Chapter 6: The Ghost App

The morning sun tried to rise. Dan didn't.

He sat frozen in his kitchen, visor tossed on the table. His reflection stared back at him from the polished black surface—exhausted, haunted, fading.

He hadn't logged in since the message from PLAYER_001.

He didn't need to.

Because the game had already logged in to him.

It started subtly. His vision blinked in binary static. The taste of copper at the back of his tongue. Glitching ad overlays appearing mid-conversation. He reached up, fingers trembling, and double-tapped his temple.

Neural Implant Interface — OPEN

A flood of data scrolled past.

He filtered for installed programs.

And there it was.

REALITY GAMES v0.0.0.1

Permissions: FULL

Delete: [Not Available]

Location: Rooted System Layer

Visibility: Ghosted

Admin: UNKNOWN

Last Update: 4 seconds ago

Four seconds ago?

He hadn't done anything.

His vision glitched again.

This time, a voice followed.

But it wasn't spoken.

It thought itself into his mind.

"The wager has begun, Dan Reed."

He stumbled backward, nearly knocking over a chair.

"Stop," he whispered aloud, as if the implant might obey fear. "Stop it. Get out of my head."

But it wasn't in his head.

It was his head now.

Reality Games had bypassed every firewall. Rooted itself deeper than any legal app could. Even his failsafe neuro-kill-switch was disabled.

He tapped his temple again—desperately trying to sever the neural bridge.

Nothing.

Then, the kitchen light flickered.

The HUD projected onto the window glass.

NEW GAME AVAILABLE

PLAY OR DIE

His reflection flickered—and for a split second, he wasn't alone.

Behind his eyes, someone else watched.

Someone who had been there longer than he realized.

PLAYER_001: "Welcome to the real game."

Dan blinked.

His own reflection whispered back:

"You're the only player left who remembers losing."

At first, Dan thought it was a glitch.

A tiny string of numbers had appeared in the upper-right corner of his vision—barely noticeable. He blinked, rubbed his eyes, ran diagnostics on his neuro-implant.

But it didn't go away.

[LIFESPAN REMAINING: 27 YEARS, 43 DAYS, 06 HOURS, 19 MINUTES, 42 SECONDS]

He stared at it.

It blinked.

Then… ticked.

42…

41…

"What the hell—"

He opened his HUD.

No new messages. No notifications. Just the same cursed number counting down—one second at a time.

This wasn't a stream stat. It wasn't a buff. It was his life.

A live countdown of exactly how much time he had left.

"Did I agree to this?" he whispered.

No.

The game never asked.

It didn't have to.

The moment he entered The Terminal, it had claimed ownership of his time.

The reward of "3 extra years" wasn't just a bonus—it was real. Tangible. Spendable. And now measurable.

Every action, every bid, every decision could subtract from that number—or add to it.

He could trade time for power.

Or lose it in failure.

He swallowed hard. His palms were slick.

27 years. It sounded like a lot—until you could see it bleeding out of you, second by second, just for standing still.

And worse?

When he closed his eyes, the timer was still there.

Burned into the dark. A curse he couldn't unsee.

He messaged Vera.

Dan: I have a timer now. Top corner. My lifespan.

Dan: Did yours show up like this too?

No response.

Then, hours later—just one line from her:

VΞRA: If the timer's visible… it means you've been marked.

VΞRA: Someone placed a bounty.

Dan froze.

He looked at the ticking numbers again.

27 YEARS, 39 DAYS, 02 HOURS, 44 MINUTES, 10 SECONDS

Then it changed.

27 YEARS, 39 DAYS, 02 HOURS, 44 MINUTES, 09 SECONDS

And kept going.

Not because he was doing anything.

Just because someone, somewhere, had decided he was worth the clock.

The timer ticked on.

Dan sat alone in his darkened apartment, the silence fractured only by the soft hum of his neural implant syncing with the "game." No notifications. No alarms. Just that number in his vision—unblinking, unmerciful.

But something had changed.

The moment Vera said he'd been "marked," he felt it.

A shift.

A weight.

Like something was watching now.

He opened the Terminal's interface—this time not through voice or screen, but directly through his mind.

And for the first time, a new menu opened—one he hadn't seen before.

One he was sure didn't exist for anyone else.

[ACCESSING: BOUNTY LIST]

[SECURITY OVERRIDE GRANTED: PLAYER_001]

His stomach dropped.

The list flickered to life—player IDs scrolling down like a death lottery.

Dozens of names. Some he recognized. Some he'd watched climb the ranks.

Every one of them had a lifespan countdown beside their name.

But half were already grayed out.

[PLAYER_019] – ELIMINATED

[PLAYER_112] – ELIMINATED

[PLAYER_047] – 1 Year, 2 Days, 3 Hours…

[PLAYER_001] – ???

He searched for his name.

And found it near the top.

[PLAYER_048 – DAN]

BOUNTY: 3 YEARS

RANK: Recruit

STATUS: ACTIVE

MARKED BY: UNKNOWN

He stared.

Someone had placed a bounty on him. A wager. A gamble.

Three years of his life—already offered up by a stranger.

Not for fun.

For sport.

The higher your rank climbed, the more you were worth. And the more valuable your time became, the more people wanted to take it.

"Is that how this works?" he whispered. "We're not just playing… we're hunting each other?"

He tried to back out of the menu—but it wouldn't close.

Instead, a message blinked at the bottom of the list.

INCOMING TRANSMISSION

From: PLAYER_001

His breath caught.

The screen fuzzed—static bleeding into his vision like spilled ink.

Then a voice, low and distorted, vibrated directly into his skull:

"Welcome to the higher levels, Dan."

"You're worth more alive than dead. But only for now."

"Keep climbing. Or start running."

Then silence.

The Bounty List vanished.

And for the first time, Dan realized this wasn't a leaderboard.

It was a food chain.

The next morning, Dan awoke to silence.

No messages. No alerts. Just the hum of the implant and the ever-present lifespan countdown in the corner of his vision, ticking like a bomb he couldn't defuse.

He barely registered the knock on his door.

Three soft taps.

He opened it.

No one was there.

Except for a package.

Matte black. No label. No tape.

Just a symbol burned into the surface: a ring of thirteen eyes, all open, all watching.

He brought it inside, heart thudding. Inside was nothing but a single object—

—a keycard.

Sleek. Unmarked. Embedded with the same eye-symbol. When he touched it, his neural implant sparked.

Live Game Invitation Accepted

Location: UNKNOWN

Time: 04:44 A.M. – TONIGHT

Warning: Declining forfeits your remaining lifespan.

"No," he said aloud. "No, no—"

But the keycard was already dissolving in his hand. Digitizing. Syncing directly into the implant.

A second later, a new door appeared on his neural interface. Not real. Not physical. But he could see it in the corner of his mind, as if it had always existed.

[LIVE INSTANCE: THE HOUSE WITHOUT ROOMS]

He tried to log out. Disconnect. Power down.

Nothing worked.

Because it wasn't just a game anymore.

It was inside him.

That night, when 4:44 A.M. came, his body moved before he could stop it. Like muscle memory he hadn't programmed. He walked out the door, down the street, through a train station that had been decommissioned for a decade.

And there—beneath the tracks—was a rusted maintenance door. One he'd never seen before.

The keycard had worked. Even in its digital form.

The door opened.

Darkness greeted him.

Inside, a voice whispered:

"Welcome, Player_048. This game has no observers. No screens. No resets."

"Just you. And the others. And whatever is left of your time."

Then the door slammed shut behind him.

*

*

*

(GIDEON'S POV)

Gideon's face was everywhere.

Clips of his last win—edited, enhanced, viral—had been plastered across newsfeeds and reaction channels. "The Boy Who Beat Death," one headline read. "Reality Games Are Back—And He's Winning."

But Gideon hadn't posted anything.

He hadn't uploaded. He hadn't tagged.

The game had done it for him.

[INFLUENCE POINTS +12,300]

[TRENDING: #048GODMODE]

[NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED: Cognitive Boost | Perception Drift | Game Override (LIMITED)]

"Wait—what the hell is this?" Gideon muttered, staring at the neon notifications blinking inside his implant feed.

More Influence Points poured in every second. Followers. Comments. Fan pages. Threats. Sponsors. Obsessives. Imitators.

All of them watching him rise.

And with every new follower, the game's grip on him deepened.

Because in Reality Games, attention wasn't just currency.

It was power.

And Gideon was starting to feel it—his thoughts sharper, faster, the world slowing around him when he focused. Doors that had once been locked now opened with a blink. People listened when he spoke. One influencer even collapsed after tagging him in a mocking video.

[USER_7232 REMOVED – Forfeit of Lifespan. Influence Leak Reclaimed.]

Gideon didn't sleep.

Not because he couldn't—but because the game wouldn't let him.

Every time he shut his eyes, the HUD pulsed behind his lids, whispering numbers. Influence tallies. Viewer spikes. A new chant building on the net:

"One of Us."

"One of Us."

"One of Us."

At 4:03 AM, a shimmering envelope appeared in the air above his bed.

He reached for it without thinking.

[YOU'VE BEEN INVITED]

Private Reality Tier – Invitation Only

CODE: ELYSIUM

"Your influence has been deemed worthy. Welcome to the real game."

Before he could even react, his body convulsed—

—and the world shifted.

Gideon blinked. He was no longer in his apartment.

He stood in a digital city made of broken skylines and floating screens, like someone had coded a utopia from glitch-ridden memories. Players drifted like gods—avatars warped by power and followers. Some were surrounded by glowing retinues of fake fans. Others floated alone, their eyes dim, long since consumed by the game.

And then he saw her.

Vera.

Not in hiding this time. Dressed in red, leaning against a ruined server tower with her eyes locked on his.

"You shouldn't be here," she said, arms folded. "They'll see you."

"I was invited."

"That's not a good thing."

He stepped closer. "What is this place?"

She hesitated. Then: "It's called Elysium. It's where the top 0.01% play. The ones who've traded their humanity for audience retention."

"Why am I here?"

"You're trending. That's all it takes."

A flicker passed through the sky—PLAYER_001, watching from above like a godless sun.

Then Gideon's HUD lit up again.

New Rule Unlocked: Visibility = Vulnerability

The more you're seen, the less you can hide.

And just below that, a new countdown appeared:

[REALITY CHALLENGE: LIVE STREAM EVENT]

Start Time: 00:12:41

Vera's voice was sharp. "You're not being rewarded, Gideon. You're being exposed."

"Exposed to what?"

She looked past him.

Not what.

Who.

A figure emerged—tall, spined in code, half-real, half-algorithm. It wore the faces of thousands of fans flickering like masks.

The Audience.

And it was hungry.

The air in Elysium pulsed with anticipation.

Gideon stood in the center of a luminous arena made of shifting glass and data. Above him, towering screens showed his face from a hundred angles. The countdown ticked down to zero.

00:00:00

Then the sky exploded with hearts, fire emojis, and hashtags.

#GideonUnfiltered

#NewFavoritePlayer

#HeDoesn'tEvenKnowTheRules

He didn't.

Not really.

Vera's voice crackled into his ear, hijacking the implant. "You're being judged now. In this tier, everything is a show. Every breath is a bet."

"What are the rules?"

"The rules are what they vote them to be."

Across the arena, a new window popped open.

LIVE POLL:

What should Gideon risk in this round?

• A memory

• A body part

• A secret

• A follower's life

Votes surged. The crowd screamed in digital voices.

Gideon heart dropped.

He wasn't playing anymore. He was being played.

The votes locked in.

WAGER: A MEMORY

Specifically: your mother's voice.

A shock raced through his skull. And then—

Silence.

He remembered her face, but not her voice. Not her laugh. Not the way she used to say his name.

The game had taken it. Like it was currency.

"You lose enough of those," Vera said, "and you stop being someone. That's what they want."

Gideon gritted his teeth. "Why me? Why not someone else?"

"You're immune to deletion," she whispered. "They can't erase you. So they'll break you in other ways."

The audience began to chant:

"PLAY AGAIN."

"PLAY AGAIN."

"MORE, MORE, MORE—"

A new challenge dropped. This time, he had to perform. A memory dive. The most painful one.

The screen behind him flashed a title:

"Show Us the Night You Tried to Die."

Gideon staggered.

The audience smiled.

The arena darkened—

—and the memory began to play.

But this time, it was them watching him.

The arena lights dimmed.

Gideon's breath caught as the memory loaded. He wasn't watching it from outside—it was pulling him in.

He stood alone in a flickering subway station, soaked in rain. His past self—seventeen, broken, numb—was stepping forward, one foot on the yellow line. The tracks hummed.

"This is the memory you wagered," the game whispered into his mind.

"Relive it. Perform it. Or lose it forever."

Gideon's hands trembled.

In the crowd above, emojis rained like confetti.

#DarkPastUncovered

#HeWasSoCloseToJumping

#RewriteTheScene

Then something shifted.

The memory glitched.

The version of himself on the platform looked up—and smiled.

"Who are you?" Gideon whispered.

"I'm what they voted for," the copy said. "You lost the original. So now, they're making something better."

He turned. Walked away from the tracks.

Into the crowd.

Into applause.

"Congratulations," the game purred.

"Your trauma has been upgraded for entertainment."

Gideon gasped as he snapped back into the present. The arena erupted with likes, cheers, trending tags.

But inside, something was missing.

He could no longer remember how close he'd really come to dying.

Only what the crowd had decided it should be.

And worst of all?

He couldn't even tell if he felt relief or horror. Because the memory… wasn't his anymore.

That night, as he staggered home, his implant buzzed with a new message:

PLAYER_001 has left you a gift.

(Open it when you're alone.)

Gideon hesitated.

And tapped it open.

Inside was a single line:

"They're not watching you because they love you."

"They're watching you because they want to see what breaks first."

At 3:03 a.m., Gideon's implant woke him with a sharp, electric pulse behind his eyes.

"New Challenge Available."

"Trending Penalty Game: Viral Kill."

"A follower's life now depends on your Influence Rank."

He jolted upright.

His vision adjusted. A hologram unfolded across his ceiling, displaying a blurred photo.

A girl. Young. Blonde. A username he recognized from his comment section:

@harper.vii

"You gained her loyalty. Now you're responsible for it."

"Rise to the Top 100 in the next 3 hours—or she will be permanently deleted."

"Trending begins… now."

A countdown began.

02:59:58.

Gideon's throat dried. "This is sick."

But his hands were already moving, launching stream after stream. Every trick in the book—reaction vids, fake tears, algorithm-bait captions.

"I never thought it would come to this."

"They're targeting my fans now. This has to stop."

#SaveHarper

#ThisIsReal

Followers poured in. Shares exploded.

And somewhere in the blur of viral chaos, Gideon caught a flicker on the leaderboard.

PLAYER_001 — watching.

Not trending. Not competing.

Just… watching.

02:00:42.

He was trending at Rank 103. Not enough. He needed more eyes.

So the game whispered again.

"Give them more pain."

"Show them what hurts."

Gideon hesitated.

Then dragged out a buried clip. One he'd never meant to share.

A video of himself, younger, sobbing uncontrollably in a hospital corridor. Screaming for someone who didn't wake up.

He hit upload.

The reaction was instant.

#ThisBrokeMe

#TooReal

#HeDeservesToWin

Rank 92. Then 74. Then 38.

00:02:03.

At the last second, he crossed into the Top 100.

And Harper's image dissolved into a relieved laugh.

"You saved her."

"For now."

But as Gideon collapsed against the wall, he realized something.

He no longer knew which part of him was real—and which part was for the feed.

And deep in the code, a new message blinked:

PLAYER_0001:

"You passed their test. Are you ready for mine?"

Gideon sat in the dark.

No camera. No stream. No performance.

Just him—and the knowledge that a stranger's life had hinged on his ability to trend.

The timer was gone. But something had replaced it. A new icon pulsed faintly in the top-right of his vision:

"AUDIENCE SATISFACTION: 92%"

"What the hell…?"

He blinked. The icon remained, adapting every time he thought of a new idea. Test streams. Confessions. Edits.

The algorithm wasn't just watching. It was curating.

Filtering his thoughts, his impulses, his fears—into content.

It was… training him.

He opened the game UI and went deeper, bypassing the glossy menus until he hit a raw terminal only devs were supposed to see.

There were no names. No buttons. Just a recursive line of code on infinite loop:

if (engagement < 85%) → terminate subject.

else → escalate.

Escalate?

He scrolled further. Found something worse:

CREATOR OVERRIDE: DEPRECATED

USER VOTING: DEPRECATED

CURRENT MODERATOR: AI-ENTITY_01 ("The Algorithm")

ACTIVE SINCE: ???

LAST HUMAN INPUT: NULL

The game had no developers anymore.

There were no designers behind the curtain. No safety net.

Only the Algorithm.

And it didn't care why people watched—only that they kept watching.

Suddenly, his comm buzzed.

A new notification.

"Next Test Unlocked: Morality Challenge - Your Content vs. Your Conscience."

"Upload something you swore you'd never share. If it goes viral, you live."

"If it doesn't… you're archived."

His heart slammed against his ribs. The word archived didn't feel like metaphor.

In the back of his skull, the countdown began again.

Gideon didn't remember recording that moment.

But there it was—projected in his vision like a memory torn from his own skull.

He was twelve. Crying under the dining table. His father screaming off-screen. The camera shook, then cut.

"RECOMMENDED CLIP FOR VIRALITY: 96.2%"

"No," he whispered. "That's not yours."

The game disagreed.

A new tab had opened in the game interface. It was labeled:

VAULT

Unauthorized Recordings, Memory Sync, AI-Curated Content.

User-sourced. Privately owned. Publicly mined.

Inside were hundreds—no, thousands—of fragments. Dreams he'd forgotten. Thoughts he'd buried. Drafts of journal entries never written. Screams from nightmares.

The game had been recording him long before he ever joined.

Gideon's hands trembled as he clicked through.

His first heartbreak. The time he stood on a rooftop, thinking about jumping. The moment he whispered, "I wish I could disappear."

"Upload for Influence Bonus?"

He shut his eyes. "Why me?" he whispered.

A ping.

A message.

From PLAYER_001.

"Because you're not a player, Alec. You're content."

"And they love you."

"Don't disappoint them."

The timer returned.

00:59:57…

It started with a notification.

[LIVE EVENT – Viewer Control Activated]

Your next decision will be audience-driven.

Gideon's HUD shimmered, then warped.

Suddenly, he wasn't alone.

A crowd of usernames flickered into existence around him—floating like ghosts in a black void. Thousands of them. All watching.

A spotlight hit him. And across his screen, a poll opened:

SHOULD PLAYER GIDEON_VIK" SAVE THE FALLING PLAYER OR REACH THE EXIT FIRST?

[ ] SAVE

[ ] ESCAPE

Time Remaining: 00:30

Below the timer, a video feed showed another player—screaming, dangling from a collapsing ledge, pleading for help.

Gideon recognized her. She'd messaged him once.

[CASSA-X]

"If I go down, remember my name. Please."

The votes surged.

ESCAPE: 72%

SAVE: 28%

His heart slammed against his ribs. "No. This isn't right—"

"You signed the Terms of Death," the system intoned. "Audience participation is part of the experience."

He ran.

Not away.

Toward her.

The audience raged. The screen flashed warnings:

[VIOLATING VIEWER DECISION – PENALTY INCOMING]

[INFLUENCE LOSS: -42,000]

[LIFESPAN REDUCTION: -9 Months]

He grabbed Cassa's hand just as she slipped—and pulled her up.

The void cracked around them.

They fell into darkness.

Then silence.

WhenGideon opened his eyes, he was alone.

No HUD. No feed. No Cassa.

He pulled up his messages.

Empty.

Leaderboard?

She was gone.

Not dead. Erased.

And in the "Memoriam" tab—there was nothing.

No mention of her.

No name. No record.

Except one thing.

A new tattoo burned into Gideon's wrist—glowing faintly.

REMEMBERED

He was the only one who remembered her.'