Lights Out

James spoke to his remote control and the cinema screen unrolled from the ceiling. His ultra short throw projector lit up and displayed a news report of an alleged hacking of Project Delve, the gaming company responsible for The Wrath of Heaven.

"What a PR joke," James said to himself. It was the Delve's pathetic attempt to make use of his announcement, he thought, as he drank a glass of water while watching the screen.

He thought that he's actually not that bad since he helped Delve for several years in marketing their games. His fans, the Shadow, followed him practically everywhere, and they bought whatever he endorsed, from wireless gaming mice to bass-driven gaming headsets, all under Delve's Wrath brand. Since he fulfilled his end of the contract and brought a lot of money to the company, he felt that what he was doing was just fair. But for the company to use him this way, play victim, and deliberately kept him in the dark about the hidden game – they're just pushing their luck. It was alright then, five or six years ago, but now that he owned a company and gained a marketable image, he had to protect himself from corporate greed.

James spoke to his smart speaker. "Call Ryan."

A calming female voice responded, "Calling Ryan," followed by the person's ringback tone. It's a popular EDM song from a Korean boyband.

"How cheesy."

James chuckled while waiting for a response. He also danced a bit. He lived in a high-rise apartment and the blackout curtains were not drawn, but nobody could spy on him on the twentieth floor, right?

Seconds later, Ryan picked up the call, prompting James to stop dancing. He plopped himself down on the white sofa.

"Good evening sir. Ryan here," the man started. He had a hoarse voice.

"You got anything for me?" James asked. Hours ago, he instructed his secretary Ryan to investigate the alert he received about a certain trap. James was a hundred percent sure that it was a hacker, but was it a fan? A stalker? He was used to receive threats from stalkers and haters, but it was a first for a threat to be worded like this. He opened his gallery and shared it to his projector, which then displayed it to the screen.

"Beware of the trap. Take care, my King. xx"

"Uhm, I—" the hoarse voice hesitated.

"Do me a favor, Ryan and stop watching your dramas! Do your job!" James yelled. Ryan knew that it was just an inside joke, but as James's former high school classmate, he also understood that his boss was serious.

"I'm not watching," Ryan retorted. "In fact, I knew that you got the invitation to the hidden game."

"What kind of secretary are you?" James said, still looking at the projected message on screen. "Shouldn't you get the invite for me?"

"I tried," Ryan answered, "but they said it's a failed game, so they wouldn't want anyone to access it."

"EVERYONE HAD ACCESS!" James's voice boomed across the room.

"If I were you, I wouldn't even bother," Ryan said. "I heard someone put something in the code and the AI got berserk. They couldn't fix it."

"I can fix it," James bragged. "They should've told me they wanted my help. Anyway, about the threat..."

"You think it's a threat?"

"Is it not?"

"I'm not sure. Why do you think so?"

"It's suspicious, that's why," James said. "Can't you understand that I'm in danger right now?"

"Then don't go outside," Ryan suggested. "I'll bring you food and necessities. It's better if you stay in your apartment where it's secure."

"Don't tell me what to do," said James, exasperated.

"Then what do you want to do?"

"Stay at home, for sure," James answered. "And play that stupid hidden game."

"I'll be there first thing in the morning," Ryan assured James.

"Fine, go back to your drama binging."

"Thanks, I'm on episode sixteen."

"YOU SAID—" James started, but Ryan already hung up.

James yelled at the smart speaker. "SEND A MESSAGE TO RYAN. 'DO YOUR JOB. REPORT TOMORROW.'"

"Sending message to Ryan," the speaker responded. It's as calm as ever.

Irritated, James took his phone and deleted the screenshot. Maybe Ryan was right for dismissing the message as a threat. He received several unfriendly letters, emails, direct messages, even weird gifts, but he never felt that he was in grave danger. Fine, he would stay at home.

"Send a message to Ryan," James commanded the speaker. "Don't tell my parents."

"Sending message to Ryan... Message sent."

Ryan's response gets displayed on the screen – in full 4K glory: "Fine, I won't tell them that I'm binging Waikiki."

To ease his worries, James projected the plans for his offices. The images were sent this morning, but because he was busy with the tournament, he couldn't check if the designers were able to do the revisions he demanded.

But as he was scrutinizing the unholy placement of the furniture in the god-forsaken layout of the manager's office, a stream of alerts from the chat server intruded the screen.

WuxiaLord92 left the server.

Deathtotherich0658 left the server.

PrinceKronos left the server.

DigYourGrave888 left the server.

FengFengDragon left the server.

Thorniquet left the server.

One by one. Ding by annoying ding. And the mass exodus of gamers in the chat server of the hidden game continued. James tapped the alerts to see the reason why they were leaving. There was one message that prompted them to do so:

TheKing is now a member of the server.

It was his ID.

So this was why. At first, they kept this game a secret, now that he had been invited to the server, they decided on their own to abandon him. They must have thought that they wouldn't stand a chance if they found themselves helpless in the arena with TheKing.

How cute.

After his unremarkable dinner of canned tuna and some long-grain rice (he's too lazy to cook), James took a shower. Wearing only his boxers, he went directly to his game room. His custom setup was the stuff of envy among other gamers. He himself designed the dark room and decided which gadgets to buy. He had Ryan to help him set up the ultra-fast computer and the dedicated camera, professional microphone, and dedicated media server for livestreaming. When he first showed his rig during a livestream, several people commented that they were living in an unfair world, where only the rich and famous could afford things that made lives easier, while the less fortunate remained shackled in their boring jobs with an annual salary that was equal to James's earnings for a handful of videos on a streaming platform.

He double-checked first if the camera was turned off, since he's only wearing his underwear. That's not the kind of livestream he wanted to do. Then, he pushed the power button of his PC to boot the computer. Within seconds, James was already hanging out the chat server, looking at all the IDs of games who for James were hypocritical at best. Only two people were left in the chat room: himself and some person named "Anon."

Anon remained in the chat room probably because he or she was not online yet, but James expected that he or she would also leave after finding out the TheKing had arrived at last.

James opened the game and inputted the codes sent to him by that annoying guy Nathan from Delve. Seriously, Delve should stop hiring stuck up and nerdy developers like Nathan. They should start scouting talents like James instead. Someone who's cool.

The loading screen dissolved into a dark and dingy marketplace. Goodness, James thought, this hidden game was really a mess. It already jumped several weeks in the proper Wrath of Heaven storyline. He surmised that the game flash-forwarded to the Forging of the Sword story where the hero, after knowing that he or she was chosen to breach the gates of Heaven, had to begin his or her journey by securing a powerful Spirit weapon.

An old merchant looked up and faced the screen to give him the instructions, then a window for James to choose his hero popped up. He tried to change the settings, but the game automatically chose for him, so he couldn't select his armor. "That's nice," James said under his breath. "People like this game?" he wondered. "There's nothing intelligent in this AI," he criticized the game after it magically reverted all his power-ups to Level I. James resigned that it would be fair to be stripped away all his magic and weapons since the game forced the player to return to the beginning of the story, although a part of him still thought that this would prove to be a boring and useless endeavor. He had memorized the storyline, the challenges, the monsters, even the gaps in the game, that nothing would and could surprise him now.

Until nobody came to meet him in the marketplace.

That's strange, he thought. The game always gave players an NPC to befriend and to coax to be their Spirit weapon. If there's no NPC, then how the duck could he start the challenge?

His character, TheKing, approached the merchant. Yes, James thought, this merchant would know how to deal with this setback since he's actually a hermit in the original game.

True enough, the merchant transformed into a hermit and he pointed his spindly cane to TheKing's heart.

A message on-screen popped up to show the hermit's dialogue. "What is inside your heart?"

Normally, the game would respond for the player, in a cinematic perhaps, but this time, a chat box appeared on TheKing's head.

What the heck should James say to the hermit?

James stared blankly at the screen... and then typed.

"N O T H I N G."

The hermit messaged him. "You are not needed here. Begone."

The game automatically logged him off. And then his PC as though it had a mind of its own, shut itself down.

"WHAT THE—?" James shouted. "You think I can't beat you?"

James rebooted his computer to open the game. He went to see the merchant again after reverting his settings to Level I. The merchant transformed into a hermit just like before and then asked, "Why are you here?"

Wait, James thought. The questions get randomly changed every time someone logged in? He thought for a while and then typed:

"I am here to save you."

The hermit replied, "What a conceited liar. Begone."

And the PC got turned off for the second time.

Was the hermit another player? The character should be an NPC, right?

For the third time, James logged in and went to the hermit. As expected, a box with the dialogue appeared on top of its head, saying, "Where do you want to go?"

James typed on his own box.

"Show me."

The hermit pointed his cane to the dark sky and said, "Look at the moon."

A cinematic began playing. TheKing, James's character, was shown looking at the full moon. Moments later, a massive flying serpent swallowed the moon, putting the entire marketplace in darkness.

James stared at his monitor, waiting for something to happen.

And it happened.

A surge of power from the PC, deadly as lightning, fried the wires and crept to the keyboard and the mouse. The electricity entered James's body, shocking his naked flesh. Moments later, the room was filled with the smell of fried plastic and rubber, and miraculously, James found himself still breathing. He pushed the keyboard and mouse away and stood up, fearing for another accident. His PC was dead.

But the monitor kept on flickering.

Then, James saw his entire body morphing into pixels. Slowly, the pixels get sucked into the monitor, changing into white noise. He tried to shout but there was no sound. His eyes widened as though they were screaming and then they also changed into pixels and flew into the monitor.

James was no more.

In the living room, a message from the chat server was projected on the screen.

"Don't play the game, King."

It was from Anon.

Seconds later, the circuit breaker failed, and the apartment was swallowed by darkness.

~oOo~