There's a ritual whispered about in online forums, urban legend threads, and scratched into asylum walls.
It has no rules listed—only one sentence repeated:
> "Play or perish."
It's called The Game of Nails.
And once you hear about it…
you're already a player.
---
Day 1.
You find a nail in your room.
Not a rusted old hardware nail—
This one's black. Long. Wet with something that smells like old metal and meat.
A note is next to it, handwritten in something thick:
> "Drive it into the wall before midnight. Or lose a memory."
---
You ignore it, of course.
You think it's a prank.
Until the next morning, when you can't remember your sister's name.
Or that you even had one.
And no one else remembers her either.
She's been erased.
---
Day 2.
Another nail appears.
This time the note says:
> "Drive it into your palm before midnight. Or lose your voice."
You hesitate.
Your hand shakes.
You drive it in.
The pain is unbearable—like it's drilling into your soul.
But you wake up the next morning, mouth intact.
Screaming into the silence.
---
The Game escalates.
Each day, a new nail.
A new choice.
A worse consequence.
> Nail it through your shadow.
Nail it into someone else.
Nail it into your reflection.
Nail it into your own heart—but just enough to feel it.
---
And always, the warning:
> "Play or perish."
---
Some refuse.
They vanish.
Not death.
Erasure.
The kind where even your photos blur,
your name fades from paper,
and people stare at your room like it's always been empty.
---
You meet other players eventually.
Their hands are riddled with holes.
Voices cracked, skin pale.
Some weep constantly.
Others smile too much.
All of them waiting for the day the game ends.
But it never does.
---
Because no one wins.
There is no final task.
No escape clause.
Only the slow erosion of self,
as the nails pile up in your walls,
your body,
your soul.
---
And if you stop?
> You'll vanish like dust in wind.
Like you never mattered.
But worse—you'll remember just enough as you go.
Enough to scream from the other side of nothing.
---
Carved into a door deep underground:
> "The game doesn't want your life.
It wants what you are."
"You can survive.
But you won't be you."