I didn't blink.
I didn't breathe right either. Every time I tried, my chest felt tight. Like the air wasn't enough.
Twelve minutes left.
The upside-down creature still hung there. Its limbs didn't move. But I knew it was listening. I knew it was waiting for someone to break.
Nobody moved.
Then the train shifted. Just slightly. A bump under the tracks.
The lights above flickered again, and another one of those long limbs twitched. It was fast. Sharp. But it didn't move toward anyone.
A man near the front tried to press himself into the corner. His head was down. His knees up. I think he was crying, but no sound came out. Smart. He didn't break the rules.
Another minute passed.
[Viewer: "One Who Writes With Bones" is watching your stream]
[Pulse Donation: 0.02 Units]
Another tiny ding in my ear.
That was three Viewers now.
I swallowed hard and dared to glance at the timer in the corner of my vision. Ten minutes left.
The floating teddy bear hadn't moved. Still smiling. Still bobbing slightly in the air like it was on invisible strings.
It finally spoke again.
"Doing great, everyone! Hang in there!"
Its voice was still cheerful. Like nothing had happened. Like someone hadn't just disappeared from reality for touching a door.
I wanted to scream at it. But I didn't.
I stared at the upside-down Passenger again. It had twisted its head in a new direction, listening to something else now. I couldn't tell if it was breathing.
The cloth on its face moved just a little.
I didn't want to know what was under it.
Eight minutes.
Another sound.
Skittering, fast, behind us. I didn't look. I couldn't. My head was stuck forward, my eyes locked on the red lights and the shapes between the seats.
[Third Passenger has boarded.]
[Crawling variant: "Porcelain Child"]
[Movement-based trigger: Stay still]
A warning flashed in my head just before I heard it crawl under the seats.
Something brushed my foot.
I bit down hard on my lip.
It was slow. Careful. The sound of it crawling echoed too loud in the car. Someone near the back made a sound like they were choking.
The crawling stopped.
We all froze.
Then it started up again—moving away.
Five minutes.
Four.
The first Passenger was gone now. It had slithered back into the hole it came from. The roof was still torn open. Cold air leaked in. I didn't care.
I kept counting the seconds.
The Porcelain Child was near the middle now. I could see a white hand gripping the edge of a seat. It had too many fingers.
My pulse was loud in my ears. Every second felt like it might be the one where something moved wrong.
Three minutes.
Two.
The teddy bear floated forward. "Final minute! Smile for the Viewers!"
I didn't.
I didn't do anything.
Then the lights blinked three times.
___
[Orientation Trial Completed]
[Zone Trial Cleared: SURVIVED]
[Viewer Count: 4]
[Total Pulse Earned: 0.03 Units]
___
The red lights faded.
The creatures were gone.
Just like that.
No flash. No sound. They just weren't there anymore.
The doors unlocked with a soft hiss. The tension in the car dropped like a stone. A woman dropped to her knees. Someone started sobbing. Another person threw up into their hands.
I sat back.
My whole body felt like I'd been holding a thousand pounds in place.
The teddy bear floated to the center of the car. It did a little spin and bowed in midair.
"Congratulations, Survivors! You've cleared the Orientation Kill Zone!"
Nobody clapped.
The bear smiled anyway.
"Let me officially introduce myself now. I'm the Guide assigned to Zone 7A, Earth Beta group. You can just call me Bow!"
It gave a little salute.
"I'm here to monitor, guide.!"
One guy stood up near the door. "What the hell is this? Where are we? What the fuck was that?!"
The bear tilted its head. "A valid question!"
A screen appeared in the air behind it. Flat, clean text on black.
___
[EIDOLIVE SYSTEM LOG – ORIENTATION KILL ZONE COMPLETE]
Entered: 122
Eliminated: 39
Survived: 83
Viewer-Reported Deaths: 11 (Replay Confirmed)
Main Cause of Death: Movement During Active Trigger
Stream Quality: Below Standard
Top Performer: Julian.K
Viewer Tags Assigned: "Frozen Conviction", "Unblinking"
Pulse Earned (Total): 4.21 Units
___
Bow floated toward the screen. It spun around once like it thought we cared.
"Pretty rough round," it said. "But not bad for a first step! You didn't explode, get flayed, or cry on stream. That alone puts you above the average!"
Someone dry-heaved in the corner.
The bear didn't stop smiling.
The screen shifted.
___
[Current Streamer Stats – Global Dungeon Transfer]
Total Active Streamers: 3,204,183,921
Earth-Origin: 2,987,110,482
Cross-Realm Streamers: 217,073,439
Active Zone Trials: 5,239,771
Viewer Activity (Last Hour): Stable
Pulse Flow: 12,877.44 Units
Deceased Streamers (Last Hour): 16,097,118
Most Popular Trial Tag: "One-Way Death Maze"
Top Viewer Gift: "Delirium Lens – Shattered Type"
Most-Watched Streamer: Julian.K
___
A guy near the back made a noise like laughing, but it didn't sound right.
"That's fake," he muttered. "It's a fucking vr. Some prank shit. We're drugged or something."
Nobody answered him.
Bow didn't respond either. It just floated to the center again.
"And now, your personal performance."
Another black screen popped open in front of me.
___
[Candidate ID: #820119 – Oliver Ardwin]
Zone Trial Performance: SURVIVED
Viewer Count: 4
Viewer Engagement: Low
Pulse Earned: 0.03 Units
Assigned Tags: "Quiet One at the Edge"
___
My eyes locked on the tags.
I didn't know whether to feel insulted or relieved. "Minimalist"? What did that even mean here?
The bear—Bow—spun again like it was waiting for applause.
"You've all now been successfully integrated into the EIDOLIVE Survival and Livestreaming Protocol, overseen by the Multiversal Content Syndicate!" it chirped. "That means you're now full-time streamers! Permanent, mandatory, and totally unskippable!"
The guy in the back with the broken laugh coughed something wet into his sleeve.
I stared at my stats again.
Viewer Count: 4
Four people. Or not people. Things. Beings. Watching me. Judging me. Breathing down my neck through goddamn cosmic Wi-Fi.
It made my skin crawl.
"Questions?" Bow asked, still smiling like a mascot at a theme park that had burned down years ago.
The guy who stood up earlier pointed at the roof. "The hell were those things?! Why did they just disappear?"
"Oh, those?" Bow said cheerfully. "Passengers! Every Zone Trial features unique environmental hazards and Threat Entities based on thematic and difficulty parameters. That was the Orientation Kill Zone—a soft entry with only two active Passengers. We thought you might appreciate a more manageable introduction!"
"Manageable?" someone hissed. "Forty people died."
Bow didn't blink. Of course, it didn't have eyes.
"Correct! And thank you for your sacrifice," it said with the same chipper tone. "Viewers love high-risk openers. And don't worry—stream memory is preserved forever. Every scream, every step, every silent second is already being rebroadcast in seventeen different realms!"
I wanted to throw up.
"Now," Bow clapped its fuzzy paws, "the next step is simple! We move to the Red Platform for your first formal classification."
Another screen appeared. This one was red, pulsing faintly.
[TRANSPORT INCOMING – PLEASE REMAIN STILL]
I didn't even have time to react before the car shuddered.
It wasn't like before. Not mechanical. This felt like someone had reached beneath the world and flipped a switch.
My breath caught.
The train car melted.
Not literally—but the walls bled light, lines folding, the floor curling like it had forgotten what gravity meant. There was no scream, no flash. Only a sudden, absolute shift.
Then—
We weren't in the train anymore.
We were standing on a massive stone platform under a sky that didn't look real. Color bled like ink. Stars blinked like eyes. Floating glass monoliths drifted above us.
Behind us, the train was gone.
In front of us, a wide plaza stretched out. A long crimson carpet led to a raised stage shaped like a half-circle. Dozens—no, hundreds—of people stood frozen around it, in neat columns, waiting.
Bow floated higher.
"Welcome to the Red Platform! This is a Global Orientation Hub! Please follow the indicators to your Class Sorting!"
I looked around.
People were already moving. Dazed. Silent. Some dragging others. Most still too stunned to think.
The screen hovering in front of me flickered again.
[Next Trial: "Red Platform – Streamer Classification"]
[Survival Not Guaranteed]
Bow twirled like it was introducing a party game.
"This will determine your starting Class, rank visibility, and market tier! Remember—only 20% of Streamers make it past their first week!"
I didn't move yet.
I just looked up.
One of the glass monoliths overhead turned slowly. Words etched across its surface like veins under skin.
I could feel it watching.
The same feeling from the train. Not the monsters. The ones behind the screen.
The Viewers.
I think one of them smiled.
But I couldn't tell if it was inside my head.