You have died.
Returning to last checkpoint...
That voice wasn't heard. It was in him. Like a whisper burned into bone, echoing from behind his own heartbeat. Cold. Detached. Absolute.
Ethan Vale gasped.
His lungs stung. His head rang. His chest was tight, like a noose of static had gripped his ribs and wouldn't let go. He rolled over, coughing, his palms scraping against rough pavement.
The ground beneath him was broken asphalt, veined with glowing crimson cracks. Above him loomed skeletal towers, jagged like the remains of giants, all silhouetted against a deep red sky that pulsed faintly like a dying sun.
He staggered to his feet, wobbling as his legs nearly gave out beneath him.
"Where... the hell am I?"
The words barely escaped his lips before he noticed it. A floating translucent message hovered in the air, directly in front of his eyes like a glitch in reality:
---
WELCOME TO EREBUS
Only one may leave.
Your Echobrand is initializing...
---
His mouth went dry. The letters flickered faintly, as though projected into his mind, not just his sight.
Erebus ?
He turned in a slow circle, trying to get his bearings. Buildings around him stretched like blackened bones toward the sky, hollow and broken. Chunks of rubble littered the road. Everything looked decayed, but not old. More like… corrupted.
A low, electrical hum buzzed faintly from somewhere nearby, like a power grid was running without purpose. He could hear the wind whistling between sharp corners and shattered windows, but it didn't carry any natural life. No birds. No cars. No voices. Just silence and static.
Ethan took a few cautious steps forward. The soles of his sneakers crunched over glass and something softer—ash? He crouched to touch it. It melted away at his fingers like sand. Still warm.
He passed an abandoned bus stop. Its timetable blinked endlessly, scrolling symbols he didn't recognize. The digital clock displayed no time. Just three letters: LOP.
"What is this place?" he whispered to himself. "Some kind of nightmare?"
He knocked on a nearby metal door, just to feel something real. The door didn't budge. A hollow clang echoed down the alley behind him, bouncing off invisible walls.
He kept walking. Slowly. Methodically. Testing every sensation, every street. He passed a building with flickering neon signs. It read: LEVEL_00.
"I'm in a game," he muttered. "Or something pretending to be one."
A broken vending machine spilled digital drinks, glitching like broken textures. A fake bird frozen mid-flap hung outside a broken window display.
He approached a phone booth. The screen on the receiver was cracked, but it lit up as he neared. A prompt appeared:
[VOICE LINK UNAVAILABLE] [SEARCHING FOR SIGNAL…] [ERROR: NO SERVER FOUND]
"Great. Totally normal," Ethan muttered. He kicked the base of the booth in frustration.
In the distance, an electronic chime echoed. Like a notification. It came from nowhere and everywhere.
He followed the sound.
Past a row of crumbling storefronts, he found a floating cube—a rotating black box with red lines tracing its edges. It hovered silently above the ground. Beneath it, an item.
A knife.
It shimmered unnaturally, data particles swirling around it. A message blinked:
---
ITEM: RUSTED SURVIVAL KNIFE Durability: 32%
Pick up?
[YES] [NO]
---
Ethan hesitated. Then pressed [YES]. The blade dissolved into his hand like a mist, and suddenly it was just… there. In his grip. Light. Real.
A weapon.
And he had no idea what to do with it.
Before he could think, he heard it.
Footsteps. Fast. Clumsy.
Ethan turned quickly.
A man—maybe early twenties, blood pouring from a wound in his leg—came sprinting around the corner, eyes wide with sheer panic.
"Run! RUN! It's coming!" the man screamed, his voice cracking with desperation.
Before Ethan could respond, a screech tore through the air. It wasn't human. It wasn't animal. It was the kind of sound that made your spine fold in on itself, a digital warble twisted into a primal shriek.
The man didn't stop. He shoved past Ethan, limping but moving fast.
Behind him, the source of the sound emerged.
It moved like a spider but stood like a puppet. Wire-thin limbs, too long for its body. Its face was a void—no eyes, no mouth, just a jagged crack where a face should be. Light leaked out from it, flickering like a busted projector.
It moved too fast.
Ethan froze. He couldn't move. Every muscle locked up.
The man didn't make it ten more feet before the thing struck. One of its limbs shot forward, piercing clean through his chest like paper. The man spasmed—
And then fell silent.
The thing paused, holding its twitching victim in the air, as though savoring the kill.
Ethan couldn't look away. He didn't breathe. His instincts screamed to run, but his body wouldn't listen.
The creature turned. Its faceless head tilted. It saw him.
That broke the spell.
He ran.
He didn't remember deciding to move, only that his legs were burning, and his lungs were ripping themselves apart. He sprinted down alleys, over broken debris, through empty buildings that flickered like bad code.
Behind him, the screech came again.
Closer.
Closer.
He burst into what might've once been a store. Shelves of fake food and glitching lights. He didn't stop to look. He kept running. Out the back.
He hit an open courtyard.
Stopped.
Too late.
It dropped from the wall behind him. Silent.
He turned, and saw nothing but a crack of white light before the limb shot toward his chest.
Ethan screamed.
Then—everything vanished.
---
You have died.
Returning to last checkpoint...
---
He opened his eyes.
Same cracked road. Same red sky. Same pain.
His body convulsed as he sat up, breathing hard. The floating message reappeared, but this time it was different.
---
WELCOME TO EREBUS
Only one may leave.
Echobrand Initialization Complete
Brand: Chrono Wound
You may now die to remember.
---
Ethan clutched his chest.
Something burned beneath his shirt. He pulled it aside and froze.
A mark had appeared over his heart. A spiraling tattoo of silver lines, like a broken clock twisting inward, fractured at the center.
It pulsed.
And in that moment, he knew.
He had died. And he had come back.
He could rewind.
But he felt it too—a weight. Not just on his chest, but in his soul.
Something had been taken.
Something was wrong.
He wasn't the same as before.
His mind raced with questions. Why me? What is this place? How do I get out?
There were no answers. Only the silent red sky, the death-stained streets, and the ticking pulse of the mark on his chest.
And the growing certainty:
The game had only just begun.
---