5 — Predator Delusion
The system hadn't
warned him about this. Hadn't explained that human scents would
register differently. That players—people with 99.7% genetic
similarity—would produce a signature so intoxicating it bypassed
conscious thought.
[Targeting
Profile: Active]
[High
genetic similarity detected]
[Hunger:
Reactive]
He swallowed
slowly—his throat was dry, raspy—and inside the black holes of
his mask, an intense golden glow ignited, mirroring the scent-trail
of the player. The light pulsed in sync with his heartbeat, growing
brighter with each throb.
It's not... it's
not a mob. It's a player. That's a person. That's a human being like
me.
The system said
nothing. No alerts, no warnings, no ethical notifications. But the
Hunger insisted, louder now, more insistent than it had ever been.
A small throb in his
left ear—poum.
Then in the right—poum.
Then in his ribs, in his belly, in his temples. A synchronized
rhythm, louder and louder, faster and faster. The rhythm of Mirv's
heart.
Vincent clenched his
teeth so hard he heard the wax of his jaw creak, a sound like old
leather stretching past its limit. He took a step back, then another,
trying to put distance between himself and that hypnotic scent.
[Risk
of loss of control: 24%]
[Proximity
of compatible scent: High]
[Genetic
similarity: 99.7%]
[Hunger:
Reactive]
[Control:
Manual – Fragile]
[Moral
Inhibitors: Failing]
No. No no no. I'm
not doing this. That's a player. That's against the rules. That's...
that's PvP. I didn't sign up for PvP. I'm not a griefer. I'm not...
But the smell. Ho, the
smell.
Vincent took another
step back. Then another. His legs felt heavy, resistant, like walking
through mud. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to turn
around, to move forward, to take what was being offered.
Just leave. Just
walk away. He's just another player. He's trying to survive, same as
you. He's not food. He's not—
The golden mist
thickened, seemed to pulse with Mirv's heartbeat, and Vincent's own
heart synchronized with it. Thump-thump.
Thump-thump.
A rhythm that bypassed thought and spoke directly to something
deeper.
[Risk
of loss of control: 32%]
[Moral
Inhibitors: Critical failure imminent]
No. I can resist
this. I have 65% Psyche. That's more than half. That means I'm still
mostly human. That means I can make choices. That means—
He took a step
forward.
Not deliberately. His
body moved on its own, drawn by the scent like iron to a magnet. He
stopped himself, claws digging into the bark of the tree he was
hiding behind.
Stop. Stop it.
You're better than this. You're not a monster. You're just a guy
playing a game. A guy trying to get paid. A guy who—
Another step forward.
Closer now. Close enough to hear Mirv humming, to see the way his
fingers moved through the corpse's innards, to smell the living
warmth radiating from his skin.
Vincent's jaw ached.
Not from clenching—from anticipation. His mask's mouth-hole
stretched slightly, the edges widening, preparing.
This is wrong.
This is murder. Real murder. He'll die. Permanently. The game is
full-dive VR, the pain is realistic, what if—
[Risk
of loss of control: 41%]
[Targeting
lock: Acquiring]
[Hunger:
Dominant]
He's just trying
to survive. Just like you. He's probably got a family. A life. People
waiting for him. He's not—
Vincent's claws flexed
involuntarily. His legs tensed, muscles coiling, preparing for a leap
he wasn't consciously planning.
Please. Please
don't make me do this. I don't want to be this. I don't want to be a—
[Risk
of loss of control: 53%]
The golden trail
pulsed brighter. Mirv shifted position, and a fresh wave of scent hit
Vincent like a physical blow. He gasped, the sound rattling through
his mask, and felt something inside him crack.
Not break. Just...
crack. A hairline fracture in whatever was left of his humanity.
Maybe... maybe
it's allowed? The system said "Authorization GRANTED" for
the class. Maybe player-killing is part of the design. Maybe it's
expected. Maybe I'm supposed to—
[Risk
of loss of control: 61%]
No. That's
rationalization. That's your brain trying to justify—
But the smell. The
golden mist. The pulse of living blood. The Hunger that never, ever
stopped.
What if I just...
what if I just get closer? Just to see? Just to confirm it's really a
player? I don't have to do anything. I can still choose. I'm still in
control. I'm still—
[Risk
of loss of control: 68%]
He took three more
steps. The tree no longer hid him. He was in the open now, visible if
Mirv turned around, but Vincent's body was already lowering into a
crouch, already positioning itself for an optimal strike angle.
Stop. STOP. This
is the line. This is where it ends. If you do this, you can't go
back. You can't undo it. You can't—
The Hunger roared. Not
a whisper anymore. Not a suggestion. A command. A biological
imperative that drowned out thought, drowned out morality, drowned
out everything except the golden trail and the promise of
satisfaction.
I don't want this.
I don't want to be this. I don't—
[Risk
of loss of control: 74%]
[Manual
control: Minimal]
[Predatory
instinct: Dominant]
Vincent's breath came
in short, rapid gasps. His vision narrowed, focusing on Mirv's neck,
on the exposed skin, on the pulse visible beneath the surface. His
claws extended fully, his legs coiled tighter.
One more step and
I'm leaving. One more step and I turn around and I never look back
and I—
He took one more step.
And then another.
And then the golden
mist was all he could see, all he could smell, all he could think
about.
Please. Someone
stop me. System, Agent, anyone. I can't—I don't want to—please—
But nobody stopped
him. The system observed in silence. The forest watched with patient
indifference. And Vincent's Psyche—that number that had slowly
ticked down from 100% to 65%—wasn't enough.
It had never been
enough.
He growled. Not
voluntarily. The sound rose from his throat on its own, hoarse and
animalistic, scraping through the hollow space behind his mask like
metal on stone.
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
Mirv turned around.
— Oh, hey! — he
exclaimed, his face lighting up with genuine relief. — Another
player! Fuck, I thought I was alone here! This game is weird, right?
Like... have you noticed the menus are completely bugged? I haven't
found how to access the main inventory, and the system of— Hey,
nice mask! Is that a cosmetic or did you unlock a class already? How
did you—
He didn't finish his
sentence.
Vincent had jumped.
He didn't remember
deciding. No thought, no deliberation, no conscious choice. One
moment, he was behind the tree. The next, he was in the air, his
white waxy body taut as a bow, arms outstretched, the black-clawed
fingers reaching out like skeletal branches, the mask's mouth-hole
stretching into a void that seemed to pull the light toward it.
[Feral Leap]
had triggered automatically, without command, without will. Just
instinct. Just the Hunger.
Mirv shrieked—a
sharp, panicked cry that quickly turned into a gurgle. Not for long.
The first bite
shattered his shoulder, the jagged edges of the mask piercing the
bone like stale bread. The second caught him at the throat and pinned
him to the ground, cutting off the cry, cutting off the air, cutting
off the life.
Vincent felt the
living blood explode in his mouth.
Sweet. Warm. Dense.
Like thick honey, like something precious and rare that should never
be wasted. It flooded the darkness behind his mask, filled the void
where his mouth used to be, and something inside him—something that
had been screaming since the moment he spawned—finally went quiet.
He moaned—a sound
that was neither pleasure nor pain, but something caught exactly
between the two. Something new. Something frightening.
[ !!!
TRANSGRESSION DETECTED !!! ]
[Target:
Active player]
[Authorization
for Wìdjigò-Phase class: GRANTED]
[Status:
Normal progression]
[Psychic
fragment absorbed: 18%]
[Residual
memories: 3]
[Integration:
In progress]
He stopped abruptly,
as if someone had just slapped him. Mouth full. Waxy white hands red
up to the elbows, the blood stark against the pale surface, dripping
from his black claws in thick rivulets. Breath ragged, whistling
through the mask. Blood still flowed from the mask's mouth-slit,
dripping onto the spongy ground which absorbed it greedily.
Below him, Mirv was
still rattling—a thread of a voice, weak, broken:
— Fuck... are you
serious... we're... why... blurgh...
Vincent recoiled,
hands shaking, his long waxy legs wobbling beneath him. He almost
fell, catching himself just in time against a tree that shuddered at
the touch.
He had just tasted a
player. He had bitten a player. And he had gained no life from it. No
HP. No stat bonuses.
Just relief.
[Hunger:
Appeased]
[Control:
Restored]
[Inhibitors:
Rearmed]
[Psyche:
65% (-8%)]
[Transformation
Threshold: Stable progression]
He looked at Mirv—the
guy was going to die; it was obvious. Vincent had already torn away
too much. The throat hung awkwardly, the shoulder was crushed, the
blood formed a widening pool that steamed faintly in the grey light.
But it wasn't a combat
error. It wasn't an accident. It wasn't a bug, a poorly explained
mechanic, or a misunderstanding. It was an act. Voluntary. Chosen.
He attacked first.
He... he made a sudden movement. I thought he was hostile. It was
self-defense. That's... that's allowed in PvP. That's how these games
work.
Mirv had not attacked.
Mirv had turned around and smiled.
He would have
killed me eventually. Players always turn on each other in survival
games. I just got the first strike. That's smart. That's tactical.
Mirv had been humming
a pop song and trying to make conversation.
It's just a game.
He'll respawn. He's fine. No one actually dies. It's all simulated.
The blood pooling
beneath Mirv was very real. The light fading from his eyes was very
real. The way his fingers twitched and then went still was very, very
real.
Vincent turned on his
heel and fled.
He ran for an
hour—maybe more, hard to tell without sun, without a clock, without
temporal landmarks. Not to flee enemies. Not to escape a threat. To
flee the sensation of satisfaction.
He wanted to be
shocked. Horrified. Sickened. Traumatized. He wanted to vomit, cry,
scream, collapse. That's what a normal human would have felt after
killing someone. After eating someone.
But he wasn't any of
those things. He was sated. Calm. Almost content. And that was worse
than everything else combined.
It was necessary.
It was survival. The game made me do it. The Hunger made me do it. I
didn't have a choice.
He'd had a choice.
He'd simply made the wrong one.
I'm still a good
person. I'm not a monster. This is just... adaptation. Evolution.
That's what the game wants. That's what gets you to level 100.
He was not a good
person. He was not adapting. He was devolving, step by step, bite by
bite, into something that had forgotten what humanity felt like.
He eventually stopped
near a black pool, smooth as glass. Not to drink—the water here was
never potable. To look at himself. To see what he had become.
The reflection sent
back a blurred, distorted, almost unrecognizable silhouette.
More gaunt than
before. More skeletal. The waxy white skin had become increasingly
translucent, especially around the torso, and through it he could see
his black heart pulsing with a slow, deliberate rhythm. Each beat
sent ripples of darkness through the network of black veins that had
spread from the heart and hands, reaching up his neck toward the mask
and down into his lungs, his liver, his stomach—mapping his
internal geography in obsidian lines.
The mask, now his only
face, was shifting. The three black holes—two for eyes, one for
mouth—seemed to move slightly, drifting like fish in a bowl, never
quite settling in the same position twice. It gave the disturbing
impression that Vincent was constantly twisting his head at
impossible angles, even when he stood perfectly still.
His hands had changed
further. The fingers had elongated even more, the black claws now
permanently extended, curved like scythes, too long to ever be
mistaken for human.
He knelt slowly, put
his hands in the water. The water recoiled. Not metaphorically.
Literally. The black liquid pulled away from his white fingers as if
something toxic repelled it, forming an empty circle around his palms
that grew wider the deeper he pressed.
He laughed. Softly at
first, then a bit louder. A broken, fragile laugh on the edge of
hysteria, rattling through the hollow space behind his mask.
I look cool. I
look like a raid boss. Like a secret boss you'd find in a hidden
area. Players are going to see me and think I'm an NPC. That's
actually sick. That's good design.
He was lying to
himself. Desperately. Pathetically.
Then, like a guilty
child confessing a mistake, like a lost child calling for help, he
whispered:
— I'm sorry, Mom.
And he stayed there,
for a long time, kneeling at the edge of the pool, listening to his
stomach no longer clamoring, feeling the Hunger finally stilled,
savoring this moment of peace he had paid for with someone else's
humanity.
The black heart
visible through his translucent skin continued its slow, steady beat.
Thump.
Thump. Thump.
The mask's three holes
drifted slightly, tracking movement that wasn't there.
The silence of the
forest enveloped him, indifferent to his distress, indifferent to
what he was becoming.
And somewhere, in the
depths of his slowly fragmenting psyche, a small voice whispered one
last time:
You exist, now.
Vincent didn't
respond. He just knelt there, staring at his impossible reflection,
and told himself one more lie:
I'm going to be
okay. I'm going to make it to level 100. I'm going to get that money.
And then everything will go back to normal.
It wouldn't. Nothing
would ever be normal again.
The system logged the
data. Stored the variables. Adjusted the parameters for what came
next.
[Session time
remaining: 2 hours, 22 minutes]
[Current
Level: 4][Psyche:
65%]
[Transformation:
2/10]
[Class:
Wìdjigò-Phase – Active][Player
kills: 1]
[Elite
kills: 1][HP
Stock: 87][Trait:
Way of the Beast]
[Physical
Bonuses: x1.3]
[Moral
degradation: Accelerated]
Vincent remained
kneeling by the pool, watching the black veins pulse beneath
translucent wax skin, watching the mask's holes drift and settle and
drift again. His new abilities hummed quietly in the background—night
vision piercing the gloom, olfaction painting the world in colored
mist-trails, the skills from the Wolf waiting to be used.
And in the back of his
mind, beneath the satisfaction, beneath the horror, beneath the
crumbling remnants of who he used to be, one thought crystallized
with perfect, terrible clarity:
I can't go back.
Not to his room. Not
to his mother. Not to the person he was six hours ago.
That Vincent was gone.
Eaten. Digested. Transformed into this thing of wax and hunger and
golden-tracking malice.
And it was only level
4.
The game had barely
started.