The confirmation message for the VR System Data Pack flashed on the screen. I wanted to just buy them, without much thought, I am in doubt, to do so. I am right now dirt poor, and at the moment, the family economy could use a few bucks from my wallet.
"A hundred bucks, A full third of my entire current net worth... Funny how little my wallet is these days," I ran a hand through my hair, gripping it slightly. Frustrated, but I know that this had to be done. Money can be gained later, but before that, I cannot compromise with anything but the best of the best.
"Sunday mind telling what this do?"
"[ Frustrating as it is, the expenditure is not merely advised; it is a foundational necessity for market dominance,]" her voice replied, calm and utterly certain, like a surgeon explaining why they need to crack your chest open.
"[The current Virtual Reality operating systems and developmental frameworks utilized in this world are, to be blunt, archaic… They are outdated, inefficient, and monumentally over-redundant. They represent a significant bottleneck, preventing the hardware from achieving even forty percent of its theoretical potential.]"
I leaned back, the chair creaking under me. "So, the tech gadgets are good, but the software is subpar?"
"[Correct, Sir]" she confirmed. "[The hardware is a precision instrument. The available software that was used were fatally flawed...]"
"Okay, fine... then the VR System Data Pack, can patch that flaw, right?".
"[It provides the sharpest scalpel in existence,]" she stated.
"[Think of it this way: the VR technology of this world is an advanced starship, capable of faster-than-light travel and manipulating reality itself. But the only operating manual anyone has is for a diesel-powered tank from the 1950s. They can turn it on and make it lurch forward, but they cannot access its true capabilities. This data pack is the correct flight manual. It is a proprietary coding language, a hyper-efficient rendering engine, and a suite of optimization protocols designed from the ground up to interface with the hardware directly, bypassing the clumsy, bloated public systems entirely.]"
I was starting to get it. It wasn't just an upgrade; it was a total paradigm shift. "So… with this, my games will look and run better than anything else out there, since with these… were basically running all of our games on our own languages, engine and system, right?"
"[They will not merely 'run better,']" she corrected, her tone hinting at impatience with my understatement.
"[They will be fundamentally, categorically superior in every measurable metric. Visual fidelity, load times, physics simulation, audio spatialization—all will operate at ninety-nine to one hundred percent efficiency. Furthermore, the security protocols embedded within the pack are several generations ahead of any cryptographic standard on this planet. Your work will be not only flawless but also untouchable. It cannot be reverse-engineered, hacked, or stolen. It is the ultimate combination of quality and security.]"
The frustration and sadness, seeing my wallet shrink even smaller began to melt away. Knowing that I am not just buying a redundant tool, but essentially advancing my creation to the higher level. Basically, what I just bought had gave me an unfair advantage, in this gaming industry, I got a new code that amplify the gaming experience and on top of the, it will be unhackable, by anyone. Which I am sure that in this technological advance world there would be a lot of hackers going around.
"Alright, you've convinced me," I said, my finger hovering over the final confirmation button. I took a deep breath. "Let's go bankrupt for now… for a good cause."
I clicked it.
"[Purchase confirmed. Integrating VR System protocols now.]"
The second she said that everything just happened. the process was instantaneous. No progress bar this time. It was just… done. The air in the room seemed to hum with a new potential. Curiosity, and a healthy dose of trepidation, got the better of me. I had to see this for myself. I grabbed my Nerve Gear headset from its stand, I put it on, the world dissolving into blackness before resolving into my serene Japanese garden VR space.
"Sunday, run P.T.. Let's see what my hundred dollars bought me."
"[Launching Silent Hill P.T. - Meteor Studios Edition.]"
The world didn't load. It changed instantly. One second, I was standing in a peaceful digital garden, the next I was lying on my side on a cold, hard concrete floor. The transition was so seamless it was vertigo-inducing. There was no lag, no stutter, no loading screen—just a brutal, instantaneous shift in reality.
"Whoa," I breathed out, and I could see my own breath mist in the chilly, damp air of the hallway. The sensation was unbelievable. I could feel the grit of the concrete beneath me, the cold seeping through the fabric of my in-game clothes into my skin. The air smelled of dust, decay, and something else… something metallic. Blood?
The graphical fidelity was photorealism. Every scratch on the dirty walls, every water stain on the ceiling, was rendered in perfect, horrifying detail. This wasn't just a game environment; it was a real place; it made my brain think this as a possible alternate reality.
My heart was already starting to hammer against my ribs. This was too real. My eyes, hazy and unfocused as the game intended, scanned the floor in front of me.
And then I saw it.
A cockroach. Not a low-poly sprite. Not a blurry texture. A fucking cockroach. I could see the individual segments of its glossy brown carapace, the delicate, twitching antennae, the disgusting little hairs on its legs. It scuttled a few inches away from my face.
A visceral wave of disgust rolled through me. Without thinking, my hand—my real hand, which the suit perfectly tracked—shot out and smacked it.
"WHAP. SQUISH~".
The impact wasn't a sound effect. It was a feel effect, the result of me slapping the floor, I felt the slight resistance of the cockroach body, the horrible, crunchy pop as it was crushed, and a faint, wet smear left on my palm. I stared, horrified and mesmerized, as the damn thing's legs continued to twitch and kick in its death throes right there on my skin.
"Fuck! Ughh~!" I gasped, my voice sounding small and disgusted by the dead cockroach on my palm.
The sheer, disgusting realism of it was overwhelming. Correction, not just that, everything around me looked, sounded and felt real, and then, as if my reaction had been the trigger, the door at the end of the hallway creaked open. Just a sliver. A pitch-black sliver that promised nothing good.
A primal fear, cold and absolute, seized me. as I stared at the window and that inviting grim dark hallway behind the door, I played the game before on the PC screen, and it was already scary as heck, now with this realism, with me, by my own self in the game.
"Oh, I know what in there…Nope, nope…"
I fumbled for the headset, my fingers clumsy with panic, and ripped it off. The serene silence of my bedroom rushed back in. I was panting, my heart trying to punch its way out of my chest. I looked down at my perfectly clean, empty hand, half-expecting to see cockroach guts.
There was nothing. But the memory of the sensation was burned into my nerves. I just sat there for a full minute, breathing heavily, staring at the innocent-looking headset in my trembling hands. My hundred dollars hadn't bought me an upgrade. It had bought me a fucking reality simulation machine.
I sat there in my chair, the VR headset still in my hand, my heart was still doing a frantic drum solo against my ribs, and the phantom sensation of that cockroach's death throes on my palm, still lingers, like a phantom sensation. For once I felt a bit comforted by this pink room, I slowly placed the headset back on its stand. I took a few deep, steadying breaths, trying to get my pulse under control.
"That," I said to the empty room, my voice a little shaky, "felt too real."
"[That is the intended result of utilizing the hardware's full potential,]" Sunday's voice chimed in, smooth and clinical. Bringing calm to myself.
"[The experiential quality delta between standard development and our optimized pipeline is approximately 740%... The one-hundred-dollar investment has provided a return that, while not yet financial, is experientially immeasurable… as by your own experience, it was worth it,]"
I let out a shaky laugh. "A 'return.' Yeah… I also believed that everything in that game was real… I was spook, hahahaha~" I leaned forward, elbows on my knees, and stared at the floor. But beneath the residual fear, a fierce, hot excitement was beginning to burn, I can see the possibility of success.
"This is it, Sunday," I murmured, the realization solidifying into unshakable certainty.
"This is the advantage. This right here…Is going to launch us to stardom…" I looked up at the monitor, where the project files were still open.
"Just from that two-minute taste, I already know. This… this level of immersion? It doesn't just beat every other VR game on the market… It fucking annihilates them; it renders their games obsolete…".
The sheer scale of what I held in my hands—or rather, in my head and my hard drive—was staggering. I had the minds and experience of the geniuses that created Silent Hill PT, ready to be unleashed, Sunday's otherworldly capability, and a world starving for a real experience. A game that can fulfilled their needs for something good, something new.
I stood up and started pacing the small length of my room, the energy inside me needing an outlet. "Silent Hill P.T.," I said, the name feeling like a sacred incantation.
"It wasn't just a game... It was a cultural reset button. It was a masterclass in… in everything in this world…"
I stopped pacing, closing my eyes, pulling the memories of it from the deep well of knowledge Sunday had given me. 'The atmosphere. It wasn't about jump scares; it was about feeling of dread. A slow, sinking feeling that you're in a place that hates you. The sound design… fuck, the sound design. The radio static, the whispering, the baby laughter from nowhere…it forces you to the edge of your sanity…'.
I opened my eyes, looking at the screen, seeing the code that made the nightmare tick. 'The looping hallway… A simple idea, but so fucking brilliant. It made the player felt like a rat in a maze, stripping away their sense of progress, making them feel trapped and paranoid. And the puzzles… it was so cryptic, that it becomes a community-driven quest that forced people to work together, to share their fear. It wasn't a game you played; it was a game that happened to you.'
I was getting amped up, the director in me taking over. 'This is what I need… This is the thing that will put Meteor Studios on the map. Not just as another indie game developer, but as a fucking event. A game so good, so universally terrifying and acclaimed, that nobody can ignore it. A game that makes streamers cry, that makes hardcore gamers sleep with the lights on, that gets talked about on the news. Everyone, and I mean everyone, will have to admit it's a masterpiece'
A vicious, ambitious grin spread across my face. The fear was gone, replaced by pure, unadulterated hunger. I wanted to see this world break under the weight of a horror it had never conceived of.
I turned to the monitor, my eyes gleaming. "Sunday."
"[Yes, Sir?]"
"Can we make it worse?"
There was a micro-second pause, as if even she was processing the implications of that question. "[Clarify.]"
"Can we make it more terrifying?" I elaborated, my voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper.
"The original was a masterpiece… But we have better tools. We have a better engine. And we have a world that has no immunity to this kind of thing…. Can we turn it up to eleven? Can we make this the most brutal, psychologically scarring version of this experience that has ever existed?".
Another pause. Then, her reply came, and I could have sworn I heard a flicker of something akin to dark excitement in her synthesized tone.
"[The original assets provide a robust foundation for amplification... The new engine allows for heightened environmental fidelity, more complex and unpredictable AI scripting for the spectral entity, and a significantly broader dynamic range for the audio elements… The potential for escalated psychological impact is substantial… Yes, Sir, we can make the experience even more intense, than the original…]"
"Do it,". Since it can be done, then don't mind if I do.
"I want every cycle to be grimmer, more fucked up than the last. I want more blood… I want the whispers to be louder, closer, like they're right in your ear. I want screams that don't sound recorded; I want them to sound like they're coming from the room down the hall. I want the fucking lights to flicker in patterns that induce nausea. I want this to be the definitive version. The version that will be remembered for a hundred years."
"[Acknowledged,]" Sunday replied, noting all my improvement and went to work immediately. "[Initiating horror parameter escalation. Amplifying atmospheric density, auditory triggers, and visual distress signals. The experience will be… optimized for maximum psychological impact.]"