Chapter 18: What Have I Done?

The stream had been going for hours. My voice was hoarse, my eyes felt dry, and my desk was covered in energy drink cans and open notebooks—but the adrenaline had kept me riding the wave. Until now.

I glanced at the viewer count. Still over 100,000. Insane. But I had to wrap up.

"Alright, folks," I said, leaning into the mic with a tired grin. "It's been an unreal ride tonight. I can't believe how far this game's already come. You all are the reason it's alive. Keep surviving out there, and remember: listen for the coils."

The chat exploded in cheers, emotes, hearts, and "goodbyes" as I waved and clicked the "End Stream" button.

Silence.

For the first time all night, my room felt still. The buzz of Twitch chat, the blinking alerts, the rapid-fire questions—they were all gone. I took a long breath and leaned back in my chair, staring up at the ceiling.

And then it hit me.

I had said it. Out loud. On stream.

"I'm going to release full monster lore soon."

I sat there frozen.

"...Why did I say that?"

My system—my personal development suite—was incredible. It handled assets, AI behavior, movement scripts, procedural generation, even monster animations. I told it what I wanted, and it delivered.

But lore?Backstory?Mythology?

That was all on me.

The system didn't tell stories. It didn't explain why a Bracken hides in the dark or why the Coil Head waits until you look away to strike. That was me now.

"Am I really about to write... actual lore?"

I wheeled away from my desk and stared at the blank whiteboard on the wall like it had personally betrayed me.

"Bro..." I muttered. "Why did I say that?"

This wasn't the plan. None of this was the plan.

I thought this would be easy. A fun project. Let the system generate a weird little horror game, throw it on Steam, maybe get a few hundred players. Freeload the whole process.

The system was supposed to do the work. Not me.

I wasn't supposed to be in meetings. I wasn't supposed to be streaming. And I definitely wasn't supposed to be worldbuilding.

This wasn't my job.

I slumped forward, hands dragging down my face.

"I'm not a writer. I'm not... a storyteller. I'm a guy with a weird AI and a computer and no filter."

I turned back to my monitor and opened a blank document. Typed in the title:

Monster Lore

And then just stared at it.

I didn't know what to write. I didn't know where to start. I didn't even know what the monsters were. All I had was a bunch of terrifying mechanics and behaviors the system had built based on vague prompts and preferences.

And now I was supposed to tie it all together with some emotional, cryptic, terrifying story that made people cry and obsess over wiki entries?

"Nope," I said out loud, pushing away from the desk. "I can't do this."

I stood up and started pacing the room.

"I thought I could just drop the game, ride the hype wave, and let the system carry the rest. Now I'm here talking about lore? What am I doing? What have I done?"

I stared at the monitor again, at that cursed blank document. The blinking cursor mocked me like a monster itself.

"Should I hire someone?"

That thought stopped me cold.

"Yeah. Yeah. That could work. I could hire a writer. Or a whole team. Let them figure out why Bracken waits behind you, or why the Nut Cracker's jaw is broken sideways. Let them worry about what the Company really is."

I sat back down and leaned into my hands.

"But then... would it still feel like my game?"

I didn't know the answer. But I knew I was spiraling.

One minute I was adding Twitch integration. The next, I was a one-man indie dev hero, and now... I was expected to be a lore master?

"I should've just stayed quiet," I muttered. "Should've let the monsters be monsters."

But it was too late. The fans were already theorizing. The Reddit was already flooded. The demand was already there.

And worst of all?

I was kind of excited.

But I wouldn't admit that out loud.

Not yet.