Leave While They're Clapping
Looking back, all that fretting over whether I should deliberately act scared for the viewers turned out to be a complete waste of energy.
Once I was actually face-to-face with it, there was no need to act at all. It was plenty terrifying on its own.
Man… technology really has come a long way.
At the end of the day it was just a bunch of polygons, yet somehow it made my heart slam against my ribs and sent goosebumps racing over every inch of my skin.
Well, the people who made this game were experts in the field. They probably spent every meal thinking about how to make players feel genuine fear.
I was just an ordinary person who barely watched horror movies, let alone played horror games. Of course I was going to be scared.
If anything, the least I could do out of respect for all the blood, sweat, and tears they poured into it was to jump at every scare and let myself be properly terrified, right?
If I just strolled through the game completely unfazed going, “Oh, a ghost appeared. I’ll dodge it here and mess with it over there,” how would the developers feel?
They’d probably think, “That was our proudest scare moment and she’s just… blank?” I know I would.
“You guys would understand if you tried it yourselves. This thing is terrifying. No—more than scary, it just keeps making me jump. It sneaks the BGM in, builds psychological pressure, looks like it’s about to jump out, then doesn’t, then hits you off-beat. How are you supposed to not flinch?”
Even with my careful explanation, the chat was too busy roasting me.
It was a little annoying, but what could I do? This was the natural back-and-forth between streamer and viewers—exactly the kind of spectacle the person who requested a horror game had been hoping for.
Whining and sniping at the chat here would be amateur hour.
Seeing is believing. A true pro shows rather than tells.
I shut my mouth and took action. Slowly stepping out from the corner where I’d been hiding, I headed toward my target: the dark corridor.
“Hieeek…!”
I didn’t make it.
The moment I turned into the hallway, a woman with long, disheveled hair was just standing there at the far end.
The second I saw her I let out a rather undignified scream and scrambled back around the corner, pressing myself against the wooden pillar I’d been using for cover while I caught my breath.
The game a viewer had spent a small fortune recommending—Dark Temple—followed a structure not all that different from most other horror titles.
The protagonist wakes up inside a temple they’ve never seen before after blacking out during a business trip. The primary goal is to dodge the pursuing ghost, trigger the various devices scattered around the building, solve the puzzles, and escape the temple.
Honestly, the person who recommended it kept calling it a god-tier game so hard that I’d gotten my hopes up a little. It didn’t quite live up to that hype.
For one thing, dumping you in front of a ghost with zero explanation right from the start didn’t sit well with me.
Was I just supposed to figure out how to run on my own?
The music and screen shake during the chase sequences created solid immersion, but that was about it.
Even the story above was just the rough plot I’d pieced together while playing.
Whether I liked the game or not, I still had a job to do.
I’d already taken the money, and now a little sense of injustice had started bubbling up too. Call it stubborn pride.
And it wasn’t all bad news either.
They say humans are creatures of adaptation. After more than an hour of playtime I had already adapted to the game in my own way.
I still jumped and got goosebumps every time I met the ghost head-on, but after a few rough patches my actual play had gotten a lot cleaner than before.
“Hmm…”
I paused to think. The ghost that had been blocking the end of the corridor a moment ago was the problem.
Judging by every clue I’d gathered so far, there had to be a trigger waiting in the space at the end of that hallway.
I needed to activate it if I wanted to clear the game.
And yet there she was, standing right in the way like she owned the place.
“How am I supposed to get past that?”
Should I try luring her? Or just take the long way around the other side?
The second option didn’t sit right with me. The path here had already been rough enough, and circling all the way back felt too much like running away.
So I went with the first plan. Lure her out, and if the chance presented itself, make a break for the room at the end of the corridor.
“Here I go…!”
With that one shout I stepped back into the dark corridor.
The moment I moved, the pale silhouette of the woman standing at the far end came into view.
I paced back and forth in plain sight, baiting her, deliberately stepping left and right like I was trying to piss her off.
After a few rounds of that the ghost slowly started drifting toward me.
“She’s coming!”
She was nothing more than programmed AI, yet the way she locked onto my movement and charged with fire in her eyes was so realistic it was genuinely unnerving.
But I’d already adapted through several standoffs. This wasn’t my first time playing the game—there was no way I’d fall for such an obvious pattern.
—Uwaaaah…
The woman came at me with blood streaming from her eyes.
Maybe because I’d already clashed with her so many times that her movement patterns were burned into my brain, a sudden thought flashed through my mind.
I feel like I can dodge this. Something close to pure instinct.
There was no reason—and no time—to hesitate. My brain issued the order and my body executed it without a second thought.
The result was a little surprising even to me. A move flashy enough that I was impressed with myself for pulling it off.
High risk, high return. The result of that death-defying gamble was deliciously sweet.
I slipped past the ghost without taking a detour and successfully entered the room containing the trigger.
After that, everything went smoothly.
They say the first time is the hardest and the second is easy. After a few more retries I reached the point where I could completely dismantle the ghost’s patterns.
By the end I was laughing and toying with her even when we met face-to-face. You can probably picture how that looked without me describing it.
“That’s it, come here. Good girl, good girl.”
—Uwaaagh…!
“That’s right, that’s right. Go in there and never come out again. Stop scaring people for no reason.”
Following the clues written inside the temple, I successfully sealed the ghost inside the room with the giant mirror. According to the notes, that was supposed to complete the seal, so it should be solid.
Just as I expected, not long after I locked her in the mirror room the ending cutscene slowly began to play.
What on earth was that dreadful temple? Even now, years later, I still find myself thinking of that place from time to time.
It’s not that I deliberately recall it. At certain times I simply start having dreams about the temple, and whenever that happens I wake in the early hours with my back soaked in cold sweat.
Because the ghost’s distinctive laughter that echoed through those dreams was far too chilling. That laughter seemed to tell me that what I experienced in the temple that day had never been a dream. It felt like it was reminding me, over and over, that those hours had been real.
On nights when I dreamed of the temple I would lose sleep and go out for a walk. Breathing the night air usually helped the memories of the temple fade.
Then one night it happened. After another temple dream left me restless, I went out for air as usual. That night, for some reason, I felt the urge to walk much farther than normal. It was like a pull I couldn’t resist; I simply couldn’t turn my feet around.
At that point I felt something was off and spoke to the viewers.
“Uh… the ending feels kind of weird? I’ll keep watching for now.”
…When I came to my senses I was standing in the middle of a forest. An autumn night. Even though the weather was bitterly cold I had walked all the way here bare-skinned, without even a coat.
Sensing something wrong, I turned to go back. How had I come this far? I needed to return before it got any later. I had to get up early for work the next morning.
But I couldn’t go back. More precisely, my entire body had locked up and I couldn’t move a muscle. It felt like a frog frozen in front of a snake—my limbs turning ice-cold.
Right in front of me… right in front of me stood the temple. It was impossible. That temple should have been a hundred kilometers from my house…!
I despaired, and despaired again. I thought I had escaped, but I hadn’t escaped at all. My vision slowly went black. I could hear the ghost’s laughter—that distinctive, bone-chilling laughter—drifting into my ears…
That was the end of the cutscene. That was really the ending? I felt a little dumbfounded as I asked,
“Wait, that’s it? Didn’t we escape?”
After that the ending credits began to slowly roll, listing the production team and staff names.
Credits rolling meant this really was the end.
“The ending’s kind of unsatisfying, hmm…”
Watching a chat that said the lingering ending was why the game was popular, a few ideas suddenly flashed through my mind.
A lingering ending. Sequel bait. An ending that leaves you wanting more…
I had a good idea. The viewers who just watched the game’s ending would definitely like this.
Before the credits finished rolling I hurried to get the line out.
“Thank you everyone for watching today’s stream. I’ll be back tomorrow for team practice. See you all tomorrow!”
And before any more chat could pile up—the moment the credits finished and the words “Thank you” appeared—I ended the stream.
“Heh.”
A sly little laugh slipped out. Maybe it was because this was a different way of ending the stream than I usually tried. A unique ending for a unique game.
Leave while they’re clapping. I’d chosen this method so my stream would leave the viewers wanting more.
That way they’d come back for the next one. Yeah, yeah.
It was a shame I couldn’t say a proper goodbye like usual, but days like this were good too.
Watching the belated, confused chats roll in, I stood up from my seat with deep satisfaction.