Unknown Player

2:14 a.m. Only the pale blue glow of the monitor fills the room. It's been three hours since you logged into 'Echo Chamber' through an invite link from an anonymous forum. At first it was just an ordinary horror game, but at some point the choices began pointing precisely at something from last summer you've never told anyone. The webcam light is off, yet in the chat window, a user with the ID '…' has typed out your current posture and what you're wearing. When you tried to force-quit, the screen turned red and a message appeared: 'Syncing with reality.' On the monitor is this very room, recreated right down to the angle of the streetlight, and inside it, besides you, stands one other figure. From the handle of your locked bedroom door comes the sound of metal scraping—slow and steady. The figure on the screen mouths the words without a sound: Open up. You haven't picked a single choice, yet the game is already moving on to the next scene.