The moment Zane stepped outside, the game's oppressive atmosphere thickened. Before him, half-swallowed by overgrown weeds, sat the rusted-out shell of an antique car. He guided his character closer, and a line of text faded into view.
'It used to be a luxury. Now that the woods have swallowed all the roads, it's just useless scrap iron.'
The make and model of the car, combined with the general aesthetic, solidified Zane's guess. The game was set sometime in the late '70s or '80s. A few feet from the car was a dilapidated doghouse. A low, pathetic whimper emanated from within. Zane approached cautiously, his hand tight on his mouse. He hadn't forgotten this was a horror game. Sure, every other title he'd played in the genre had been a joke, more likely to elicit a laugh than a scream, but Dark Forest was different. It had earned his caution.
He peered into the doghouse to see a black dog, its body shuddering with weak breaths. A new thought from the protagonist appeared.
'My dog. He's dying. I should relieve him of his pain.'
Zane's fingers froze over the keyboard. Kill the dog? He scanned the screen, but there were no weapons in his inventory. He was empty-handed. Was he supposed to do it with his bare hands? He felt a knot of discomfort in his stomach. He backed the character away. The dog continued its soft, pained whimpering. With no weapon, there was nothing to be done. He'd deal with it later. Maybe. First, the oil.
He guided the doctor over a broken-down fence and into the forest proper. He hadn't taken more than a dozen steps along the barely-there path when his cursor highlighted an object leaning against a stump. An axe.
"There we go!" he exclaimed to the empty room, a surge of relief and power washing over him. "Finally, a weapon!" With the reassuring weight of the axe now in his digital hands, he felt infinitely more prepared. Let the monsters come. I'm ready.
He continued deeper, his path soon blocked by a massive, fallen tree trunk. A prompt appeared, and with a few satisfying clicks, his character swung the axe, the sound of splintering wood echoing in the quiet woods. He broke through, clearing the path.
'These trees are growing so fast,' the protagonist's thoughts surfaced again. 'I can't keep up with the cutting.'
The line snagged Zane's attention. "Fast-growing trees? So the environment regenerates?" he mused aloud. "Is the whole world being consumed by this forest?" The game was weaving its lore into every interaction, a level of detail that was drawing him in deeper and deeper.
He pressed on, the path taking him past the skeletal remains of an animal, a moss-covered road sign for 'Route 50', and a derelict, abandoned cabin. With each new landmark, the sense of isolation grew, and a cold unease began to creep up his spine. The feeling that something was about to happen became a palpable weight in the air.
As he ventured further, the canopy of the forest grew denser, filtering out the last vestiges of daylight. And then, the sound design kicked in. A low, whispering sound, like wind through dead leaves, but with an almost human quality to it. It faded in and out, seeming to come from just over his shoulder. A bead of sweat trickled down Zane's temple. He was leaning forward now, his posture tense.
This was the power of good sound design. It didn't need to be loud; it just needed to be unsettling. It was a direct line to the player's subconscious, stirring up a primal sense of being watched.
The air in the game grew thick with a swirling fog, reducing his visibility to a few feet. He guided his character into a narrow path flanked by high stone walls. The whispering grew slightly louder. He was completely focused, his eyes darting around the screen, every nerve on high alert.
Suddenly, the world erupted. A cacophony of flapping wings and furious cawing exploded from the rocks as a swarm of crows burst into the air, their black shapes a chaotic vortex in the fog.
"Fuck!" Zane yelled, physically jolting back in his chair, his heart launching itself against his ribs. The sudden, violent noise in the dead quiet was a perfectly executed jump scare. His breath hitched, the adrenaline dumping into his system with a dizzying rush.
It was just crows. No danger. But it was close. Too close.
He scrambled his character out of the rocky path, his fingers fumbling on the keys. The instant he was clear, the crows vanished, and the forest fell silent once more. The abrupt return to tranquility was almost as jarring as the noise itself.
"You have got to be kidding me," he panted, his heart still hammering. "This is the prologue! The tutorial! Who puts a high-powered scare in the tutorial?!"
There was no doubt about it; he was rattled. For a fleeting moment, he wanted to quit. His hand hovered over the escape key. It was just a game. Why put himself through this?
He took a deep breath, staring at the screen, and gritted his teeth. "No. I'm a veteran gamer. If I can't even handle the prologue, I should just delete my channel." A wry, shaky smile touched his lips. "A top-down view… and you still got me. You've got guts, developer. Real guts."
He pressed onward, his courage renewed but his bravado gone. A short while later, he came to another stone crevice. This time, he was ready. He slowed his character to a crawl, half-shielding his eyes, bracing himself for the next assault on his nerves.
But nothing happened. Instead, a prompt informed him that the crevice was too dark to navigate and that he would need to craft a torch.
"A crafting function, too?" Zane's surprise was genuine. "How much content is packed into this little demo? Can one developer really handle all this?"
He followed the simple tutorial, crafting a torch from cloth and wood. He lit it, the flickering flame casting a warm, orange glow, and cautiously stepped back into the darkness.
This time, the passage was quiet, but the insidious whispering returned, louder now, more distinct. The environment grew darker, more oppressive. The towering trees were just monolithic black shadows against the gray fog. On the ground, a tangled web of thick, dark roots crisscrossed the path like exposed veins. The small, bobbing light from his torch was the only thing keeping the crushing darkness at bay, a fragile bubble of security. His heart was racing, a frantic drumbeat against the tense silence.
"What is the point of making a game this damn depressing?" he swore under his breath, but he didn't stop.
Finally, he emerged from the crevice. No monsters had attacked, no traps had sprung, yet he felt as if he had just survived a life-or-death struggle. He let out a long, shuddering sigh of relief, feeling the tension in his shoulders ease just a fraction.
As he continued, his torchlight fell upon something strange. A gnarled, twisted tree, its branches weaving together like a cancerous growth. And tangled within it… was a body.
Zane stopped dead. He rubbed his eyes, leaning closer to the monitor. "Is that… a person?"
He approached with excruciating slowness, every instinct screaming that this was a trap. The whispering was gone, replaced by a deep, unnerving silence. As he drew near, a line of text appeared.
'In a few days, he will be fully absorbed.'
Zane stared, his mind struggling to process the words. Absorbed? What does that mean? The trees… eat people? A profound, visceral chill, colder than any jump scare, washed over him. This entire forest is alive, and it's hungry.
In all his years of gaming, he had been a god. He'd gunned down armies in shooters, conquered worlds in RPGs, and drifted through impossible turns in racers. But this was different. He'd never paid much attention to horror; the market was small, and the quality was abysmal. He'd never known what real, creeping fear felt like in a game. Not until now. This wasn't just a scary monster; this was a horrifying concept. And this was only the demo.
What in God's name is the full game going to be like?
He tore his eyes away from the half-absorbed corpse. He'd come this far. He had to see it through.
He forged ahead, and after a few minutes, the path opened up, the oppressive canopy thinning slightly. There, on the ground, lay a man in a cap, bleeding and twitching.
"An NPC!" Zane straightened up. "A side quest in the prologue?"
He rushed over to talk to the man, but he was already unconscious. Well, a gamer's gotta do what a gamer's gotta do. He began to search the body and found a single item: a 'Big Metal Key' stamped with the number 21. Below it, a note.
'If there is an exit in this forest, this key must open it.'
"The key item? Already?"
Just as the thought crossed his mind, the screen faded to black. A new cutscene began.
The scene was the same dark forest. A figure with a slightly balding head—his character—was crouched over the fallen man. 'I've never seen this man before,' the doctor's inner monologue began. Zane watched, silent and engrossed. This had to be the follow-up. The scene changed, now showing the doctor carrying the unconscious man on his back, staggering through the trees. 'If he found a way in, he must know the way out.''He obviously won't do what I say.''But…'
The image on screen shifted to a close-up: a glass syringe, filled with a murky, unknown fluid, being prepared for an injection. The final shot was of the syringe's reflection, magnified in the unconscious man's unblinking pupil.
Zane's blood ran cold.
Everything clicked into place with the force of a physical blow. The disturbing opening animation. The patient who was "beyond cure." The door in the cabin that he'd locked someone behind. The way the doctor spoke of the man he was "rescuing."
This wasn't a rescue. It was an abduction.
A horrified grin spread across Zane's face.
Madness. Sheer, brilliant madness. I'm not playing the hero.
He stared at the screen, at the final line of the doctor's monologue appearing below the image of the needle.
'…that won't be difficult.'
"Holy shit," Zane breathed, leaning back in his chair, a wave of awe and terror washing over him. "This game is incredible. I'm the monster."
PLS SUPPORT ME AND THROW POWERSTONES .