The town was dead long before Asher arrived.
Collapsed roofs. Boarded doors. Windows like blind eyes. The mist clung to everything—refusing to burn off, refusing to let go.
Parasight fed him data as he moved through the outskirts, unseen.
> [Stealth XP: 4%]
[Kill Points: 15]
[Entropy: 3.7%]
[Replay Log Active]
[Subsystem Suggestion: Weapon Acquisition]
[Objective: Secure Armament – Urban Ruin Priority]
A whisper tickled the edge of his hearing—code, glitch-like and low. Not audible. Not real. A side effect of Parasight, perhaps. Or a symptom of something deeper, older.
He ducked into the ruins of a hardware store, shelves warped with rot.
> [Scanning…]
[Valid Weapon Found – Rusted Survival Knife]
[Status: Serviceable | Durability: 34%]
He wrapped his fingers around the hilt.
Cold. Familiar.
Too familiar.
The moment his hand closed, the system pulsed again.
> [Memory Fragment – Locked]
[Trigger Conditions: Entropy Threshold Not Met]
It was getting harder to ignore. Whatever he'd been—whoever he was before the ritual—Parasight had buried it deep. Maybe to protect him. Maybe to keep him on a leash.
He sheathed the blade and stepped back into the street.
A movement. Quick.
A shape darted behind a distant alley.
Not a person.
But not the thing from the woods either.
A mask. A hood. Limbs that bent just a little too far the wrong way.
A Proxy?
He'd studied the stories. Creepypasta lore lived in the digital rot of forgotten forums. But this was no fiction.
> [Observation Logged – Behavioral Match: Proxy-Class Anomaly]
[Threat Level: Variable]
[Action: Optional Engagement]
He didn't follow.
Not yet.
The system wasn't about mercy or morality—it was about function.
So he waited.
> [Subsystem Notice – New Skill Available for Purchase]
["Shadow Flicker" – Cost: 100 KP | XP Required: 50%]
[Current XP: 4%]
[KP Available: 15]
Not enough. Not yet.
He'd need to kill for more.
He drifted through the town like smoke, marking every entry point, every body-shaped shadow behind windows that might not be abandoned.
The silence wasn't empty here.
It was waiting.
He slipped inside a broken church. The altar was stained, the pews burned. Symbols of Zalgo scratched into the wood.
And at the base of the altar, a decayed file.
He picked it up.
> [Item Acquired – Cultist Log #3]
["The ritual must happen on the 17th night. The Gate is thinning. The god will consume what remains."]
They'd tried to summon Zalgo.
And summoned him instead.
Maybe that was the only reason he was alive.
Not fate.
Not luck.
Just… interference.
A system meant to latch onto something.
And it had chosen him.
> [Entropy: 3.9%]
He stepped out of the church, blade drawn.
The hunt would begin soon.
And with it—
The answers.