Horror Game
The moment the stream went live, chat started rolling in. I checked the viewer count and found a full seventy-four people already waiting. If we were starting this strong, maybe we'd actually break a hundred today.
"Minna irasshaimase!Arigato for coming to watch watashi's stream again today!"
The opening line was starting to feel natural. I used the usual short stretch of rambling to stall before we got into the game itself.
"If watashi faints today, please call an ambulance..."
Hitting a hundred viewers should have made this a happy day. Unfortunately, grief and terror arrived first. Today was horror-game day. And not just any horror game—I had to clear it in one sitting.
A one-sitting clear meant exactly what it sounded like: you launched the game and you did not stop until the credits. No quitting because it was scary. No pausing because it was hard. Of course, if I foamed at the mouth and collapsed, that would be an exit... but nobody wanted that ending. Least of all me.
I did not want to do this. I was a coward, and that had nothing to do with the TS—I'd always been like this. Horror movies, horror games: I'd barely ever touched them. If anything, becoming a girl had made it worse, not better.
The problem was that "I don't want to" was not an option.
One million won. To be precise, 1.3 million won. That was the total a whale of a donor had dropped on me yesterday. After a sum that enormous, I'd gone and asked if there was anything they wanted. The answer had been a one-sitting horror-game clear. So I had no choice.
I dragged the pre-game chatter out as long as I reasonably could. Stalling, however, did not invent an escape hatch. Eventually the time came, and I fidgeted, then opened my mouth.
"...Actually, watashi has a confession."
"I didn't prepare a horror game. ...Tee-hee."
"Nooo, I'm not saying I won't do it. Honestly, even looking up which horror game to play is scary, so what am I supposed to do? I waited on purpose so we could pick one together!"
"Anyway, let's pick the game together! Anyone have a recommendation? ...The least scary one you can think of, please."
If I had to clear it in one sitting, the stream was going to run a lot longer than usual. So taking our time, talking with chat, and choosing the horror game together seemed like a good idea. ...The much larger truth was that even searching for the game by myself was too frightening, and I wanted to hide behind my viewers. That part didn't matter. Probably.
And so I started looking up whatever they recommended, trying to settle on something.
"Kyaaaah!!"
I shrieked my way through several trailers. Horror-game trailers were packed with jump scares; of course they were. When the video finally ended, I cleared my throat and tried to recover.
"...Ahem. Watashi actually doesn't get scared that easily."
The hooks came in immediately. I had no idea our chat hit this hard.
"That wasn't scary, that was a jump scare! Watashi thinks being scared and being startled are different things!"
Yeah. That wasn't landing. Even I knew, the moment it left my mouth, that it was a ridiculous excuse.
We kept looking anyway. Whenever chat recommended something, I watched the trailer, skimmed the reviews, and—if it still seemed promising—ran a final check on Namuwiki. After all of that, we had a winner.
It was widely regarded as a genuine standout in the genre. Not a one-note jump-scare machine that startled you and called it horror, but a game that soaked you in dread through atmosphere and setting, then wrung your hands with tense chases. The camcorder gimmick—lighting the dark by filming it—had gotten a lot of praise on Namuwiki. Thank you, Godmuwiki.
Best of all, the playtime wasn't that long. Of course, if I froze up too badly to even move, it could stretch on forever.
"What do I do... Even the title screen is kowai...!"
"...That's so mean. Do you hate me that much?"
How could they sit there giggling at their streamer suffering? Maybe people really were born rotten.
"Anyway, let's start. All right then... hajimaru yo?"
The instant I hit start, a thunderclap slammed down, and my whole body seized.
"Kieeek!!"
I clawed my reason back and started moving. The opening put a man at a hospital entrance, rain and wind hammering down around him.
"...So from here, watashi has to go inside that hospital."
Even at a glance, it did not look like a functioning hospital. What crime had the patients committed to end up here? Then again, I had a strong feeling the patients wouldn't be functioning either.
I checked my surroundings and inched toward the entrance. Naturally, the front doors were sealed shut. I'd have to find another way in.
"If we're following the cliché, there's a gap somewhere, right? Or not. Forget I said that."
The rain was coming down in sheets, and the protagonist didn't seem to care. I tossed out that useless observation and circled the building. Sure enough, there was a gap on the left side, wide enough to slip through onto the grounds.
Now I just had to get inside the building itself. I checked the front doors again, just in case. Still locked.
"Up close, it looks like they shut the place down. ...Wait, is this a psych hospital?"
An abandoned hospital that hadn't seen business in a long time. I looked around for a path and found a ladder leading to a second-floor window.
"...This is breaking and entering. I shouldn't go in. Watashi is a law-abiding citizen, so I think I'll pass. Otsukaresama~"
"I'm kidding. Joke! Okay, I'm going in..."
If my last word sounded like it was shaking, that was your imagination.
The protagonist climbed the ladder and slipped carefully onto the second floor. Inside was pitch dark.
"I-I can't see! What do I do?!"
Following chat's coaching, I right-clicked, and the protagonist switched on the camcorder. The dark resolved like night vision. A battery icon appeared in the upper right, so it wasn't infinite.
"...This is way too scary. Do I really have to...?"
Wandering an empty abandoned hospital with a camcorder, not a scrap of light coming in. If this were real life, I would have gone pale, collapsed on the spot, and stayed unconscious until the ambulance arrived. Chat, however, was ice-cold. Prodded onward, I had no choice but to keep playing.
Why was the protagonist even in here, thrashing around like he wanted to die? The question was just starting to feel fundamental when a sound came from one of the rooms.
"Eek!"
"...Hnnngh."
If I didn't check, the game wouldn't progress, right? My right hand was shaking so badly the aim juddered like an earthquake.
The room was a bathroom. The sound didn't stop when I entered. It seemed to be coming from the stall at the very back. There was definitely something in there. A ghost, a monster, a deranged mutant patient—something!
You stupid protagonist, run already! It's not too late!
"Ah... Ah..."
I paced in and out of the bathroom like a broken robot, repeating the same broken little noises. Outside: a corridor packed with dark. Inside: an unidentifiable sound and a closed door. Eventually I had to choose.
I crept toward the innermost stall as carefully as I could. At last I stood in front of the door and hit the interact button. The door eased open. And inside—
"...Huh?"
There was nothing. What? I'd freaked out for no reason. I let out a breath of relief and turned to leave.
"Grrraaah..."
And there it was: a hideous ghost, waiting to greet me.
"Kyaaaaaaa!!!"
A bang. Real pain slammed into me—not just the terror in my head, but actual hurt wrapping my body. I'd startled so hard I'd seized up and driven my knee straight into the computer desk. Then, clutching the screaming knee, I'd thrashed in the chair and mashed something with my toes.
The familiar noise in my ears cut out at once. The room went silent. Only later did I realize that noise had been the PC fans. I'd hit the power button by accident. The computer was off.
It was the worst stream accident in broadcast history.
"...I'm doomed."
Ding! Ding! Messenger pings hit immediately. I didn't have to guess who.
My manager, of course. And SAX, who almost never messaged me, was checking in too. I moved to reply and reassure them. Right—I had to turn the computer back on first.
That was when the phone started ringing.
Were they too impatient to wait for a text, calling to ask if I was okay?
"...No. Wait."
Neither of them had my number. We'd only ever talked over messenger. I had no memory of exchanging phone numbers. Which meant the person calling now was—
Dad
This was bad. This might not be the worst crisis in stream history. It might be the worst crisis of my entire life.