I was the one who played the villain. Five years ago, in a high-stakes survival horror game known as The Gloom, I targeted a background character—a literal "nobody" NPC. I used my status as a seasoned player to seduce him, toyed with his heart and his body, and then I vanished, deleting my account without a second thought. Returning to the game now, five years later, the streetscape is the same—a perpetual, rain-slicked neon noir. But standing under a flickering streetlight is a child who shouldn't exist. A translucent floating screen—the global spectator feed—scrolled frantically in my peripheral vision. [Wait, is that the Arch-Fiend’s kid? The one who eats players for breakfast?] [Poor little monster. He comes here every night looking for his ‘mommy.’ When is the Heroine finally going to enter this S-Rank zone?] The boy’s face was smeared with grime. He was scavenging, picking up a piece of raw, unidentifiable meat from the gutter. My heart twinged. I knelt beside him, reaching out to wipe his cheek with my sleeve. "Hey, kid. Didn't anyone ever tell you not to eat things off the ground?" Suddenly, the comment feed exploded. [Who is this suicide-wish NPC? She’s touching the Heroine’s kid!] [RIP. I remember this scene in the original script. This random fodder gets her hands bitten off by the Big Boss. It’s brutal.] [The Heroine saved the Boss’s life when he was weak and won the favor of the entire Nightmare Realm. She’s top three on the leaderboards. This girl is toast.] The smile on my face froze. I slowly began to retract my hand. The boy’s round, innocent eyes suddenly shifted. His pupils didn't just dilate; they narrowed into jagged, vertical slits. My pulse hammered against my ribs. "You know what? I’ll just… let your dad come find you. My mistake." 1. My hand hung suspended in the damp air. The boy was waiting for me to finish cleaning his face. He had closed his eyes, his long lashes fanning out like delicate shadows against his chubby, dirt-streaked cheeks. When I first spotted him, I was internally cursing the game’s developers for dragging a toddler into this hellscape. Everyone knew the monsters in The Gloom didn't have a biological drive to procreate; the world was filled with nothing but solitary, vengeful entities. The other Newbie players in my spawn group had hissed at me to keep moving. "Don't be a martyr, Jade. You want to die on day one?" They didn't realize this wasn't my first rodeo. Based on my clearance experience from five years ago, I knew I could protect one child. But the moment I knelt, the "Spectator Chat"—the voice of the system’s audience—revealed the truth. This wasn't just a survival game anymore. It had been overwritten. It was now a dark, twisted romance novel. The "Heroine," a player named Madison, was the savior of the Realm’s most terrifying Boss. They supposedly had a child together, and after five years of separation, they were destined for a grand, bloody reunion. Madison had used the "Love Interest’s Favor" to breeze through dozens of S-Rank trials without breaking a sweat. She was a "Mary Sue" with a cheat code, destined to escape to the real world with infinite wealth and her monster family. And I? I was the nameless casualty in the chapter where the lovers reunite. A piece of "cannonball fodder" who lacked the situational awareness to stay away from the Heroine’s son. In the original script, the Boss would find me "threatening" his cub and tear my hands off before letting the lesser ghouls feast on the rest of me. I looked at my hands—calloused, scarred from the trials I’d survived five years ago. If I lost them, my return to this world was for nothing. "Sorry, little guy," I said, my voice tight and cautious. "I’m sure your dad will be here any second." After all, he was the offspring of "The Widow"—the Great Spider of the Urban Legends sector. I’d fought every nightmare in the book, but giant arachnids were my one psychological breaking point. Just thinking about the Boss's true form made my skin crawl with phantom legs. I backed away. I had to stay alive. I had to find someone. I wondered how he was doing. That beautiful, stuttering NPC who used to cry whenever he got a scratch. He was gorgeous, but he could barely string a sentence together. I hoped the Great Spider hadn't eaten him yet. 2. The rain turned into a rhythmic drizzle. In this dark cityscape, the only thing more unreliable than the law was the lighting. The boy’s hair was matted with water, drooping like a drowned puppy's ears. When he saw my polite, distant smile, his expression shattered into something heartbreaking. He forced his mouth open, revealing rows of tiny, needle-sharp teeth. "M... Ma..." His voice was a tiny rasp, as if he hadn't quite mastered human speech. I couldn't make out the word. Before I could ask him to repeat it, a pair of hands reached out from the shadows behind him. A woman stepped forward, her face radiant with a staged, cinematic sweetness. "I finally found you, my little angel," she cooed. The spectator feed went wild. [FINALLY! The reunion! I’ve been waiting ten chapters for this!] [Madison is here! Bring on the fluff and the gore! Where’s the Boss?] The players in my group perked up, their eyes gleaming with hope. "You’re that new player, right? The 'Good Luck Charm' of the Realm? Madison?" one of them asked, practically bowing. "We’re so lucky to be in your squad. Can we kick that other woman out? She’s a liability." Madison smiled modestly, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. "Oh, it's just luck, really. Don't worry, everyone. I have... connections in this zone. I won't let anything happen to you." She wouldn't look at me. I didn't care. The kid's "mom" was here, which meant I could go look for my own ghosts. I turned to leave. A sharp tug caught the hem of my coat. The boy, who barely reached my waist, was scowling, his face twisted with panic. "Don't... go..." he managed, each syllable a struggle. The chat was stunned. [What is wrong with this kid? His mom is right there, and he’s grabbing the random girl?] [Did the fodder use a hypnotic item on him? Madison looks devastated. They say if you don't raise them yourself, they have no loyalty.] Madison’s smile flickered. She knelt, reaching for the boy with a wet wipe. "You’re so messy, sweetie. Let Mommy clean you up. I know I’m a stranger now, but we’ll be best friends soon." She must have put points into her Strength stat. She physically pried the boy’s fingers off my coat, the fabric tearing with a sharp rip. I felt a surge of cold fury, but I kept my face neutral. The boy froze. He slowly turned his head toward Madison. His eyes went dark—no whites, no color, just void. Was this woman suicidal? The boy’s pupils contracted into needles. His jaw unhinged slightly, the shark-like teeth extending. He was going to swallow this "Heroine" whole for interrupting him. "Kid. Did you hurt your hand?" My voice, calm and steady, cut through his murderous trance. I stepped between him and Madison. Instantly, the boy’s monstrous features receded. He looked up at me, then reached out and grabbed my rough, scarred hand with his small, soft one. He went quiet. Submissive. Almost forgot, he thought. Dad told me I have to act pathetic. That’s how he tricked Mom into staying the first time. The boy buried his face in my hip, hiding his expressionless eyes. I can do pathetic. 3. Against my better judgment, I stayed with the group. The kid wouldn't let Madison within three feet of him, but he clung to me like a burr. I figured I’d just deliver him to the Great Spider and be done with it. We descended into the sewers, where the air was thick with the stench of stagnant rot. It was midnight. Two meters above us, on the surface streets, the monsters were starting their nightly harvest. I crushed a crawling, severed hand under my boot. Those things were "Ankle-Biters"—if they grabbed you, you were cursed to stay in the zone until sunrise. The boy was silent, following me with an eerie, focused obedience. It reminded me of the first time I met the "Nobody." It had been in a tunnel just like this. I was running for my life, bleeding out, when I rounded a corner and saw him. His name-tag simply read [Background Character A]. He was slumped against the brickwork, his midsection a mess of torn flesh. He was gorgeous—porcelain skin, soulful eyes that looked like they were made of liquid amber. When he saw me, he didn't growl. He just started to cry, fat tears rolling down his face. I should have kept running. But my heart did a frantic little dance in my chest. It wasn't just pity; it was a primal, physical attraction. Even knowing he wasn't human—just a little monster who hid in the dark to weep—I stayed. For a week, I used "first aid" as an excuse to touch him. I mapped out every inch of his chest and shoulders under the guise of cleaning his wounds. He was soft. He didn't know how to resist. He didn't even know how to kiss. When I finally pressed my lips to his, he just blinked his golden eyes and whispered, "Sweet." I lingered as long as I could. But on the final day, I held his elegant, pale fingers and looked into his innocent eyes. "I’m sorry," I told him. "I have to go." I’d won the game. I was allowed one wish. I chose a cure for cancer. It was a promise to my mother—the woman who had worked herself to the bone to raise me, only to be diagnosed just as I finally had the means to take care of her. I had to save her life. I was a ghost. I’d taken what I wanted from that stuttering boy and vanished. Now, five years later, the "Urban Legend" zone had jumped from B-Rank to S-Rank. "The Boss is losing his mind," one of the veteran players whispered. "He used to ignore us. Now, he’s hunting players for sport. It’s like his wife ran away and he’s taking it out on the world." "Quiet," I signaled. "It’s 3:00 AM." The Witching Hour. The veil between the sewer and the nightmare realm was at its thinnest. Drip. Drip. Drip. I thought it was just the pipes. Then the scent hit me—saltwater and old scales. I looked up. A pair of lidless, milky-white eyes were staring directly down at me.
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