The hum stayed with him.
Not loud. Not painful. Just there. A constant, low vibration running through his bones like an unwelcome tenant refusing to leave.
For three days, Vicky didn't touch his power.
He still went to "tuition," but he never opened a game. He just sat at the cyber café, staring at a blank monitor while the hum worked its way through his spine. Every flicker of the café's tube-light made his fingers twitch. Every lag on someone else's screen felt like a threat.
At home it was worse.
A sudden TV static.A hiccup in his sister's laptop.Anything out of place made his pulse jump.
"Vicky, tum theek ho?" his mother kept asking. "You look scared."
"I'm fine," he answered every time. He wasn't.
The silver coins he had earned — all 3,600 rupees of them — suddenly felt useless. A childish number in front of the plans he had in mind. But the cost of earning more was now brutally clear.
On the fourth day, the hum finally softened. The glitches stopped. His world, whatever had disturbed it, seemed stable again.
With stability came a question he had been avoiding:
What if I just keep going?What if the hum isn't a warning?What if it's… adaptation?
A dangerous thought. And he knew it. But he needed answers.
The Lightbulb Test
He started small.
Not Minecraft.Not GTA.Just a basic puzzle game on his phone — something trivial, harmless.
He found a power-up icon: a lightbulb.A hint item.
Low value. Low risk.
He placed his thumb on the screen. The cold sensation returned, but lighter than before. A small wave of dizziness. Manageable.
When he pulled his hand back, an actual incandescent bulb sat in his palm. Ordinary. Cool. Useless.
The hum in his bones ticked up slightly. Nothing more.
The result was clear.
Low-value items → low backlash.High-value items → catastrophic backlash.
A predictable pattern… and a tempting one.
The Diamond Temptation
He reopened Minecraft, hesitating only once before entering the world.
No animals.No food items.No chaos.
Just value.
He walked to his chest.
Three diamonds waited inside — bright, blue, and far too inviting.
A single diamond could solve his immediate problem. Laptop. Tools. Real mobility. A real start.
He selected one.
It glowed on the screen.
"Just one," he muttered. "I'm stable now. I can handle one."
He pressed his thumb to the diamond.
The cold that ran up his arm wasn't mild. It hit like a spike of ice driven straight through the bone. His head throbbed. The hum under his skin detonated into full-body vibration.
He pulled anyway.
A real diamond dropped into his hand. Heavy. Perfect. Valuable.
And then everything around him broke.
The World Collapses
His room flickered out.
Not the brief glitch he'd seen before — this time the walls dissolved entirely, shedding into green and brown pixel textures. The floor turned to blocky grass. The air shifted into the familiar, synthetic ambience of Minecraft. Even his window showed nothing but flat blue sky and squared clouds drifting past.
He tried to move. His body didn't respond. He tried to shout. No sound left his throat.
He wasn't seeing the game.
He was inside it.
Locked in place.Frozen.The diamond still burning cold in his hand.
And reality — his reality — was nowhere to be found.
He had crossed a line he didn't understand. And this time, the glitch hadn't stopped at a warning.
It had taken him hostage.