I tore off my headset and tossed it onto the cluttered desk, leaning back as the chair creaked beneath me. My heart hammered against my ribs, each beat louder than the war drums of the final boss. Sweat trickled down my forehead, but a grin—an uncontrollable mix of disbelief and pure exhilaration—spread across my face.
Two monitors glared back at me, their brightness rivaling the dawn creeping through the blinds. One displayed the rolling credits of the game; the other was a torrent of rapid-fire chat messages.
“Holy hell,” I muttered, running a shaky hand through my tangled hair. “We actually did it.”
The chat exploded beside me, a relentless stream of emotes and exclamations:
PogChamp!
GG EZ!
You're a legend!
I glanced at the scrolling messages, my grin widening into a full-on smile. “Did you all see that?” I asked, half-laughing, half-gasping for breath. “We just took down the Demon Lord as a—wait for it—a no-name soldier!”
The reactions intensified:
No freakin' way!
Game-breaking moment!
Uninstalling now; nothing tops this!
“Ten years,” I said, shaking my head in disbelief. “A whole decade mastering every pixel of Story of Your End, and tonight, we rewrote the rules!”
The end credits rolled silently, but my eyes were fixed on the notification blinking in the corner—the achievement I'd chased for so long:
Impossible Achievement Unlocked
There it was. After ten years of relentless pursuit, it was finally mine. A soft chuckle escaped my lips, but exhaustion tugged at me harder than the thrill. The final achievement—the one no one else had dared to attempt—sat there on the screen, taunting the world. And I had conquered it. Not as the prophesied Hero, not as the grand savior of kingdoms, but as a forgotten, low-ranking soldier lost to history.
I leaned back further, eyes drifting to the clock: 5:00 AM. Four hours until I had to face reality again, four hours before another grueling day at the job that barely kept the lights on. But right now, weariness was an afterthought. Sleep didn’t matter. Not when I’d just turned the game’s narrative on its head.
Because Story of Your End wasn’t just a game to me. It was an escape—a world where my choices held weight, where I wasn’t just another faceless cog in the machine. Outside, life was messy, unpredictable. Bills piled up, opportunities slipped away, and the world kept spinning indifferently. But here, in this digital realm, I was someone. Here, I had control.
Ten years ago, I’d picked up the controller to drown out the noise of a life spiraling beyond my grasp. The game became my sanctuary. I knew every path, every hidden secret, every obscure mechanic the developers had tucked away. It wasn’t just an obsession; it was my purpose.
And now, I’d done the impossible. I had slain the Demon Lord—not as the chosen one, but as the least likely of all—the faceless soldier who wasn’t even scripted to survive the first act. The soldier’s path was a dead end, a narrative cul-de-sac designed to emphasize the player’s insignificance without the Hero’s mantle. But I refused to accept that. I delved into the game’s deepest layers, convinced that if I searched hard enough, there had to be a way.
And I found it. I became the forgotten soldier who killed the Demon Lord.
I laughed, the sound tinged with triumph and a hint of delirium. “They said it couldn’t be done! Called me crazy! But here we are!”
Donations and subscriptions flooded in, notifications popping up faster than I could read them. But they were just numbers on a screen, background noise to the euphoria coursing through me. “Shoutout to everyone who’s been on this wild ride,” I said, leaning closer to the mic. “You guys are the real MVPs.”
A glance at the clock: 5:05 AM. “Looks like I’ve got a job interview in four hours,” I chuckled, rubbing my eyes. “But who needs sleep when you’re making history, right?”
The chat filled with virtual groans and sympathetic jests:
F in the chat for sleep
Who needs a job when you're a gaming god?
The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Exactly!” I grinned, stretching my arms overhead. “Maybe they'll hire me on the spot when I tell them what I pulled off tonight.”
Just as I was about to wrap up the stream, a new notification flickered at the top of the screen:
[Congratulations on achieving the Impossible Achievement!]
[A special reward has been unlocked.]
“Wait, what’s this?” I murmured, eyebrows knitting together. “A special reward? Anyone ever see this before?”
The chat buzzed with curiosity and caution:
Never heard of it. Maybe hidden content?
Careful, could be a glitch.
Dude, you're about to uncover some secret DLC!
A strange chill settled over the room. The ambient hum of my PC faded, replaced by an uncanny silence. Even the distant city sounds seemed muted, as if the world was holding its breath.
I hesitated, finger hovering over the mouse. Something felt off. A prickling unease crept up my spine, a quiet voice in the back of my mind whispering that I shouldn’t click it. But curiosity gnawed at me, louder than reason. “Well, only one way to find out,” I said, forcing a grin, and clicked the notification.
The screen plunged into darkness—not the usual loading screen black, but a dense, suffocating void that seemed to swallow the light from my monitors. My reflection stared back at me, wide-eyed, distorted, like something was wrong with the glass itself.
"Uh, is this part of the update?" I joked, but the words felt forced, hollow.
The chat wasn’t amused:
This is creepy, man.
I've got a bad feeling about this.
Maybe restart your system?
Before I could react, the darkness on the screen began to swirl. Wisps of static formed, coiling like smoke, twisting into a distorted figure. Its shape flickered and stuttered, as if reality was struggling to hold it together. For a split second, it almost looked human—before shifting into something far more alien. My breath hitched.
A message appeared in stark white text:
“You shouldn’t have won.”
My mouth went dry. “What the…?” This wasn’t funny anymore. There was something deeply wrong about this.
The figure twisted again, elongating, its limbs bending at unnatural angles. Its features were smeared, like a broken painting trying to pull itself back together. And yet, its eyes—those impossibly bright eyes—locked onto mine through the screen, burning with an intensity that felt too real. Like it could see me.
Another message:
“This isn’t your story.”
A knot tightened in my stomach, dread flooding in. "Is this some kind of prank?" My voice cracked as I glanced at the chat, seeking reassurance.
Dude, shut it down. This isn’t funny.
I’ve played this game for years; that’s not normal.
Get out of there, man!
My fingers twitched, frozen over the keyboard. For the first time in years of gaming, I felt powerless. The machine I’d spent so many hours controlling, mastering—it was slipping away from me.
The figure’s form sharpened, twisting into something familiar, yet terrifying. NPCs, bosses, allies—all distorted versions of themselves. Their faces were eerily blank, eyes hollow, mouths twisted into unnatural smiles, too wide, too wrong.
Their voices layered over each other, a dissonant chorus spilling from my speakers:
“You’ve broken the narrative.”
My heart raced, pulse hammering in my ears. “This is getting weird.” The words felt too small for what was happening. This wasn’t just weird—this was something else. Something worse.
The screen crackled, and the environment warped. The game’s iconic landscapes—places I had known intimately for a decade—twisted into horrific versions of themselves. The sky bled a sickening shade of crimson, trees withered and snapped like brittle bones, and the castles I’d once defended melted like wax under some unseen heat.
It felt… wrong. Not like a glitch or corrupted graphics—something was infecting the game, tearing it apart. The places I’d spent so much time in, now unrecognizable. I could almost hear the game screaming as it unraveled.
Characters I once trusted stared back at me from the screen, their eyes endless voids. They spoke in unison, a chorus of hollow voices:
“Now, the story will correct itself.”
Panic surged. I tried to alt+F4, Ctrl+Alt+Delete—anything to escape—but my hands wouldn’t cooperate, as though my fingers were moving through molasses.
“Come on, come on!” I muttered, my voice tight with panic as sweat beaded on my forehead. But it was like the system had locked me out. Or worse—it was actively keeping me inside.
The chat was in a frenzy:
Disconnect now!
Your system's compromised!
This isn’t part of any game!
A final message appeared:
[New Mode Unlocked: Become One With The Story]
The distorted figure reappeared, now more menacing, its form more defined, and yet grotesque. It leaned closer, pressing against the screen as if it could push through. I swore I could feel its breath.
A voice, cold and devoid of emotion, resonated through the speakers, but it didn’t feel like it was just in the game—it was in the room with me:
“You thought you could control the game? That you could defy the path laid out for you? You are no master here.”
My heart pounded, each beat like a hammer blow. “Who are you?”
The entity’s gaze intensified, piercing through me. “I am the Author. And you’ve overstepped your bounds.”
My vision blurred as the air thickened, like I was sinking into something heavy. Shadows crept from the edges of the monitor, spilling across the desk, crawling up the walls. The light from the monitors flickered and dimmed. My room—the real world—felt less real with every passing second.
“This isn’t real,” I whispered, my voice trembling as I took a step back, my legs shaking.
The Author's final words echoed as the darkness enveloped me, like tendrils pulling me under:
“Welcome to the true story of your end. Let’s see how you fare when you’re the one being played.”
The last thing I saw was the screen shattering outward, fragments dissolving into tendrils of shadow that wrapped around me, dragging me into the void.
Silence.
Darkness.
I was no longer in my room. No longer the player. I had become part of the game—a piece in someone else’s narrative.