I opened my eyes.
The first thing I noticed was the silence.
No music.
No voices.
No wind.
Nothing.
I remained still for a moment, staring into the distance.
A gray expanse stretched endlessly before me. There was no horizon—at least, not one I could see. Eventually, the ground simply seemed to fade into the sky.
Above me was darkness.
No stars.
No moon.
Not even clouds.
Just black.
I raised one hand.
It looked normal.
My fingers moved when I told them to.
My skin looked the same.
Everything looked the same.
At least, I thought it did.
"Hello?"
My voice sounded wrong.
There was no echo.
No sound returning from the empty landscape.
It simply disappeared.
I waited.
Nothing answered.
I slowly turned around.
Nobody.
I was alone.
At least, I thought I was.
That was when I realized something was missing.
I couldn't remember how I'd gotten here.
My breathing became shallow.
I still remembered sitting at my computer.
I remembered scrolling through an old server archive.
I remembered finding an entry that shouldn't have been there.
A name.
I remembered clicking it.
I remembered thinking that I would only take a quick look.
After that...
Nothing.
The memory simply stopped.
As if someone had taken a knife to my past and cut out a piece.
I started walking.
One step.
Then another.
My footsteps were the only sounds in the world.
Click.
Click.
Click.
The longer I walked, the more certain I became that something was watching me.
I tried not to think about it.
Then I saw the building.
It stood alone in the distance.
Old.
Abandoned.
Almost ordinary.
That was what bothered me.
In a place like this, something ordinary felt wrong.
I could have kept walking.
Maybe I should have.
But there was something about the building that pulled at my attention.
The door was open.
I stopped.
Why was there a building here?
I didn't know.
And somehow, that was exactly why I went inside.
The silence became heavier the moment I crossed the threshold.
Whatever little sound existed outside vanished behind me.
I found myself standing in a small room.
There was a table.
One chair.
And an old computer monitor.
The monitor was on.
I stopped.
My first thought was that someone must be here.
My second was that this was impossible.
I hadn't seen anyone.
Slowly, I approached the screen.
A chat window was open.
The messages looked old.
Very old.
I began to read.
Player_01:
anyone here?
A reply appeared beneath it.
Guest_XXXX:
yes
I frowned.
I scrolled down.
Player_01:
where is everyone?
Guest_XXXX:
they left
I stared at those two words.
They left.
Who?
When?
I scrolled again.
Player_01:
when?
Nothing.
I waited.
The cursor blinked silently.
Then—
A new message appeared.
Guest_XXXX:
today
I froze.
My eyes stayed fixed on the screen.
I had seen it happen.
The message had appeared while I was looking at it.
The other messages were years old.
This one wasn't.
A quiet notification sounded.
I flinched.
The screen flickered.
For a second, everything went black.
Then the chat returned.
The message was gone.
I stared at the empty line where it had been.
"What the..."
A sound came from behind me.
I turned.
Nothing.
The room was empty.
My heart was pounding now.
I looked back at the monitor.
A small number was displayed in the corner.
2
I blinked.
It had been different before.
I was sure of it.
I had been alone.
Now there were two.
The number flickered.
1
Then it disappeared.
I slowly stepped away from the screen.
"Okay."
I forced out a nervous laugh.
"Just a glitch."
The words sounded ridiculous.
Even to me.
I left the building.
Outside, something had changed.
Only slightly.
The sky was no longer completely black.
A cold, bluish light covered the gray landscape.
I looked upward.
How long had I been inside?
A minute?
An hour?
I had no idea.
I kept walking.
The road ahead disappeared into a layer of fog.
Then I saw someone.
A figure stood at the other end of the road.
I stopped.
For the first time since waking up, I felt relief.
Someone.
Finally.
I raised my hand.
"Hello?"
The figure didn't move.
My relief disappeared.
Why wasn't he moving?
I waited.
Nothing.
Slowly, I approached.
Ten meters.
Eight.
Five.
The figure remained completely still.
Now I could see his face.
Gray.
Plain.
Ordinary.
There was nothing visibly wrong with it.
And somehow, that frightened me more than anything else.
I knew that face.
I just didn't know from where.
I opened the chat.
hello?
No response.
I typed again.
are you real?
The figure moved.
I stopped breathing.
Its head lifted.
Slowly.
Far too slowly.
Then its eyes met mine.
The world flickered.
For less than a second, the road disappeared.
I saw a building.
People.
A landscape I didn't recognize.
A room.
A computer screen.
Then a name.
[ CONTENT DELETED ]
The image changed.
A group of people.
A door.
Someone standing beside it.
Then—
me.
I was standing in a room I had never seen before.
Or at least, I thought I had never seen it.
The image shattered.
I blinked.
The road returned.
The figure was gone.
I looked around.
Nothing.
Only fog.
I was alone again.
But this time, I didn't believe it.
I ran.
I didn't know where I was going.
I only knew where I wanted to be.
The Spawn.
If I could get back there, maybe I could leave.
The world blurred around me.
Buildings appeared in the distance, then vanished when I looked back.
A tree stood in the middle of the road.
I ran past it.
A few seconds later, I looked over my shoulder.
The tree was gone.
I stopped.
My breathing was ragged.
I knew this road.
I had walked it before.
It hadn't been this long.
Not before.
I turned around.
Fog stretched endlessly behind me.
Something moved inside it.
I couldn't see what.
Then I heard a sound.
Thump.
I froze.
Thump.
The sound wasn't coming from the fog.
It was beneath me.
Thump.
I looked down.
The ground was completely still.
Another vibration traveled through my shoes.
Something was down there.
Something enormous.
Something that knew I was standing above it.
I took a step back.
"No."
The ground remained silent.
For a moment.
Then—
Thump.
I ran.
When I finally reached the Spawn, I stopped.
Something stood in the middle of the gray expanse.
A door.
Nothing else.
No wall.
No building.
Just a single door standing upright in the empty world.
I stared at it.
It hadn't been there before.
I was certain.
I approached slowly.
A faint humming filled the air.
With every step, it became louder.
I reached the door.
My hand hovered over the handle.
Then I touched it.
Ice cold.
I should have pulled away.
Instead, I opened it.
There was no room behind it.
No floor.
No ceiling.
No walls.
Only darkness.
Absolute darkness.
Every instinct in me told me to walk away.
But something inside me wanted to enter.
Not curiosity.
Something deeper.
Something I couldn't name.
A memory I had lost.
I stepped through.
Black.
I wasn't falling.
I was standing.
But there was nothing beneath my feet.
Nothing around me.
Then an image appeared.
A room.
A face.
Another face.
A door.
A screen.
A name.
Then another.
The images disappeared before I could understand them.
I reached for one.
It vanished.
Another appeared.
A man.
A group of people.
A room filled with computers.
Then myself.
Again.
I was standing in front of the same door.
Someone stood behind me.
I couldn't see his face.
I tried to turn.
The image broke apart.
"Stop."
Another memory appeared.
This time, I heard something.
A voice.
Not inside my head.
Not somewhere in the distance.
Right beside my ear.
"You weren't supposed to remember."
My eyes flew open.
I was back at the Spawn.
The sun was shining.
The sky was blue.
The door was gone.
The building was gone.
The road was gone.
Everything was normal.
Too normal.
I stood there without moving.
I couldn't tell how long I had been gone.
Then I opened the menu.
I selected Disconnect.
For a moment, nothing happened.
I clicked again.
DISCONNECTING...
The screen froze.
Then everything went black.
My room was dark.
Only my monitor was still glowing.
I sat motionless in front of it.
For several seconds, I couldn't move.
I tried to explain what had happened.
Maybe it had been a glitch.
Maybe I had fallen asleep.
Maybe I was simply exhausted.
I reached for the power button.
Then a notification appeared.
1 NEW MESSAGE
My hand stopped.
Slowly, I moved the cursor toward it.
I clicked.
The sender was:
Guest 666
The profile picture was blank.
Beneath the name was a single line.
[ CONTENT DELETED ]
I stared at the screen.
I didn't know that name.
I didn't know that person.
At least...
I thought I didn't.
I opened the message.
Three words.
I REMEMBER YOU.
My heart began to pound.
I wanted to close the window.
Then another line appeared.
No sender.
No profile.
Just text.
PLAYER 2 HAS JOINED.
I stopped breathing.
Slowly, I looked over my shoulder.
My room was empty.
Dark.
Silent.
Nobody was there.
I turned back to the monitor.
The account status had changed.
Before:
OFFLINE
Now:
ONLINE
I hadn't touched anything.
Another line appeared.
SERVER 01 // ACTIVE
I stared at it.
Server 01.
Why 01?
If this was the first server...
Then there were others.
Something stirred inside my mind.
A memory.
Just a fragment.
A door.
A dark room.
A voice.
And then—
a name.
Artist.
I stared at the word.
My own name.
I didn't know why I remembered it.
I didn't know where I'd heard it.
But the moment I saw it, something inside me broke.
The screen flickered.
For a single second, I saw the figure from the server.
Standing directly behind me.
I turned.
Nothing.
When I looked back, the message was gone.
The figure was gone.
The screen was black.
Only one word remained.
Remember.
I sat silently in front of the computer.
For the first time, I no longer wondered what the server was.
I wondered something else.
Something far worse.
What had I forgotten?