trees. Leaves rustled softly. No screams. No monsters. No voodoo-masked warriors charging at him with blades drawn.
It almost felt…
Peaceful.
Almost.
He began walking, cautious but calm. The earth was damp beneath his boots, and the further he followed the trail, the thinner the forest became. After several minutes, the trees opened into a wide clearing.
And there it was.
A village.
Not ruins. Not camps. A real village—alive, breathing, and vibrant with life.
Thatched rooftops leaned into one another like gossiping neighbors. Wooden fences ringed in gardens full of tall herbs and wildflowers. Children ran barefoot across the dirt paths, shrieking with laughter. Chickens fluttered between carts. Vendors shouted over one another, waving bunches of carrots or skewers of grilled meat.
Smoke curled lazily from chimneys. Lanterns swung gently from posts. Music floated in from somewhere deeper within the village.
Aiden stopped just at the edge.
It didn't feel like a game. Not at first.
It felt… real.
Too real.
He stepped forward hesitantly, slipping into the flow of the crowd. Eyes darted toward him, but only briefly. No one stared too long. No one questioned why he looked out of place.
Still, he kept his head low, scanning every face, every corner.
He passed a fruit stand overflowing with apples—red and glossy, some bruised, most perfect. Beside it, skewers of meat rotated slowly over open flames, fat sizzling as it dripped into the coals.
His stomach twisted with hunger.
He reached for his pocket—then stopped.Nothing. No wallet. No coins. No currency of any kind.
Figures.
He sighed and moved on.
As he weaved through the stalls, that gnawing sense of wrongness began to creep up his spine again. That deja-vu. That whisper at the back of his mind that said: you've seen this before. Not this exact place, maybe, but the setup. The stillness. The illusion.
Just like the desert.
Just like before it started.
Whatever it was going to be this time.
He stared at the villagers around him. Were they real? Or just background characters in some cruel simulation?
No blood yet. No screams. No countdown. But Aiden had played enough levels to know peace never lasted long.
The sun dipped lower in the sky, and the warmth of the day faded with it. Shadows grew longer. The chatter of the village softened.
Aiden didn't wait for the first scream this time.
He turned around and began walking back toward the forest. Back toward the cabin. Something told him he'd need it again tonight.
By the time he reached it, night had truly fallen. The trees swayed under a sky full of stars, and the wind carried with it a strange, unnatural silence.
He stepped inside the cabin, closed the door gently behind him, and leaned against it. The same room greeted him. Same table. Same sword. Same shadows.
And yet…
Everything felt different now.
He was in it again.
The game was live.
"The Hollow Prey."
Whatever that meant, it was coming for him.And this time, he wouldn't wait to be hunted.