The last thing I remembered from my previous life was the crushing pain in my chest, like someone had wrapped iron bands around my heart and kept tightening them. At twenty-eight, I'd been working on my latest indie game project—a horror platformer that would never see the light of day. The stress, the sleepless nights, the endless cups of coffee... it all caught up to me in the end.
But here I was, staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror of a house I knew all too well, yet somehow felt foreign. Same face, same messy brown hair that refused to cooperate no matter how much gel I used, same hazel eyes that looked perpetually tired. Even my name hadn't changed—Marcus Chen. But everything else... everything else was different.
"Marcus! Breakfast!" Mom's voice echoed from downstairs, carrying that familiar mix of affection and mild exasperation that I thought I'd never hear again.
I gripped the edge of the sink, still struggling to process this impossible reality. In my previous life, Mom had died when I was fifteen. Dad followed three years later from a combination of grief and alcohol. My little sister Emma... she'd been gone even longer, taken by leukemia when she was just eight and I was twelve.
But here they were. Alive. Healthy. Calling me down for breakfast like this was just another ordinary Tuesday morning.
"Coming!" I called back, my voice cracking slightly. Even after two weeks of waking up in this parallel version of my life, I still couldn't quite believe it.
I made my way downstairs, taking in details I'd memorized and re-memorized since arriving in this world. The family photos lining the hallway showed all four of us together—something that had never happened in my original timeline. Dad's engineering awards sat proudly on the mantle. Mom's latest painting, a vibrant landscape of cherry blossoms, hung in the living room where I could see it from the stairs.
And there, sitting at the kitchen table with her nose buried in a manga volume, was Emma. Eighteen years old, with the same stubborn cowlick she'd had as a kid and wearing her favorite oversized sweater that made her look even smaller than she already was. She was supposed to start college in the fall, having just graduated valedictorian from her high school class.
In my previous life, I would have given anything for just one more day with her. Now I had the chance for a lifetime.
"About time, sleepyhead," Emma said without looking up from her book. "I was starting to think you'd fallen into a coma or something."
If only she knew how close to the truth that was.
"Just taking my time savoring unemployment," I replied, sliding into my usual seat across from her. "Not everyone can be a genius who gets a full ride to MIT."
She finally looked up, rolling her eyes. "Says the guy who graduated summa cum laude with a computer science degree. You could get a job anywhere if you actually tried instead of moping around the house."
Mom set a plate of scrambled eggs and toast in front of me, ruffling my hair in the process. "Give your brother a break, Em. He's allowed to take some time to figure things out."
Figure things out. If only it were that simple.
See, this world was similar to mine in many ways, but the technology here had advanced along different paths. Virtual reality wasn't the clunky, expensive novelty it had been in my previous life. Here, VR had become as commonplace as smartphones, with haptic suits that could simulate touch, temperature, even pain to a degree that was both incredible and slightly terrifying.
The gaming industry had exploded accordingly. Action games, adventure games, racing simulators, educational programs, social platforms—VR had revolutionized everything. Companies were making billions creating virtual worlds where people could live out their wildest fantasies.
But there was one glaring gap in the market that nobody seemed to have noticed. Horror.
Oh, there were horror-themed games, sure. Zombie shooters, monster battles, supernatural adventures. But they all fell into the same trap—they relied on action to carry the experience. Jump scares followed by gunfights. Creepy atmosphere immediately undercut by giving the player weapons to fight back with.
Nobody had thought to create true psychological horror in VR. The kind that got under your skin and stayed there. The kind that made you question every shadow, every sound, every moment of silence.
Nobody except me.
"Earth to Marcus," Emma said, waving her hand in front of my face. "You're doing that creepy staring-into-space thing again."
I blinked, focusing back on the present. "Sorry, just thinking."
"About what? How to spend another day binge-watching Netflix?"
"Actually," I said slowly, an idea crystallizing in my mind, "I'm thinking about starting my own company."
The kitchen went quiet. Dad, who had been reading the news on his tablet while eating, looked up with raised eyebrows. Mom paused in the middle of washing dishes. Emma stared at me like I'd just announced I was joining the circus.
"What kind of company?" Dad asked carefully. As an engineer himself, he understood the tech industry well enough to know how risky startups could be.
"Game development. VR specifically." I took a bite of eggs, buying myself time to think through my explanation. "There's a gap in the market that nobody's addressing properly."
"Which is?"
I smiled, and for the first time since waking up in this world, it felt completely genuine. "Horror. Real horror. Not just action games with scary monsters, but psychological horror that takes advantage of everything VR can do."
Emma made a face. "Ew, gross. Who wants to be actually terrified?"
"You'd be surprised," I said. "In my—" I caught myself before saying 'previous life.' "From what I've researched, horror is one of the most popular entertainment genres. Movies, books, games... but nobody's really pushed the boundaries of what's possible when you can put someone directly inside the experience."
Dad leaned forward, his engineer's brain clearly engaged. "What did you have in mind?"
I hesitated. The idea that had been forming in my head was inspired by something from my previous world—a simple but brilliant horror game called Five Nights at Freddy's. But here, I could take that concept and push it so much further than had ever been possible.
"Imagine," I said slowly, "being trapped in a location with hostile entities. But instead of being stuck in one room pressing buttons on cameras, you can move around freely. Explore. Try to escape. But every choice you make, every step you take, has consequences. The environment responds to you. The threats adapt to your behavior."
I was getting excited now, my mind racing through possibilities. "Traditional horror games rely on scripted scares. But what if the AI learned from how you played? What if it remembered your fears, your patterns, your weaknesses, and used them against you?"
Mom had stopped pretending to wash dishes and was listening intently. "That sounds... intense."
"It would be," I agreed. "But that's the point. People want to be scared, but they want it to be safe. VR gives us the perfect medium for that. All the terror, none of the actual danger."
Emma shuddered dramatically. "You're going to give people heart attacks."
The irony wasn't lost on me, but I pushed it aside. "That's what safety measures are for. Biometric monitoring, automatic exit protocols, age restrictions. But for adults who want the experience..."
Dad nodded slowly. "It's not a bad idea, son. Certainly unique. But starting a company... that's a big undertaking. You'll need funding, a team, office space..."
"I know," I said. "But I have some ideas about that too."
Actually, I had more than ideas. I had twenty-eight years of experience in game development, including knowledge of techniques and technologies that wouldn't be invented in this world for years. I had intimate familiarity with what made horror games succeed or fail. And most importantly, I had something that nobody else in this world had yet thought to create: a complete design for a horror VR experience that would revolutionize the industry.
I was going to remake Five Nights at Freddy's, but bigger, better, and more terrifying than anyone had ever imagined possible.
"So," Emma said, closing her manga with a snap, "what are you going to call this nightmare factory of yours?"
I grinned. "I'm still working on that part."
But I already knew exactly what the first game would be called: "Freddy Fazbear's Nightmare Pizzeria." And unlike the original, players wouldn't be stuck behind a desk watching cameras. They'd be free to roam the entire facility, which would only make it more terrifying when they realized that mobility wasn't always an advantage.
Sometimes, having nowhere to run was scarier than being trapped in one place.
Sometimes, the hunter was patient enough to let you think you were free.
As I finished my breakfast and listened to my family—my impossible, wonderful, alive family—discuss the logistics of starting a business, I couldn't help but smile. In my previous life, I'd died alone in a cramped apartment, my dreams unfulfilled and my loved ones long gone.
But this time would be different.
This time, I was going to build something amazing. Something that would change the industry forever. And I was going to do it surrounded by the people I loved most.
Even if it meant giving the world nightmares in the process.
After all, the best dreams often started with someone else's darkest fears.