Chapter 5 - THE GRAVE YARDS VERSION
“You are not the first Anderson Jones.”
The words echoed through the frozen darkness long after the stranger stopped speaking.
Anderson Jones stared at him in disbelief.
What the hell does that mean?
The man in the bloodstained suit walked slowly across the void while black System screens flickered around him like broken mirrors.
His face remained distorted.
Every time Anderson tried focusing on it, reality warped slightly.
Like the world refused to let him remember what he looked like.
The stranger stopped several feet away.
It means this has happened before.
A cold pressure settled in Anderson’s chest.
No.
Impossible.
The man raised one hand calmly.
The darkness around them shattered instantly.
Anderson’s surroundings changed.
Suddenly he was no longer standing in frozen Whitechapel.
He stood inside a ruined version of London.
Silent. Dead. Wrong.
The sky above the city was completely black except for enormous crimson eyes floating beyond the clouds.
Skyscrapers leaned sideways like broken teeth. The Thames had turned dark red. Bodies covered the streets endlessly.
Not hundreds.
Millions.
Anderson’s breathing stopped.
What is this?
The stranger’s voice came from beside him.
Timeline Seventeen.
Anderson turned sharply.
The man now stood overlooking the destroyed city with emotionless eyes.
Your third failure.
Third?
Anderson backed away immediately.
No. No, this was insane.
I’ve never been here before!
The stranger finally looked at him directly.
This version of you hasn’t.
Before Anderson could react—
the corpses covering the streets moved.
Thousands of dead bodies slowly raised their heads toward him simultaneously.
Every single one had his face.
Anderson stumbled backward in horror.
No...
Some corpses were young. Some old. Some burned beyond recognition.
But all of them—
were him.
The stranger spoke softly.
Every time the System collapses, reality resets.
Every time reality resets, another version of you is created.
And every version eventually reaches the same choice.
The dead Andersons began standing up one after another.
Their eyes glowed faintly red.
Some carried weapons. Others wore strange armor. One had black veins spreading across his entire face.
Another version of Anderson stepped forward from the crowd.
This one looked older.
Broken.
Half his body had transformed into something inhuman.
When he spoke—
his voice sounded exactly like Anderson’s.
“You should’ve died during the First Floor.”
Anderson froze.
The older version smiled bitterly.
“We all should have.”
Suddenly the dead city trembled violently.
WARNING.
TIMELINE INSTABILITY DETECTED.
Massive cracks spread across the sky.
The stranger looked upward calmly.
Ah.
They noticed.
The older Andersons immediately began screaming.
Not human screams.
Pure agony.
Their bodies twisted violently as black tendrils burst from their flesh.
The entire city started collapsing around them.
The stranger grabbed Anderson’s shoulder instantly.
Wake up.
Reality shattered.
Anderson slammed back into the streets of Whitechapel gasping violently.
Time resumed instantly.
The monsters charged again. Fires spread across overturned vehicles. The Hunter roared from atop the bus.
Everything moved at once.
Anderson nearly collapsed trying to process what he had just seen.
The stranger in the suit was gone.
But one final message remained floating before him.
DO NOT TRUST THE HOLLOW MAN.
Then the screen vanished.
A creature lunged directly at Anderson’s throat.
He reacted instinctively.
Something inside him snapped.
The world slowed.
Not metaphorically.
Actually slowed.
Rain droplets drifted through the air like floating crystals. The attacking creature moved sluggishly. Even the Hunter’s roar deepened unnaturally.
Anderson’s eyes widened.
What—
NEW SKILL ACQUIRED.
VOID STEP — LEVEL 1
For 0.5 seconds, the world bends around the player.
Side Effect: UNKNOWN
Before Anderson could understand—
his body moved automatically.
He stepped sideways.
Reality distorted around him violently.
The attacking creature missed completely and crashed into a nearby wall hard enough to explode concrete outward.
Anderson stared at his own hands in shock.
He hadn’t moved normally.
It felt like the world itself shifted instead.
The Hunter noticed.
Its glowing eyes narrowed instantly.
DING.
FLOOR HUNTER HAS RECOGNIZED PLAYER THREAT LEVEL.
THREAT STATUS UPDATED: INSIGNIFICANT → EMERGING
The creature roared furiously.
Then something impossible happened.
Other monsters began backing away from Anderson.
Fearfully.
No...
Not fear.
Recognition.
As if they suddenly understood what he was becoming.
A terrified scream echoed nearby.
Anderson turned sharply.
A little boy stood trapped beneath a collapsed black cab while smaller creatures crawled toward him from the burning street.
His mother lay nearby unmoving beneath rubble.
The child couldn’t have been older than eight.
Please!
The monsters closed in.
Anderson’s body moved before his brain could stop him.
He sprinted forward.
The Hunter immediately reacted.
Its massive body launched from the overturned bus directly toward Anderson like a missile.
Too fast.
Anderson grabbed the nearest creature and slammed it into another before activating Void Step again instinctively.
Reality twisted.
The world blurred sideways.
The Hunter crashed through empty pavement where Anderson had stood moments earlier.
BOOOOOOM.
The entire road exploded apart.
People nearby were thrown screaming through the air from the impact.
Anderson appeared beside the trapped child breathing heavily.
The boy stared at him in terror.
Mister—
A shadow fell over them.
Anderson looked up slowly.
The Hunter stood above the wreckage.
Its pale armor cracked slightly now.
Black liquid leaked from beneath its skin while glowing symbols burned across its chest.
Then Anderson noticed something horrifying.
The symbols were changing.
Rewriting themselves.
Adapting.
The System was evolving the Hunter specifically to kill him.
WARNING.
PREDATOR EVOLUTION INITIATED.
Floor Hunter Variant Created: EXECUTIONER TYPE
Anderson’s blood ran cold.
The creature’s body began mutating violently.
Extra limbs burst from its sides. Its jaw split wider. A second face slowly pushed outward from beneath the first one screaming endlessly.
The child beneath the cab started crying.
Anderson backed away slowly.
This thing was becoming stronger in real time.
Because of him.
Then the sky cracked open again.
But this time
something came through.
A gigantic hand emerged from the crimson fracture above London.
Human-shaped.
Large enough to cover entire buildings.
People across the city screamed in terror.
The hand slowly reached downward toward the Tower rising in central London.
And every System screen across the city flashed the same message simultaneously.
OBSERVER HAS ENTERED THE FIRST FLOOR.
ALL PLAYERS: KNEEL.
