The Red Corridor stretched before them, endless and silent. The sealed doors stood like tombs, each one hiding something.
Aya exhaled slowly. "This place feels… wrong."
Ethan nodded, running a hand across one of the doors. It was cold—unnaturally so. Even through his gloves, it felt like touching frozen steel.
The small display screen beside it flickered weakly.
> [STATUS: SEALED]
No handle. No keypad. No obvious way to open it.
Aya tapped the screen. "Any chance you can hack it?"
Ethan's System remained silent.
That was never a good sign.
"I can try." He pressed his hand against the panel, focusing his Exploit Vision.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then—
The screen changed.
> [WARNING: RESTRICTED ACCESS]
- Prototype Security Lock Engaged
- Last Opened: ERROR
- Administrator: ERROR
Aya raised an eyebrow. "That's not ominous at all."
Ethan's fingers twitched. The System had locked this door, but someone had accessed it before. The data was corrupted, but the fact that there was a last access log at all meant someone had been here.
Recently.
He exhaled and focused.
> [System Exploit Available: Attempt Override?]
Yes.
A low humming sound filled the corridor. The door trembled slightly, as if reacting to the override attempt. The display flickered—
Then something slammed against the other side.
Aya jumped back. "Holy—"
Ethan froze. The impact had been violent.
A second later, it happened again. Something was inside.
And it wanted out.
Aya's hand hovered over her knife. "Maybe we don't open that."
Ethan agreed. But before he could cancel the override—
> [ERROR: Lock Compromised]
- Security Response Engaged
The lights flickered violently.
Then, from somewhere deeper in the corridor, a low mechanical voice echoed through the air.
> "Unauthorized Access Detected. Activating Countermeasures."
Aya swore. "That can't be good."
The door's screen turned red.
Then, from behind them—
Something moved.
---
The Watchers
Ethan turned sharply, heart pounding.
Further down the corridor, shadows stirred.
Tall, humanoid figures emerged from the dim red lighting. They were featureless, their bodies covered in smooth, black plating, their heads helmet-like with no visible eyes.
They moved silently, their footsteps impossibly light.
Aya's grip on her knife tightened. "Are those… guards?"
Ethan's System finally responded.
> [Hostile Entities Identified: SYSTEM WATCHERS]
- Security Protocol Enforcers
- Threat Level: UNKNOWN
- Combat Data: UNAVAILABLE
Ethan's stomach dropped.
If the System itself had no combat data, that meant one thing—no one had ever fought these things and lived.
The Watchers moved faster.
Ethan grabbed Aya's arm. "Run."
She didn't argue.
They sprinted down the corridor, the Watchers pursuing without a sound. The red lights overhead distorted, glitching in and out, casting long, shifting shadows.
A door ahead flickered—unlocked.
Ethan didn't hesitate. He grabbed the handle and pulled.
The door slid open just as the Watchers lunged—
And both he and Aya tumbled inside.
The door slammed shut behind them.
--
They barely escape into an unknown room. But what's waiting for them on the other side?
The Red Corridor isn't just a prison—it's hiding something deeper.
The Forgotten Cell
The door slammed shut, cutting off the Watchers.
Aya stumbled back, chest heaving. "Okay… that was close."
Ethan didn't respond. His eyes scanned the room they had just escaped into.
It was nothing like the corridor outside.
The walls were lined with flickering monitors, displaying lines of broken code and old, corrupted video feeds. The floor was littered with scattered data drives, some shattered, others still active.
At the center of the room…
A single containment pod.
Aya stepped forward cautiously. "Is that… a stasis pod?"
Ethan nodded. He'd seen similar structures before in the ruined labs of the old world, used for preserving critical personnel before the Apocalypse Update.
But this one… was different.
The glass was cracked. The wires connecting it to the surrounding machines had been ripped out.
And inside…
A person.
Or at least, what was left of one.
---
The Lost Player
The figure inside the pod was thin, almost skeletal, their skin pale with veins of glowing blue circuitry. Their hair was long, tangled, their face partially hidden beneath a metallic visor fused to their skull.
And on their chest—
A faint System sigil, glowing weakly.
Ethan's breath caught. "No way…"
Aya frowned. "What? You know them?"
Ethan swallowed. Not personally. But he'd seen their name before—once, deep in the System's hidden logs.
A name connected to the very first player of the Apocalypse Update.
The name flashed across the cracked display on the pod.
> [Subject: Player_0001]
- Status: Critical
- System Integration: 99% Complete
- Consciousness: Suspended
Aya took a step back. "Wait. Player One? Like—the first person ever logged into this damn game?"
Ethan nodded slowly. "The original."
Aya crossed her arms. "And they're still alive?"
"Barely."
His mind raced. This person had been here for years. The Apocalypse Update had wiped out nearly everyone, yet the first player had somehow survived.
Or maybe… they had never been allowed to die.
Ethan's System pinged him again.
> [System Exploit Available: Attempt Manual Awakening?]
He hesitated.
The first player was locked in stasis for a reason. If the System—or whatever controlled this place—had kept them asleep, waking them up could be dangerous.
But they also might have answers.
Aya glanced at him. "Well? We waking them up?"
Ethan took a deep breath.
Then—he made his choice.
> [Manual Awakening: CONFIRMED]
The room trembled.
The pod's machinery hissed, releasing a cloud of freezing mist as the locks disengaged. The monitors around them flickered wildly, some flashing ERRORS, others displaying fragments of old memories.
Aya tensed, hand on her knife. "Here we go…"
The figure in the pod stirred.
A slow breath—the first in years.
Then—
Their eyes snapped open.