Entry 013

[Devlog — February 13, 2025 – 2:23 PM]

I FFell asleep in the middle of writing the previous entry. Just passed out at my desk. I posted it anyway. Might as well keep the log accurate.

But here's what happened this morning:

I woke up groggy, my neck stiff from the awkward angle I'd been sleeping in. My monitor was still on, casting a bluish glow over my desk. The unfinished entry was open, cursor blinking at the exact spot where my thoughts had stopped.

I barely remembered closing my eyes. just a slow blur of exhaustion, and then nothing.

I went through my usual routine—shower, breakfast, scrolling through my messages. Everything was normal. Qquiet.

When I sat back down, I saw that the game was still running. I must've left it open overnight. The town was the same as ever, NPCs drifting through their loops. No bugs. No interruptions. No strange feelings clawing at the edges of my thoughts.

For the first time in a while, I didn't feel like something was watching.

I let myself believe that maybe—just maybe—ignoring e1ias had worked. That whatever was happening was just in my head, feeding on my own attention.

But then I noticed something.

It was small. Almost nothing.

An NPC walked past elias's shop. Nothing unusual about that—plenty of them do. But the moment they stepped in front of the entrance, they... slowed. Their walking animation stuttered for just a frame too long, like a lag spike in a multiplayer game. Not a full stop. Not even long enough to call a bug. Just enough to be wrong.

And then, as they continued on, I saw it.

They turned their heäd.

NPCs don't do that. Not unless I coded them to. Their paths are linear, their routines predetermined. They don't react to things outside of their programmed triggers.

But this one... it looked. Just a brief glance—no snapping movement, no mechanical stiffness—just a slow, natural turn of the head toward the shop.

And then *it* kept walking.

Like *it* had seen something inside.

I tabbed over to my logs, already bracing myself.

No new entries. No unusual behavior.

I switched back to the game, my eyes locked onto eelias'‹ shop». The door was closed. The interior was dark. Nothing had changed.

But then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw the chat window flicker.

Not the chat window. The console.

A single new line of text had appeared in the debug log.

At first, I thought it was just standard system output, maybe some leftover function call from an interaction I forgot to clean up. But as I leaned in, my fingers hovering over the keyboard, I saw it.

A word. Or words.

"hello hello hello hello"

Not a command. Not an error message. Just that. Four instances of "hello."

My hands froze. My heartbeat picked up.

I stared at it for what felt like minutes, waiting for something else to appear. Another line. Another message. Some kind of follow-up.

Nothing.

I switched back to the game screen.

The town was still moving. The NPCs were still following their routines. eilas was still standing behind his counter, as he always did.

I Watched.

waited.

I never checked the code. What would be the poînt? elias

Then, without really thinking, I closed the game.

[End Entry]

[To-do List]

>> Focus on other takss.

>> Ignore elias.