He stepped through the final archway. The screen went white, then flickered to a grainy video feed. It wasn't a game anymore. It was a live shot of a dark room.
Then, a chair creaked—not in the game, but behind him in his own bedroom.
He passed statues that looked like distorted deities, their faces eroded into smooth, featureless stone. Each time he turned the camera away and back, they seemed to have pivoted. By the time he reached the eleventh gate, the game's audio began to distort. The gravel crunching turned into a wet, rhythmic thumping—like a heartbeat.