AndyB_writes

Have you ever felt nostalgia so powerful it hurt? The kind that hits whenever you think about that one game you played with that one friend?

For Ren Yamada, it’s worse.

Because his best friend, Kenji, isn’t just gone—he’s trapped in the past they shared inside The Game, a hyper-realistic VR world they once ruled together. A year after losing him, Ren logs back in... and what he finds is more than just memory. It’s the beginning of something darker, deeper—and far more dangerous than he ever imagined.

Some games aren’t meant to be played alone.

The Game: Project Rebirth

By now, Ren and Kenji knew it by heart. The way the lights flickered in the slums before a data surge. How the crowds thickened in the market zones after updates. Even the timing of Konran patrols—they memorized it all.

But there were still things in the game that didn't quite make sense.

Some nights, while patrolling alone, Ren would notice a figure in the distance—too fast to be an NPC, too quiet to be a player. A shadow on the rooftops, gone when he looked twice. He mentioned it once to Kenji.

"Probably another squad tracking us," Kenji had said. "We're ranked now. People wanna know how we play."

After the raid on Vault 7, things started to change. Subtly, at first.

Aiko began glitching slightly—pausing mid-sentence or staring a little too long before responding. Botan, normally mute, once whispered something in a garbled tone Ren didn't recognize. And the cube? It never stopped humming.

"I think we triggered something big," he said. "Like, real endgame content. Maybe even a hidden storyline."

Ren wasn't sure whether to be excited or nervous. The city, once familiar, now felt… off. Still glowing, still alive—but something darker pulsed beneath the surface. Like Konran's grip wasn't just tightening on the game—but on them.

One afternoon, they logged in to find the main plaza nearly empty.

Just a message scrawled across the sky in bold red letters:

"OBEY OR BE ERASED – KONRAN INDUSTRIES"

"Was this... a patch?" Ren asked, eyes narrowed.

Kenji shook his head. "No notice on the boards. I think this is... something else."

They ran a scan—most NPCs were gone. The mission board was wiped clean. Resistance outposts showed red across the map.

"Someone nuked the whole city," Kenji muttered.

They wandered through Sector 1, where new players used to spawn. It was abandoned now. Billboards flashed propaganda. Konran soldiers patrolled freely, unchallenged. Something had changed.

They returned to their rooftop hideout, but even that was different. The lights flickered. The air seemed thinner. And the cube—they hadn't touched it in days—was brighter now, pulsing slowly like a heartbeat.

Kenji leaned closer. "It's reacting."

They tried to scan it again—this time, the data was readable. What it showed made Ren's stomach twist.

A Konran internal log. Dated. Censored. But it mentioned words like Neural Sync, Cognitive Looping, User Retention Testing.

"This isn't just lore," Kenji said slowly. "This is... it's like someone embedded real research into the game."

"You think this is... real?" Ren asked. "Like connected to actual stuff?"

Instead, he stood up, looking out over the darkened skyline of Kōto. The city no longer felt like a digital dream. It felt like a prison, glitching just enough to let them know it was watching.

"Maybe we've been looking at this wrong," Kenji said. "What if this isn't just a game Konran made... What if it's a test?"

Ren didn't like where this was going.

City of Lights, Shadows of Truth