Kapitel 7: Return to reality
He was lying on the ground, his vision spinning, the air thick with the stench of copper. He blinked hard, feeling a wave of nausea wash over him as he took in the scene around him.
It was his own bedroom—only it was smeared with blood. A dark, glistening stain stretched across the floor, reaching nearly to his hand. For a moment, his mind went blank as he took it in, the coppery smell filling his lungs.
In the far corner of the room, he could see the outline of a crumpled figure lying unnaturally still.
The shock jolted him back to full awareness. Heart racing, he scrambled to his feet, fighting back the bile rising in his throat. His mind spun, struggling to make sense of where he was and what he was seeing.
But no explanation came.
This was his reality, this wasn't a simulation, and now, he was staring down the aftermath of something horrific.
He looked down and froze. Dark smears of blood stained the floor beside his bed, smeared across the hardwood like a brutal frame around his feet. The sight shocked him into silence, his pulse hammering as his gaze locked onto the stains, each red streak as vivid as if it had been freshly spilled.
He blinked. The blood vanished.
He forced a shaky breath and looked again, searching for any trace, any sign he hadn't imagined it. The floor was spotless. He was about to let out a relieved breath when the stains reappeared, deeper this time, as though they'd soaked into the wood itself.
Jamie's pulse quickened, his fingers digging into the sheets. He squeezed his eyes shut, panic clawing at his mind, but he forced himself to look again. The blood had disappeared.
He blinked once more. The blood was back.
It flickered in and out with each blink, each closing of his eyes, until, finally, it stopped, leaving the floor pristine. He couldn't shake the lingering metallic scent of copper that filled his senses.
The realization settled over him with a sickening clarity. This wasn't a nightmare, and it wasn't his imagination. The hallucination had felt too real, too visceral to ignore. He let out a breath, his chest tightening as he tried to steady himself. A side effect, he told himself, from dying in the simulation. Maybe even from burning that card.
But no matter how he reasoned, the creeping unease wouldn't fade.
Downstairs, Jamie heard his mother's call—steady, clipped, and entirely devoid of warmth. The sound pulled him out of his haze, grounding him just enough to focus. He steadied himself, forcing his feet to carry him forward even as his mind kept spinning. Each step felt heavy, as though he were wading through water, his thoughts stuck on the images of blood and Ebonshade's mocking grin.
He walked down the hall toward the dining room, where he could already hear the clink of silverware, the quiet murmur of voices. It was a routine scene, but to Jamie, everything felt wrong—like he was only half there, viewing the moment through a film of fog. He hesitated at the doorway, catching sight of his family.
At the head of the table sat his mother, Sarah, her expression blank as she focused on carefully slicing her food. His father, Charles Wentworth Sr., sat across from her, his gaze sharp and calculating, as though mentally sifting through each of them, always assessing. Beside him sat Jamie's stepmother, Evelyn, with her perfectly composed expression, projecting a veneer of calm that Jamie knew was only skin-deep.
Caroline, his eldest half-sister, sat across from him, scrolling through her phone, only glancing up when something in the conversation interested her. His younger half-brother, Charles Jr., or "Charlie," was seated further down, already in the middle of a story about his latest business venture, trying to impress their father. Lizzy and Bella, the youngest, sat at the far end, whispering and laughing over some inside joke, oblivious to the tension rippling through the table.
Jamie slid into his chair, feeling his father's gaze settle on him briefly before moving on. For a second, it was almost as though Charles's eyes flickered with faint disappointment, a silent judgment that Jamie had learned to ignore.
Evelyn's gaze landed on him next, a slight tightening around her mouth. "Good of you to join us," she said, her tone veiled with that particular blend of disapproval she reserved just for him.
Jamie forced a polite nod, reaching for his plate. As the smell of the food hit him, a strange wave of familiarity washed over him— but what was funny was he had never tasted this dish in his life.
He hesitated, fork midway to his mouth. This… What was wrong? He couldn't tell what was wrong but something felt wrong. Jamie's grip on the fork tightened as he fought to recall it, each second of silence stretching out painfully.
"Jamie," Sarah's voice broke through, laced with a touch of irritation. "Why aren't you eating? It's your favorite."
Favorite. The word made Jaime's heart thunder really fast.
She said it as though it were obvious, and it was. But as the word "favorite" hit him, Jamie felt a spike of confusion twist through his mind. He didn't even know what it was, what he was supposed to love. Favorite. Jaime wasn't the type of person that picked favorites out of liking, most things grew on him from learned habits, meaning he ate it enough times to have a preference for it.
Ate it enough times to have a preference for it. How many times had he eaten it? One? Two? 50? A hundred? He couldn't even remember one time he'd eaten this dish.
He glanced down, watching the food on his plate as if it might give him the answer. His pulse quickened. How can I not remember?
Finally, he forced a bite, swallowing mechanically, barely tasting it. The absence gnawed at him, a hollow frustration settling in his chest as he glanced around the table, trying to steady himself. None of them noticed his discomfort. They never did.
"You're not sick, are you?" Evelyn's eyes were still on him, the question empty of any actual concern. "You look… pale."
"I'm fine," Jamie replied, forcing a small smile that didn't reach his eyes. He focused on keeping his expression neutral, trying to push down the strange, rising anxiety.
But his mind was racing, pieces coming together in fits and starts. The flashes of blood upstairs, his mother's casual reminder that this was his "favorite" dish, the blank memory. Memory loss. The words fell into place in his mind, sharp and unsettling. It's a side effect.
Across the table, his father's voice broke through Jamie's spiraling thoughts. "So, Jamie." Charles set down his fork, his gaze pinning him with a cold intensity. "Have you been keeping up with the reports on this… simulation phenomenon?"
Jamie looked up, his mind still muddled, but he nodded instinctively. He'd read about it, had been following the stories ever since they'd started appearing. Was he asking out of genuine interest? Jamie doubted it.
"Have you heard anything about how people are selected?" Charles's voice was low, deliberate, each word measured. His tone was the same one he used when analyzing company strategy—like he was dissecting something.
Jamie forced a nod. "There doesn't seem to be a pattern. It's… random. Nobody knows how or why people are chosen."
His father's lips pressed together thoughtfully, his gaze narrowing. Jamie could almost feel the weight of his father's ambitions, the fixation he'd seen so many times before in the man's eyes. This isn't curiosity. He sees it as an asset.
The uncomfortable silence stretched as Charles scrutinized him, before turning his attention back to his food. Jamie pushed down a sigh of relief, grateful for the reprieve, but his thoughts continued to spin.
This family dinner, so ordinary and routine, felt twisted now. Jamie's mind kept returning to the name of his favorite dish—its absence haunting him, just like the memory of Ebonshade's grin. The missing memory, the flashes of blood—this wasn't coincidence. He had a feeling it was only the beginning, a warning sign, a terrible one.
Back in his room, Jamie closed the door behind him and locked it, his mind already turning over the fragments of memory from the simulation. He went to his desk, pulling out a notebook, needing to make sense of it all.
He wrote in short, sharp sentences, listing everything he remembered with precision. Every detail felt essential, like a piece of a puzzle that could hold the answers he needed. What was it? How had it moved, changed, appeared and disappeared like that? And why had it been so fixated on me?
His hand stilled. He realized that, no matter how much he analyzed it, Ebonshade's motives and nature slipped just beyond his understanding. It felt like trying to catch smoke in his hands.
Was it just a mission? The question lingered in his mind, sending an uncomfortable shiver down his spine. It was easier to think of it that way, to reduce the encounter to a failed task, a test he simply hadn't passed. But the lingering memories—the flashes of blood, the missing pieces of his memory—made it clear that this wasn't just another mission.
A sudden flicker caught his eye. He turned toward the mirror hanging on his wall, feeling his heartbeat quicken. Ebonshade's twisted face flickered there, its grin spreading across his reflection, hollow eyes watching him. Jamie's breath hitched as he blinked, forcing himself to look closer.
"Crap,"
The reflection was normal again, his own face staring back at him.
He gritted his teeth, shutting his notebook, his mind on edge. Maybe it's a side effect from dying in the simulation, he told himself, pushing down the discomfort. Or maybe Ebonshade left something behind.
Desperation clawed at him as he turned to his computer. He began typing in search terms, his fingers moving almost unconsciously as he sifted through article after article: apparition, malevolent spirit, hallucinations. Each search brought him deeper into theories and legends, none of them matching what he'd seen. He scrolled until his eyes ached, his frustration mounting.
One article caught his attention, the headline strange and out of place:
"Family Massacre in July: Survivor Testifies It Was the Man Who Laughs."
Jamie's eyes widened as he clicked. The article described a young man accused of killing his family in a frenzy, claiming a "demon who laughs" had driven him to it. The details were sparse, but the words struck a nerve, each one bringing back flashes of Ebonshade's eerie, mocking grin.
A link led him to footage of the court trial. Jamie's finger hovered over the play button for a moment, his pulse hammering, before he clicked.
The video was grainy, but he could see the accused—a young man, pale and gaunt, eyes wide with a mix of terror and exhaustion. He looked nothing like a cold-blooded killer. His voice cracked as he testified, his hands gripping the stand.
"It wasn't me! It was him! The demon… the man who laughs. He's laughing now—you hear it, don't you? He's here, in this room, watching me!" His voice rose to a shout, his face twisted in terror as he whipped around, as if searching for the invisible entity haunting him.
Jamie's stomach twisted, his blood running cold. The young man's frantic gaze, the trembling in his voice… it felt too familiar.
His eyes drifted to the date in the article's footer, his breath catching.
July 26, 2023. The same date the first player had returned from the simulation.
Wöchentlicher Energiestatus
-- Power-
Rangliste 
-- Power-
Stein