Chapter Text
The digital display read $1.75.
That was the price of a standard, lukewarm bottle of cherry cola. I had inserted two crumpled dollar bills into the slot, listened to the mechanical whir of the rollers as they swallowed my money, and pressed the button. The metal spiral rotated. The plastic bottle nudged forward, tilted, and then caught stubbornly on the edge of the row beneath it. It dangled there, suspended in a cruel, gravitational limbo.
I didn't have another two dollars. I just wanted my drink.
So, I did what any frustrated, thirsty guy in a dingy college breakroom would do. I grabbed the upper edges of the rusted steel behemoth and shook it. It didn't budge. I cursed under my breath, rocked back on my heels, and threw my weight forward, slamming my shoulder into the plexiglass front.
The machine rocked back. For a split second, I thought I’d won. I thought the bottle would drop, hitting the plastic flap at the bottom with a satisfying clunk.
Instead, the center of gravity shifted. The multi-hundred-pound block of iron, cooling coils, and liquid weight didn't rock back onto its feet. It tipped forward.
Panic is a cold, instantaneous spike in the chest. I tried to step back, but my heel caught the edge of a plastic recycling bin. I fell backward, arms flailing, flinching away as a massive, rectangular shadow blotted out the flickering fluorescent lights above me.
There was no cinematic slowdown. There was just a horrific, concussive CRUNCH.
The impact didn't feel like pain at first; it felt like being erased. The lower half of my torso and my thighs took the brunt of the falling edge. The sheer, kinetic force flattened my pelvis instantly, shattering bone into a wet, splintered paste. I felt the air leave my lungs in a violent, bloody spray that splattered against the underside of the machine’s metal plating.
Then came the weight. It pinned me to the linoleum floor, compressing my chest until my ribs gave way one by one, snapping inward like dry twigs. The pain finally arrived, a blinding, white-hot explosion that consumed my entire reality. I could hear the wet, tearing sounds of my own internal organs rupturing under the immense pressure. Warm fluid pooled rapidly beneath my back, soaking through my shirt.
I choked, my throat filling with a thick, metallic copper taste. My vision began to fray at the edges, dissolving into erratic bursts of static. I was dying. Over a bottle of soda. The absurdity of it fought against the absolute terror of my fading consciousness. My hands twitched weakly against the cold metal casing above me, leaving bloody streaks, before everything simply slid into an empty, silent dark.
***
There was no tunnel of light. There was no booming voice of a creator.
There was only a stark, glowing interface floating in an endless expanse of pitch black. It looked like an old CRT monitor, complete with a slight horizontal flicker and a soft, hummed frequency that resonated deep within whatever remained of my mind.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED.]
[HOST SOUL ANCHORED SUCCESSFULLY.]
[DESTINATION CHOSEN: EARTH-0 (DC UNIVERSE)]
I couldn't breathe—I didn't have lungs—but the conceptual weight of those words hit me like another falling vending machine. The DC Universe? As in the world of gods, aliens, and psychopathic clowns? A normal human in a place like that was nothing more than collateral damage waiting to happen.
Before I could form a coherent thought, the text scrolled up, replaced by stark, green typography.
[CORE FUNCTION: THE ANTHOLOGY OF TERROR.]
[OBJECTIVE: Feed the collective subconscious. Harvest the primordial currency of sentient life: FEAR.]
[MECHANIC: Generate Fear Points (FP) through the manifestations of your Summons. Higher fear thresholds unlock greater tiers of psychological, anomalous, and physical horrors.]
[STARTING BALANCE: 500 FP (First-Time Bonus)]
[SUMMON SHOP: UNLOCKED]
A massive directory unfolded before my eyes. The names staring back at me sent a genuine shudder through my ethereal form. These weren't characters from DC comic books. These were the modern myths born from the darkest corners of the early internet, forums, and VHS archives that had terrorized my childhood and kept me and many others up at night.
- Tier 1 (Creepypasta Localized): Jeff the Killer (300 FP), Ticci Toby (400 FP), Eyeless Jack (500 FP)...
- Tier 2 (Anomalous & Conceptual): Slenderman (2,500 FP), The Rake (1,800 FP), Smile Dog (1,200 FP)...
- Tier 3 (Analog Horror & Digital Malice): The Boiled One (10,000 FP), The Intruder (8,500 FP)...
- Tier 4 (Spatial Anomalies): The Backrooms: Level 0 Access (25,000 FP)...
The rules were brutally simple. I was being dropped into a universe already teeming with nightmares, and my only tool for survival was to introduce a completely foreign breed of terror. The entities wouldn't be the sanitized, fan-fiction versions made for teenage romanticization. They would be lore-accurate. They would be raw, single-minded, and horrifyingly real. And to get the power needed to survive the heavy-hitters of this world, I needed to let these monsters loose on the unsuspecting populace.
[SELECT STARTING SUMMON]
I looked at my 500 FP balance. Jeff the Killer was 300. He was the logical choice to start building capital. He wasn't a god, just a profoundly broken, mutilated human with a blade and an anomalous level of durability and stealth. A street-level nightmare. Perfect for a city that already bled darkness.
[PURCHASING: JEFF THE KILLER...]
[DEPLOYING HOST TO DESTINATION COORD: GOTHAM CITY - EAST END ALLEYWAYS.]
[GOOD LUCK.]
***
The transition was instantaneous. A freezing, rain-slicked wind slammed into my face, and I gasped, my lungs filling with air that smelled heavily of sulfur, wet asphalt, and rotting garbage.
I was alive. I looked down at my hands. They were whole, uncrushed, clad in a simple dark jacket. I was standing in a narrow, brick-walled alleyway. Towering, gothic architecture loomed above me, choking out the night sky, save for the dirty orange glow of smog-tinted streetlamps. Gotham City.
A soft ping echoed in my skull.
[CURRENT FP: 200]
[SUMMON READY: JEFF THE KILLER. (Awaiting Target Selection / Autonomous Deployment)]
I stepped deeper into the shadows of a recessed doorway, my heart hammering against my ribs. I didn't have to wait long for a target. This was the East End; predatory behavior was the local economy.
Three men turned the corner into the alleyway. They walked with the loose, arrogant swagger of low-level enforcers—likely working for Maroni or one of the local turf bosses. They were laughing, dragging a young man by the collar of his jacket. The kid was already beaten bloody, his face a swollen mask of purple bruises.
"Please, man," the kid sobbed, his boots dragging on the wet pavement. "I'll get the money. Just give me until tomorrow."
"Tomorrow was yesterday, trash," the largest of the three grunted, throwing the kid hard against a stack of wooden pallets. The wood splintered, and the kid curled into a fetal position, groaning. The large man pulled a heavy, serrated switchblade from his pocket. The blade snapped open with a sharp, clean clack.
This is it, I thought. My stomach twisted with a brief flare of human guilt, but it was quickly overridden by the cold, survivalist logic of the System. If I didn't grow, Gotham would swallow me whole.
System, I communicated silently. Summon Jeff. Deploy at the mouth of the alley.
[SUMMONING EXECUTIVE TASK...]
[ENTITY: JEFFREY WOODS. STATUS: ACTIVE.]
The temperature in the alleyway dropped instantly. The ambient sounds of distant city traffic seemed to muffle, swallowed by a sudden, heavy silence. The three thugs didn't notice it immediately, but the kid on the ground did. He let out a weak, trembling breath that fogged in the newly chilled air.
From the rain-slicked darkness near the main street, a figure stepped into the dim light of the alleyway's single bulb.
He wore a white hoodie, heavily stained with old, brown-rimmed splatters and fresh, dark streaks. His posture was unnaturally rigid, his head tilted at an awkward, predatory angle. But it was his face that made the breath catch in my throat.
The internet images did no justice to the sheer, visceral repulsiveness of the reality. There was no skin on his eyelids; they had been crudely burned away, leaving wide, unblinking eyes encircled by charred, blackened rings of dead flesh. His irises were tiny, pinpoint dots of manic white floating in a sea of bloodshot veins. And his mouth—a jagged, horrific grin had been carved from ear to ear. The edges of the wound were jagged, poorly healed scar tissue, constantly weeping a thin, pinkish fluid that mixed with the rain. His exposed teeth gleamed in the yellow light.
He held a long, kitchen knife with a worn wooden handle. His fingers twitched against the grip.
"What the hell is that?" one of the thugs muttered, squinting through the dark. "Hey! Freak! This is Falcone territory. Turn around and keep walking if you like having your guts inside you."
The entity didn't speak. He just began to walk forward. His footsteps made no sound on the wet concrete. It was an impossible, gliding motion that defied the frantic cadence of his swaying arms.
"I said freeze!" The thug pulled a cheap Saturday Night Special pistol from his waistband, his hand suddenly shaking. The unblinking, wide-eyed stare of the figure was doing its work.
[FEAR REGISTERED: DETECTING ELEVATED CORTISOL AND ADRENALINE. +15 FP]
The thug fired. The gunshot was deafening in the enclosed space. The bullet tore through the shoulder of the white hoodie, spinning the entity slightly. A dark spray of fluid erupted from the wound.
But there was no scream of pain. There was no hesitation.
Jeff simply corrected his posture, his head snapping back toward the shooter. The carved grin seemed to widen as the raw, anomalous malice animating his body took over. With an explosive burst of speed that looked almost like a glitch in reality, he closed the distance.
He didn't fight like a martial artist or a trained Gotham vigilante. He fought like a rabid animal.
He threw his weight into the first thug, driving him to the ground. Before the man could even scream, Jeff brought the kitchen knife down in a frantic, piston-like motion. Thwack. Thwack. Thwack. The blade buried itself repeatedly into the man’s throat and upper chest. Blood erupted in a rhythmic, sickening geyser, showering Jeff’s face and white hoodie. The man’s companion tried to grab Jeff's arm, but Jeff swiveled with terrifying agility, slicing backward in a wide arc.
The serrated edge caught the second thug across the eyes. A wet, horrific popping sound echoed as the blade ruined his vision, followed by a shrill, bubbling scream of absolute agony. The man fell backward, clutching his ruined face as blood poured through his fingers.
[FEAR GENERATED: DETECTING PANIC AND HORROR. +85 FP]
[FEAR GENERATED: +120 FP]
The third thug, the large one who had held the switchblade, dropped his weapon. His knees buckled. He was a hardened criminal who had seen beatings and mob executions, but this was a senseless, feral slaughter. The unblinking, lidless eyes of the monster turned to him, reflecting the dim light of the alleyway.
Jeff walked over the twitching body of his first victim, his boots squelching in the spreading pool of gore. He stood over the paralyzed thug, tilting his head until a drop of wet crimson fell from his carved chin onto the man's forehead.
In a dry, rasping whisper that sounded like dead leaves dragging across concrete, the entity spoke.
"Go... to... sleep."
The knife descended. It wasn't a clean cut. It was a brutal, hacking motion that split the man's clavicle and carved deep into his thoracic cavity. The alleyway filled with the wet, rhythmic sounds of tearing meat and the frantic, choking gasps of a dying man.
The beaten kid on the ground was hyperventilating, his eyes wide as he witnessed the butchery. He tried to crawl backward, his hands slipping in the blood that was now flowing toward the drainage grate.
[FEAR GENERATED: MAXIMUM THRESHOLD MET FOR TARGET 4. +300 FP]
I stood in the doorway, my hands trembling inside my pockets. The smell was overpowering—hot copper, fecal matter, and the acidic tang of exposed tissue. It was sickening. It was beautiful.
[TOTAL FP HARVESTED: 520 FP]
[CURRENT BALANCE: 720 FP]
Jeff stood up from the mess, his white hoodie completely ruined, dyed a deep, glistening crimson. He didn't look at me; the System kept him tethered, preventing him from turning his aggression toward his summoner, but his raw animus was palpable. He looked toward the mouth of the alleyway, toward the bustling, unsuspecting streets of Gotham.
He was hungry for more. And as I looked at the scrolling list of entities in my mind—realizing how close I was to unlocking the psychological weight of Slenderman, or the technologically spreading horror that is Smile Dog—the residual horror of my own death faded away.
In this city, you were either the victim, or you were the monster.
"Keep moving," I whispered into the cold night air, directing the entity toward the deeper, darker sectors of the Bowery. "We have a lot of work to do."