His eyes snapped open as though dragged to the surface from miles below.
Light flooded his vision—too bright, too clean, too real. His breath caught in his chest. A ceiling. White tiles. The faint hum of fluorescent lights.
Then shapes moved in front of him.
A doctor leaned over, relief flooding her face. "Easy… you're awake. Can you hear me?"
His tongue felt thick, his mind fogged. He tried to speak but only managed a hoarse whisper. The world refused to stop spinning.
Footsteps thundered outside the room.
Two men in dark suits entered, badges flashing briefly before they tucked them away. Their expressions were grim, focused.
The taller one spoke first. "You've been unconscious for five days. You… and a large portion of the population. Have gone through mass comas, over the period of the last week."
The doctor frowned. "He needs rest—"
"We just need a moment," the shorter agent said, already pulling a chair close to the bed.
He felt the air tighten around him.
"Tell us," the taller agent said. "What did you experience before you woke up? Anything unusual? Any peculiar scenery? Visual anomalies? Entities?"
His pulse jumped. The memories resurfaced into his mind—The fog, The trees, The shadows that felt alive, The core of the forest, then the darkness that ensued.
"I…" He swallowed hard. "I don't know if it was real."
"Describe it anyway."
Every word he forced out pulled another memory loose—each one darker, sharper, more jagged. The ruins where the trees bent inward. The impossible sensation of being guided by something unseen. The feeling that when he ran, the world itself rearranged to push him toward something.
As he spoke, his voice began to shake. His hands trembled. The monitors beside him chirped faster, matching the quickening spiral inside his chest.
The doctor lifted her head sharply. "That's enough."
But the agents pressed on.
"What did you see?"
"How many monsters were there?"
"Did you hear a robotic voice afterwards?"
His breath hitched. The memories crashed harder—too much, too fast—and suddenly the heart monitor screeched, its beeps tumbling into a frantic, irregular rhythm.
"Out," the doctor snapped, stepping between them and her patient. "He's destabilizing. Out, Right now."
The agents exchanged a look not of frustration but of concern and calculation.
"We'll be back," the taller one said quietly, it was a promise. "we have more questions for you, and there's more you need to tell us."
They slipped out of the room. The doctor adjusted her mask, steadied the machines, and placed a calming hand on his shoulder.
"Breathe," she whispered. "You're safe."
He tried to steady his breathing, but every inhale felt too shallow, every exhale too sharp. The doctor's hand was warm, grounding—but his mind was still clawing its way out of a nightmare that refused to end.
Safe.
The word echoed in his head like something unfamiliar.
The doctor dimmed the overhead lights and adjusted the tubes around his arm, murmuring reassurances more out of routine than confidence.
"You've been through something traumatic," she said quietly. "Your nervous system is overactive. That spike wasn't your fault."
He nodded, but his eyes drifted to the doorway where the agents had vanished. Their questions clung to him like burrs.
How many monsters were there?
What did you see?
Did you hear a robotic voice afterwards?
He shivered.
The doctor noticed. "Do you remember your name?"
He closed his eyes, sifting through the fog. Names drifted past him—none of them his. Faces he thought he knew blurred then shattered like illusions collapsing into bark and dust. He couldn't remember.
The doctor smiled. "Orientation will come back piece by piece. It's a common occurrence."
But the relief didn't last long. Her eyes flicked to the monitors again—still elevated, still too wild. She reached over him and administered something through the IV. "This will help calm your heart and steady your breathing."
He felt a soft coolness spread through his bloodstream, the edges of panic softening. For a moment, he just lay there. Listening to the beeping. The steady, real beeping. Then—Something else. A faint hum. Not from the machines in the room. From inside his skull. He thought that the core was still there... inside of him... But the tone was, mechanical and monotone, unlike the harsh and dreary tone of that curse.
His blood ran cold.
The doctor's voice drifted into the background—soft, steady, human—while the mechanical tone inside his skull vibrated with inhuman precision.
{Congratulations Performer You Have Cleared The Story.}
{You Have Cleared A Tier Two Narrative}
{You Have Been Awarded For The Defeat Of Three Demons}
No breath entered his lungs.
No thought formed cleanly.
It wasn't the same voice the core used—not that hateful, ancient growl—but this one was robotic and monotone. Cold and precise. Like an automated message that was sent by a relative informing you of an upcoming event.
He tried to speak, but his lips barely parted.
"no... no, you're not real," he whispered.
The doctor turned sharply. "What's wrong? Talk to me."
But the voice ignored her. It ignored everything except him.
He looked at the doctor with a face full of questions "Its nothing doctor."
She knew it was far from nothing when it came to the patients like him, but if he wasn't willing to pry she knew she wouldn't get any answers.
Words kept being spewed, they made no sense to him.
{Uploading Performance Data…}
{Calibrating Personality Arcs…}
Until the only thing that lay in front of him was a holographic screen.
{Name: Obei Draven}
{Age: Eighteen}
{Rank: Tier One Performer}
{Mutation(s): Amneskars Heart}
{Skills: Hallucinatory Fog (Unrakned), Locked, Locked, Locked}
It shouldn't have been real. But it never left, he lifted his hand towards it till his fingers went past it, they were met with no resistance. The screen only blurred, moving his fingers away the screen re-materialized.
The doctor and nurses left to attend to different patience leaving him alone, just the holographic screen and him.
He read over the holographic screen multiple times. Wondering how he could interact with it if there was anything to interact with.
He only had one skill unlocked, Hallucinatory Fog. As he thought of what it could do the holographic screen changed.
{Hallucinatory Fog (unrakend) — Active}
Effect: Upon activation, the performer generates a dense, semi-solid fog that spreads in a 50-meter radius around them. The fog warps perception, obscures vision, and can create convincing sensory illusions within its bounds.
Range: 50 meters from the performer
Duration: Sustained while active; dissipates gradually when deactivated
Notes: Illusions generated within the fog respond dynamically to the performer's focus and intent. Environmental manipulation is limited to visual, auditory, and faint tactile effects.