The bright lights of the sprawling buildings they passed by seemed to blur in the young girl’s eyes as she watched from the window of a car. She was six years old, sitting in the backseat held by seatbelt and wrapped in a fur coat. Her parents were at the front, her father driving their sleek black car while her mother was typing something on her tablet. Mizuha was the apple of her parent's eyes, the only child in a family that owned several successful chains of high-end establishments across Tokyo and other cities in Japan. They brought her with them after she adamantly requested to come with them as she didn’t want to be alone with their servants in their estate.
"Mommy, Daddy! Can we go to the ocean park after your work?" she asked excitedly, her bright eyes sparkling with innocence. Her mother smiled and turned to her, brushing a hand through the girl’s hair.
"Maybe later, sweetie. We’ve got some things to take care of first, but after that, we can go anywhere you want."
Her father, after checking his watch, added with a wink at the driver’s mirror.
“Mommy and Daddy just need to visit one place first, then we go to the park.”
She had grown up in the lap of luxury, with parents who spoiled her with everything she could ever ask for. Yet, something felt wrong about that night. The sky was too dark, the wind too cold. The girl could only nod enthusiastically, completely unaware that this would be the last conversation she would ever have with them.
A few hours later, she woke up, light-headed.
Mizuha opened her eyes, surrounded by toys, but she quickly remembered that she never brought her toys in the car. Then she realized that what surrounded her was not toys but fragments of metals, blood, and glass that broke off. Her tiny hands were trembling as she stared blankly at the crushed bodies of what should have been her parents. All she remembered was the loud screech, the sickening impact, the feeling of weightlessness, hearing her screams mixing with her mother’s and father’s panicked voices, and the violent roll of the car as it flipped multiple times before coming to a halt. The next thing she knew, her parents were crushed by a giant boulder that flattened half of their car.
Their vehicle was caught by a rockslide as they passed by a mountainous highway. Her parents were gone, just like that—gone in a single, inexplicable accident and without warning. The wreck had left their bodies beyond recognition it was purely a miracle that she escaped unscathed physically but mentally scarred her. And the only thing left behind by her parents were memories that felt fragile now. She didn’t even feel or wipe the blood that was flowing over her head.
She stayed like that, shocked with no words coming from her mouth for hours even after her ears started hearing the sound of sirens, the bright flashes of emergency lights, and a cold emptiness where her parents should have been.
The next few weeks were a blur of hospital lights, strangers in suits, and solemn faces. Then came the funeral. Mizuha stood in her black dress, clutching a small stuffed animal, her tiny fingers trembling. She had no idea what had just happened — only that her world felt colder, darker.
"Don’t worry, Mizuha." Her uncle said softly, though his voice betrayed the unease he tried to hide.
Her aunt also knelt beside her, though she seemed unsure of how to act.
“We’ll take care of you.” her aunt said, her voice cool and composed. “You’re family now.”
Mizuha said nothing. The world felt distant. Cold. Nothing was real anymore.
--
Mizuha was now seven years old, sitting alone in a dimly lit room that smelled faintly of antiseptic. She was currently living with her relatives and had become withdrawn. Her once lively home had been replaced by cold, sterile halls as such it was decided by her guardians to let her be taken care of by her close relatives. They weren’t cruel to her, not in the obvious sense, but she could feel the alienation from her cousins, the way they looked at her. Especially right after she left the hospital and started manifesting something else in her behavior.
She sat at a desk, meticulously arranging her pencils, ensuring they were lined up perfectly, each at a 90-degree angle. The slightest imperfection sent a wave of anxiety through her.
"Mizuha, you’re doing it again.” Her aunt entered the room, her tone clipped. Mizuha didn’t answer, her hands trembling slightly as she adjusted the last pencil. She couldn’t explain it—there was a knot in her chest, something she couldn’t loosen unless everything was just right.
Her aunt sighed and said again.
"You should be outside, playing with the other children or with your cousins. There is a ranger show nearby, you should go and watch."
Seeing that Mizuha ignored her, she sighed again and left. Mizuha stared at the door. Ever since the accident, things had changed. She couldn’t play with other children. Loud noises made her flinch, and crowds made her feel like the world was closing in. Her relatives treated her differently too, as if she were fragile glass, pitiful—someone they had to take care of. They never said it, but Mizuha could feel it. She was like broken pieces of glass in their perfect lives.
Her subtle obsession was at first ignored then after several instances of her mannerisms that her aunt couldn’t understand, they consulted the doctor who was also treating the trauma of Mizuha. They found out that she had developed an Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, right after she was diagnosed with having Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Her OCD was a coping mechanism to create some semblance of control in a life that felt irreparably shattered. It started small—lining up her pencils, making sure the edges of her papers were perfectly aligned. Then it grew. The food in the kitchen had to be stacked in precise order, with labels facing out, categorized by type. Her shoes had to be lined up perfectly, even if she never wore them. The thought of chaos sent waves of anxiety through her body, suffocating her. She wouldn’t even let anyone do it for her as she would rather do it herself, she refused to trust anyone to keep everything organized.
If a glass was placed at an odd angle or the tablecloth wasn’t perfectly straight, she’d twitch, her heart pounding as she fixed it with trembling hands.
"So what's wrong with her? Why wouldn’t she play with us?" Her cousin asked in a whisper to her mother, thinking Mizuha couldn't hear. “Why does she always have to make everything so... precise?"
"She’s just... different." Her aunt explained to her cousins after they got home from the hospital.
"She’s like that because she went through a lot. Just be kind to her." Her uncle vaguely explained to her children, knowing that their immature minds still wouldn’t understand the complexities of a scarred mind. Still, in the passing months, these words didn’t make her cousins understand her growing obsession with cleanliness, symmetry, and keeping everything in its place.
"Yeah, yeah..." One of her cousins sighed.
At family dinners, the girl would just sit and eat quietly, folding her napkin precisely into equal halves and staring down at her food after every bite, in every minute. Her world is now reduced to fear and isolation as no one understands her.
"She’s a freak," she heard her cousin sneering outside the house one day when he was visited by his friends asking about the strange girl they saw in his house. Then as she turned to the open window of her room to close it saw a cat playing around with something. It was biting and chewing her favorite doll. The cat quickly left, leaving its crime behind where the doll lay crookedly, its limbs bent at odd angles. Panic welled in her chest as she scrambled to retrieve it, tears stinging her eyes as she straightened the doll’s limbs, carefully aligning its dress.
“One… two… three… four…” she started counting as she struggled to return to her normal breathing pace. She found out that by counting, she could quickly calm herself down.
Her aunt and uncle would always take her to the doctor to keep with her mental treatment. However, no matter how much care she received, she felt no sincerity in them. She could see that behind the soft gentle words of assurance and claims of love, she was considered as an oddity in the house she felt that her relatives tolerated her only because of the inheritance—money they siphoned while she lived under their roof. They didn’t care that she spent hours locked in her room, escaping into video games. They just needed to keep her safe until she turned eighteen, the legal age to inherit her parents' fortune and decide for herself if she wanted to stay with them or not.
---
Mizuha passed through elementary as a ghost. Unremarkable, unnoticed. She excelled in her studies, always near the top of the class.
To her classmates, she was invisible.
To the teachers, she was just ‘that quiet girl’.
"She’s a bit strange, isn’t she?" A classmate once said behind her back. But Mizuha heard everything, and still never reacted. They were the same as her relatives. But she couldn’t blame them. After all, she never talked to them or even rarely opened her mouth for a dialogue.
She was neither the most popular nor the smartest, just a quiet girl with great grades to stop anyone from bothering her and no social life. Her name barely appeared in conversations except in whispers, and she was fine with that. No one bullied her, but no one noticed her either.
At lunch, she sat alone with headphones on. All while meticulously arranging her bento, the contents were precisely divided. If someone approached, she would just look at them indifferently which would cause them to quickly lose interest. At times, she silently ate and watched gaming streams on her phone. Something that recently caught her interest.
When she wasn’t in school, Mizuha would lock herself in her room, where the only thing that brought her peace was the bright screen of her gaming console. It started small—cute platformers, puzzle games—but as her isolation deepened, so did her taste in games.
Then weeks later, she would buy her first personal computer using the allowance that she had saved. And she finally entered the world of the internet. In no time, she found herself immersed or even more active in the net than in real life. On the internet, she was anonymous where she won’t be judged, pitied, or looked down upon by people.
Mizuha also discovered the world of hardcore video games where she found herself excelling in a short amount of time after entering the internet. She started to join the very thing that caught her interest, First Person Shooter games. She was someone else behind her username, a faceless player, but her skills spoke louder than her silence ever could.
Then she won her first major gaming competition while in high school. It was a regional FPS tournament, and Mizuha had entered under a pseudonym. She didn’t expect much—just a distraction from her daily routine as she heard that the top players would be joining and she needed to test her skills. But when she clinched victory, her inbox flooded with messages, and her prize of 870,000,000 yen made headlines in the local gaming community.
When her relatives asked why she spent all her time gaming, she shrugged it off.
“What are you going to do with all that money? Are you going to buy a better PC?” The organizers asked her in a video call with a casual tone after they sent her the money. Trying to create a connection with the best player in their region.
“Haven’t decided yet.” Mizuha shrugged, her voice was muffled behind her face mask.
In reality, she had already made up her mind. She was planning to use the prize money with her savings to secretly buy herself a small, discreet apartment in Tokyo. With the money that was not connected to her family’s wealth to avoid detection. She could return to her family’s home, but the very thought of returning and reliving her memories of her parents haunted her. She doesn’t want to feel that way again. As such, she left her family estate to a caretaker.
---
By the time she turned eighteen, Mizuha had finally gathered the courage to leave her relative’s house. It had been years since she had felt any real connection to them anyway. They didn’t argue when she said she was moving out—in her mind, they were probably relieved as they were also handed a big amount of money as well as rising through to the positions in the company. She would occasionally visit her parent’s company from time to time to fulfill the requirements before she would fully inherit the assets of her parents.
When she arrived at her new apartment, she felt something she hadn’t in years: freedom. It was small, but it was quiet and hers. No judging eyes, no whispers, no relatives constantly hovering. Mizuha sat in her new apartment, staring out the large windows overlooking the neon-lit streets of Tokyo. With the monthly money from her parents’ company, she didn’t have to work. Instead, she devoted herself entirely to gaming. Her new apartment became a sanctuary. She decorated it with gaming computers and consoles, set up her streaming equipment, and felt a faint sense of control again.
She started streaming, adopting the persona of a Vtuber. Her gaming skills, particularly in FPS games, attracted an audience, and soon she had a dedicated following. The anonymity of being a Vtuber appealed to her. No one knew who she was, no one judged her. They only saw her skill and personality—filtered through an avatar, a mask she could hide behind. But behind the screen, she was spiraling. The feeling of emptiness started to fester inside her. Without the structure of school or family, she fell deeper into vices—alcohol became her evening companion, and she often woke up hungover after nights spent drinking alone, trying to forget the emptiness.
The more her streaming career grew, the more isolated she felt.
---
Then, one night, she found herself scrolling through game forums, and new releases, looking for something new, something exciting. That’s when she came across a game that caught her attention: Pitch Black Void.
A sci-fi game with intense combat mechanics, expansive space exploration, and—best of all—private servers for FPS players. The reviews praised its FPS gameplay, immersive features, and single and multiplayer friendly, but what drew her in was the promise of creating her world within the game.
Her eyes lit up. This was it. Her finger hovered over the download button and pressed then waited for the files to finish installing after she completed the payment. She leaned back in her chair, her hands shaking slightly as she took a sip from a glass of whiskey. The numbness was comforting. She also started to dabble in other vices, drugs, and stimulants—anything to escape the emptiness she felt when the camera turned off, and she was left alone with her thoughts that would sometimes make her relive her memories.
Despite the government’s efforts to spread propaganda that their country was drug-free, there are still ways for drugs to enter undetected through smuggling and landing in the hands of those who seek it. With the right amount of money and her status as the only heir and future owner of her family’s assets, it was not hard for her to find the right person who could provide these things to her.
As she sat at her desk, booting up the game for the first time, the familiar sense of anticipation washed over her. Mizuha’s fingers hovered over the keys as the dark, pixelated space of Pitch Black Void unfolded on her screen. The game world opened up before her, vast and cold, much like the life she had always known. Her hands moved swiftly over the keyboard as she created her character, her avatar becoming an extension of herself, fierce and capable in a world that didn’t judge. And was also similar in appearance to her October avatar. Then for the first time in a long while, she felt something close to hope.
Her gaming chair became her throne, the monitors her window to the universe. The moment she loaded into the game, she was hooked. The sci-fi elements, the intense FPS gameplay—it was everything she had ever wanted. But even here, in the quiet corners of space, she couldn’t fully escape the demons that lurked in her mind—the ever-present need for control, the fear of chaos, the memories of her parents’ accident that played on loop in her nightmares.
"Maybe," she muttered to herself, her breath thick with the smell of alcohol, "Maybe this world will be enough."
But deep down, she knew it wasn’t. No amount of digital escapism could fill the void left by the life she had lost.
---
Mizuha sat in the back of a taxi. She was from her parent’s company again. Her heart hammering in her chest. The faint hum of the car's engine should have been a comforting white noise, but it only made her hands grip tighter on her knees. She was 23 now, and it had been years since the accident that claimed her parents’ lives. She hadn’t been in a car since—not willingly. Every sharp turn, every passing vehicle, sent a surge of adrenaline through her body as though she were still trapped in that mangled wreckage.
The accident played in her mind like an old, worn-out reel of film, always the same. Her small hands clutched the plush toy in the backseat of her parent’s car, the comforting hum of the engine below her. It was a feeling she used to love, but after that day, any sound of a car engine made her chest tighten. Then came the screech of tires, the sound of metal crumpling, and the sickening silence that followed. In her memory, she could see her father’s hands gripping the wheel, and her mother screaming her name—but no matter how many times she remembered it, the scene always ended the same way. Since then, any time she saw a car, felt the vibrations of the road or heard the sound of traffic, her body would seize up. Riding in cars became unbearable.
The driver was talking to her in the front seat, the words blurring together in a string of incomprehensible noise. Mizuha couldn’t focus. Her eyes stayed glued to the road ahead, following the white lines with an obsessive intensity, counting them, using them as her anchor.
One… two… three… four…
The car hit a small pothole, jostling her. Her breath caught, and her body went rigid as she stared at the empty road, forcing herself to believe it was safe. Her OCD kicked in, and she found herself counting again, each line a lifeline.
If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
---
The day had turned gray as rain streaked down the windows of Mizuha’s apartment. She stared blankly at her monitor, the flashing lights of the game screen reflected in her eyes. The room around her was meticulously organized—everything in perfect alignment, from her desk to the exact placement of her keyboard. The faint hum of the air purifier was the only sound that accompanied the rhythm of her heart, ticking like a clock in sync with her anxious thoughts.
She moved her mouse across the screen, the world of Pitch Black Void opening up before her again. It had been months since she first installed the game, and she found herself slowly slipping deeper into its grasp. Days bled into nights, and she barely noticed. In the game, she was someone. Outside of it? She preferred not to think about that. She already forgot the advice from her aunt and uncle to start seeing a therapist which she had been avoiding since they discovered her mental state when she was still a child.
In the game, she didn’t need to think about any of that. No one in Pitch Black Void knew her real name or her past.
All they knew was her vtuber name and in-game handle:
Ebony'Irony
Her misspelled name of two weapons of a famous character in a game would slowly become a signature name in the ladder ranks. A solo, independent bounty hunter, an assassin, and a mercenary that accepted any contract or bounty. She also worked for player-run corporations to eliminate competition or deal with pirates in some RP servers to increase her fame, thus she would jump servers to find better contracts. Her specific skillset made her a rising star, a name feared by other players who underestimated her simple loadout: a rifle and a pistol. No flashy weapons, no exotic energy blades, just raw efficiency.
Pitch Black Void was her domain. She spent hours each day mastering every mechanic, memorizing every gameplay, ballistics, system of weaponry, and pixel of movement. It wasn’t just skill; it was precision born from necessity. Her OCD turned itself from a mental and psychological burden to an advantageous trait that increased her sensitivity and attention to everything for combat. Making it easier for her brain to process calculations, probability, and predictions and develop a photographic memory. It was that attention to detail that earned her the audience of the hardened players in the game. Her ability to predict movements, remember patterns, and outthink her opponents set her apart.
In the streaming space, she was also a force to be reckoned with, an up-and-coming player who drew attention not because she was a female streamer and a vtuber, but because of her raw talent. It wasn’t long before other streamers and vtubers took notice. She had started streaming her gameplay, building a following among male viewers who were fascinated by her precision and skill. But not all attention was welcome.
Another notification popped out again, this time came from another fellow vtuber.
>Hey, wanna collab? We found a good contract in the Purple Veil Server. We could crush some noobs together! XD <
Mizuha stared at the message for a moment and realized that this came from a popular male corporate vtuber. Many would die wanting to collaborate with this person but for her, they were all the same.
"Not interested." She muttered to herself and scoffed mockingly before closing it without a reply.
She knew what these streamers were trying to do—it was either to leech off her growing popularity or flirt with the opposite sex. Something that she would always receive due to how her fans and audience started to see an appeal or charm from her indifferent and emotionless personality as a female streamer. Something that was greatly reflected and portrayed by her high-quality rigging on her model that was programmed to synch with her cold personality. It was something that she got at a great cost which for her was worth it. Especially when she was told by one of her female vtubers that Mizuha was great at keeping a goth girl vibe with her vtuber avatar which she unknowingly was exuding.
Mizuha then remembered that it was only days after she started her career as a vtuber when she started receiving love letters through emails, DMs, and even comments. Although she doesn’t mind it as she doesn’t care about what they think, she started to feel gross after many streamers and fans also showed their public admiration towards her, something that she never wanted.
But even worse, when she showed her reaction to her admirers for the first time in an online competition among vtubers, which was pure disgust—the very first motion that she had shown in a stream, only increased her popularity and admiration from her audience.
[It should have been me!!!!]
[I want her to look at me like that while I grovel at her feet...]
[Let me lick your feet, my queen!]
[Ohhhhh! Please! Be disgusted at me!]
[Finally! An Ice Queen vtuber!]
[Please step on me!!!!]
[I want her to dominate me…]
[Mommy!]
[I can fix her.]
[Please tie me up in your dungeon.]
[Arf! Arf! Arf!]
[Chat! Stop it!]
[I am your dog.]
[I don’t want to fix her, everything that is wrong with her is way hotter!]
[Please let me worship you!]
[My goddess!]
[If you want a trophy husband I am here!]
[I don’t want to fix her, I want her to ruin me.]
[I want her to beat me up.]
[I don’t want to fix her, she’s already perfect. We can ruin each other.]
[You can whip me.]
[I will serve you, my queen, all I need is a sip of your sweat and a disgusted look every day.]
[Shit, I got an erection at her disgusted face. Wtf is wrong with me!]
[ /\ You’re one of us now brother.]
[I love you. Please marry me.]
[Thank you, I just discovered my new fetish.]
[NOooo!! I am not horny for this!]
[ /\ Accept your fate bro.]
[Please, be my wife.]
It was an event that still haunted and still crept her out to this day.
More months passed, and the world outside her apartment ceased to matter. Her relatives hadn’t spoken to her since she moved out, and she preferred it that way. She didn’t need anyone.
Esports in Pitch Black Void were just starting to gain traction, and Mizuha’s name, or rather her in-game alias, was on the radar of many teams. Until she accepted one of the invitations but on the agreement that she would stay remote. She was the odd one out in her team as she refused to live in the team houses, instead opting to stay in her apartment. Socializing with teammates wasn’t her style. The idea of being in a place with others she doesn’t know or trust, with no control over her environment, triggers both her PTSD and OCD which was not a comfortable feeling.
Everything had to be just right in her apartment. It was her sanctuary. Each item had its place, from the meticulously lined-up soda cans in the fridge to the exact arrangement of her computer setup. Her team understood her quirks. They tolerated her isolation because Mizuha brought them victories—time and time again.
She also wanted to avoid the allegations of having relationships in her team as what would usually happen to mixed-gender teams. Adding also that she was the only girl in her team which complicates the matter even more.
Saudi Arabia, sponsored and held the first Esports of Pitch Black Void which her team had joined. In the final matches, she dominated her cold, calculating playstyle setting her apart. She brought her team win after win, no matter how hard the odds were stacked against them like she would always deal when outnumbered. During one of the final matches, her team had been wiped out yet again, leaving her to face six enemy players by herself.
But she had studied them—analyzed their strategies, their playstyles, everything. She knew exactly how to bait them, how to control the map, and how to take them out one by one. The final play was a masterstroke of precision and timing, with six shots landing with surgical accuracy as she claimed victory for her team.
The esports community was in awe.
They would later dub her "True Sight.", a reference to her seemingly superhuman ability to see everything on the battlefield, to know where her enemies were before they even knew themselves.
As the victory flashed across the screen, Mizuha leaned back in her chair, the adrenaline slowly leaving her system. The roaring cheers from the audience echoed that she had to remove her headset and sigh deeply. The final round of the tournament was broadcast to thousands of her viewers. They were congratulating her and celebrating.
But Mizuha felt no satisfaction, no thrill of success. It was just another match, another win. Her heart was racing, not from excitement, but from the exhaustion of mental strain. She closed the game, retreating once more into her quiet, solitary world. She decided that this would be her first and last attendance in the Esports. Mizuha joined esports because she thought she could discover something that would satisfy her in the end by winning the tournament. Yet she felt nothing. She started typing her letter of leaving the team and decided to send it after her team returned to Tokyo.
---
Her teammates went on a celebratory feast in Tokyo after they arrived four days later. An after-victory party, but Mizuha declined, as always. She celebrated in her way—by ordering a pizza and taking a walk to get some takoyaki at her favorite local stand.
It was a quiet night, streets were quieter and colder than usual. Mizuha had decided to celebrate her latest victory in the only way she knew how—alone. As always, the cold and indifference of the nighttime were one of the few times each day when she could feel the similarity and ambiance of Pitch Black Void in real life. As she walked back home, munching on takoyaki, she felt the familiar rhythm of her OCD routine pressing on her. She counted the steps to her apartment, her mind occupied with numbers and patterns, the only way she could keep the rising anxiety at bay. Each step had to be perfect.
"Seventeen… eighteen… nineteen…" she whispered to herself.
Her eyes darted around, scanning her surroundings as she always did. Nothing ever felt safe, not after the accident that took her parents. The mental state she had carried with her all these years flared up at the most unexpected time. Something felt off. The skills that she had earned in the game had probably also unknowingly affected her sensitivity in real life. There was a sensation creeping up the back of her neck, a prickling discomfort that made her skin crawl. As she walked, she felt it—a presence. Someone was following her. She slowed her pace, then turned her head ever so slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of the figure behind her.
Something about him seemed off. His face was pale, his eyes wide, and they were focused on her with an intensity that made her skin crawl. Her heart raced. She quickened her pace, but so did he. Then, she noticed something. He was wearing a jacket—a jacket she recognized. The same colors, and the same logo. It was one of the pieces of merchandise from her vtuber persona. She started questioning herself.
What did this mean?
Was he a fan?
Why was he following her?
How did this man know her real identity?
Her mind raced. This couldn’t be happening. She had always been so careful, so meticulous, controlling every aspect of her life to keep it in order, to avoid the chaos that had taken her parents. She always made sure to never leave any trail or connection of her vtuber career to her real-life identity as Mizuha.
Mizuha finally reached and entered her apartment building after swiping her card and entering the main door that quickly closed behind her. Then she rushed to the elevator. But at that very moment as if to tease her, the elevator was stuck on the top floors. Making her wait as other elevators were also the same. Then she realized even worse, the man also entered the building. Now he was behind her. She saw his card in his right hand, making her assume that the man was living in the same building as her.
“You were… as expected, as beautiful in real life… it was hard for me to move here after I found out about you but it was worth it.” His breathing ragged, and when Mizuha turned to face him fully, his voice came out in broken sobs. "But… you... you lied to me."
Mizuha’s confusion deepened, but she kept her distance, her heart thundering in her chest. She wanted to yell for help but she knew that no one would come to her as the elevators from the top floors were still going down at a slow pace. And this building had no security guards in place. It was only watched by dozens of security cameras which she thought would be a good deterrent to this man. But seeing that the man didn’t care, she started to think that he was going to do something that he decided he would never turn back.
"You were not supposed to be with anyone!" He spat, his voice suddenly filled with venom. His eyes were wild, filled with an unsettling mix of desperation and anger. "I’ve watched you for so long. You saved me! You were my goddess, but then I saw... I saw you with those men! You’re supposed to be pure! Untainted! Unlike those other bitches who lied to me!"
Mizuha’s stomach twisted in knots. It all clicked—the way he was speaking, the delusion in his eyes. He was talking about her esports team and the male members she played with. The ones he thought were tainting her. Her body reacted instinctively, the flight response kicking in. Her legs tensed, ready to bolt, but before she could move, he raised something from under his coat. It was something that had a familiar silhouette of a gun. She doesn’t know how this man came to have a gun but she doesn’t have the time to think about it. She didn’t have time to process. The world slowed to a crawl, and in the next instant, she felt an electric shock rip through her body. It wasn’t a bullet—no blood, no sharp pain—but a searing wave of paralysis. Her body seized up, muscles locking as the stun gun's voltage coursed through her.
The man knelt beside her, his eyes gleaming with twisted adoration and a grotesque smile of satisfaction.
"I made this for you," he whispered, stroking her hair. "It’s a homemade stun gun, so I could bring you to the temple I built for you. You're finally going to ascend, my goddess. You’ll be pure forever." His words were incomprehensible, a chilling mix of love and madness. He leaned down, taping her mouth shut with a piece of duct tape he had pulled from his pocket. Her vision blurred, and her body felt heavy as he dragged her, limp, toward a van parked outside the building.
The inside was lined with plastic mats—sterile, prepared. Her heart pounded against her chest as she was thrown inside, her body unable to react. She stared up at the man, her mind racing, searching for a way out. But there was no escape.
As the man pulled out something from a toolbox, he smiled at her.
"Don’t worry," he said softly. "You’ll be beautiful and pure forever. No man would ever talk to you again. You will be where you should be. In a temple that I made for you."
He was wielding a giant cleaver. The kind that sliced through flesh with precision that she saw butchers would use. As the first sharp wave of pain hit, her consciousness began to fracture, and all she felt was agony. Her muffled screams were trapped inside the van. Time ceased to matter, each second blending into the next as she endured the nightmare that stretched on for what felt like an eternity. Her mind, once so sharp and focused, slipped further and further away. Memories of her parents, her childhood, her obsession with perfection—they’re all dissolving into the darkness.
Then at the end of the rewinding memories, she finally realized something. She didn’t trust anyone not because she feared being betrayed, but because she didn’t want to start caring for them where she would inevitably lose them in an inexplicable accident like her parents. But it was too late. Her thoughts were now dissolving into white noise as the world around her went dark. She wished that at least, she could have left her parent’s wealth to the family that took care of her as she grew up.
Eventually, after what felt like an endless torture, she was granted the sweet release of death as the man slits her throat. The last thing she heard was the sound of the cleaver slicing once again through the air as her world faded to black.
---
Mizuha opened her eyes, the world around her distorted, bathed in a sickly green light. Numbers and strange symbols floated in her vision as if they were written on the air itself. She blinked rapidly, trying to clear her head. Her heart raced with confusion.
Where was she?
Her chest heaved as the world around her stabilized by the murky green liquid that encased her. For a moment, her mind struggled to comprehend what she was seeing. She tried to move, but her limbs felt heavy. Something was wrong. She was surrounded by a viscous liquid, suspended in some way. She was submerged—trapped.
She tried to scream, but water filled her lungs, choking her. Panic flooded her chest, and her lungs began to burn. Water— No, it wasn’t water. It was something thicker. She gasped, choking, the liquid flooding her throat. Instinct took over, and she thrashed violently, her hands hitting against the walls of the capsule that surrounded her.
What is this?! Am I drowning? Where am I? Her thoughts were racing.
Her heart pounded in her ears, the chaotic rush of adrenaline blocking out any rational thought. She pressed her hands against the glass-like surface, desperate to escape, her fingers trembling with fear and confusion. Then, without warning, something in her snapped. Her strength surged unexpectedly, and her fists shattered the capsule’s surface with ease. Shards of glass and liquid exploded outward as she collapsed onto the metallic, cold floor, gasping for breath, water pouring from her lungs as she coughed violently.
For a moment, Mizuha just lay there, drenched and disoriented, her fingers twitching uncontrollably as she tried to get a grip on her surroundings. But her brain, overwhelmed by her OCD, immediately kicked into overdrive. The air around her felt... wrong. The lights above buzzed faintly, flickering unnaturally, and everything was meticulously clean—too clean. Her breathing quickened as she scanned more of her surroundings. She wasn’t in her apartment. She wasn’t in any place she recognized. Clean dull walls, metallic tiles and plated surfaces, and strange equipment filled the room. It looked like something out of a dystopian lab experiment. Her eyes darted around, cataloging every unfamiliar sight, every strange detail that made her skin crawl.
The memory of the stalker flashed in her mind. The pizza, the van, the cleaver. She looked around in desperation, trying to make sense of her surroundings, but nothing made sense. Her OCD kicked in so she started to count, trying to calm herself. Numbers had always helped before.
"One, two, three… breathe. One, two, three…"
Her counting was cut short when the whirring sound of machines reached her ears. She looked up, her heart sinking. Humanoid robots—dozens of them—advanced toward her, their metallic limbs clanking as they moved with eerie precision. They surrounded her, their bodies gleaming under the harsh, artificial light. One of them emitted a harsh, mechanical voice in a language she couldn’t understand.
Mizuha’s breath hitched, her hands trembling as she backed up against the nearest wall. Her mind screamed at her—this wasn’t normal. This couldn’t be real. Robots like this didn’t exist, not with this level of agility or sentience. She doesn’t remember Japan was this advanced already in technology.
Her OCD began to scream at her—nothing was in its proper place, nothing was familiar, nothing was right. And thanks to it, she could feel that what she was seeing was not some kind of delusion. It was real.
Her instincts screamed at her again, to run, to fight, to do something. But what could she do? Mizuha wasn’t a fighter. She’d never been in a physical confrontation in her life.
And yet… her body reacted on its own before her brain could even process what was happening.
The first droid lunged toward her, and before she even had time to think, she responded. Her hand shot out, grabbing its arm and twisting it with a force she didn’t know she had. The metal snapped with a sickening crunch, and the droid collapsed in a heap. Another droid swung at her, but she ducked, her movements unnaturally fluid, almost as if her body remembered something her mind didn’t. She grabbed the next robot by the head and slammed it into the floor, shattering its core.
Her confusion deepened, but there was no time to stop. She was surrounded. They came at her from all sides, but every strike they threw was met with an impossibly fast counter. She weaved between their attacks, her muscles moving with a grace and speed that felt entirely foreign to her. Her fists, bare against the cold metal of the robots, were somehow strong enough to tear them apart. Every time she landed a blow, the droids shattered into pieces.
She fought like someone—or something—else. Her mind was in a haze of panic, but her body moved as if it had been trained for this. One by one, the droids fell, their mechanical parts scattered across the room. The sound of metal hitting metal echoed as the last one collapsed at her feet, her chest heaving from the effort.
She stood there, trembling, surrounded by the wreckage of the robots. The sight was surreal. She hadn’t just fought them—she had destroyed them. Dozens of them were taken down in mere moments. Her breath came in ragged gasps, her heart pounding in her chest. But as the panic slowly subsided, she caught sight of something that made her freeze.
In the reflection of a smooth, metallic surface, she saw her face—or rather, the face of someone else.
Althought they were much longer than her original appearance in the game, she still retained the white and black hair that was evenly divided. As well as her green eyes. Tribal patterns are etched into the irises. The face staring back at her wasn’t hers at all. It was the face of her vtuber avatar and also her character in the game, Pitch Black Void.
"No… this isn’t… this can’t be real." She whispered to herself in disbelief.
She reached up to touch her face, her fingers brushing against the unfamiliar features. It was real. Her reflection was real. She was her—the character she had spent years playing in a game. But the only difference was that she was much younger.
Before she could process what was happening, the sound of heavy doors sliding open caught her attention. More droids poured into the room, but this time they weren’t the only ones. Floating droids buzzed overhead, their weapons trained on her. Her eyes darted between them, her mind struggling to keep up with what was happening.
How?!
How am I here?!
What is this?!
What is happening?!
Among the droids were humans—soldiers, by the look of them. They wore strange combat armor, and their rifles trained on her. However, their entire head was protected by fully enclosed one-eyed helmets which made it harder for her to confirm that they were truly humans. But there was one person who stood out from the rest.
A young boy with black hair and golden eyes.
His expression mirrored hers—wide-eyed, shocked as if he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. For a moment, their eyes locked, and a strange understanding passed between them. Then the boy’s shocked expression suddenly shifted, replaced by a wide grin. His golden eyes sparkled with mischief as if he knew exactly what had just happened. Mizuha blinked in disbelief as the boy spoke in a language that Mizuha couldn’t understand.
She didn’t know what he said, but as the words left his lips, a strange floating text appeared before her eyes, hovering in her vision like a game interface.
[Well, this just got even more interesting.]