CHAPTER 21 - FALSE ENDING

"Tony! Tony!"

Early in the morning, when Tony was still deep in dreamland, his sister, Natalie, burst into his bedroom in a panic.

"Wha... what's going on..." Tony rubbed his sleepy eyes, groaning as he sat up in bed.

He had been buried in coding work for days, and today was supposed to be his rare chance to sleep in. But now, his sister had shattered that plan.

Ever since the success of Silent Hill, the popularity of the game had skyrocketed, and with it, Tony's points from the system had climbed upto 15 million.

He now had more than enough to produce a brand new large scale VR game.

Using those points, he had summoned and assembled the game files for 'Subnautica' directly onto his computer. No need to manually draw graphics or write every line of code from scratch. Otherwise, building such a game would take years.

Still, although the framework was ready, the game's inner workings, its logic, details, and narrative, had to be refined by him, bit by bit. That's what he'd been busy with recently.

"Listen! Someone cleared 'Silent Hill PT' last night! The video is already going viral online!"

Natalie shoved her phone in front of his face, the screen playing a video from the user PureWhite showcasing their complete game walkthrough.

Tony raised an eyebrow and chuckled after watching it at 2x speed.

"Heh. Someone cleared it that fast? Not bad. This player, PureWhite, pretty gutsy. I'd bet they're a glutton for punishment."

Natalie gave him a weird look. "Is that really how you treat your loyal players?"

"I'm just being honest," Tony shrugged. "Even I don't know if the game is meant to be cleared. If they made it through, they've got to have a thing for suffering."

He booted up his PC and logged into the Steam backend to check the in game achievements.

"Oh? Not bad. Over a thousand people have cleared it already." He glanced at the stats.

"Wow! A thousand already?" Natalie was amazed.

"Yeah. Seems like PureWhite was the first. The second place came in almost eight hours later. I'm guessing the rest just followed his walkthrough."

"Well, of course. You did say the first 50 players to clear the game would get access to your next title." Natalie grinned. "Now that a guide's out, everyone's scrambling to be in that top 50!"

"Exactly." Tony nodded in agreement.

"So, Tony, are you going to contact those top 50 players now?" Natalie asked curiously.

"Why should I?" he replied.

"Huh? Didn't you make that promise?" she blinked. "Wait... don't tell me your new game isn't ready yet?"

Despite being a gamer, Natalie was a complete outsider when it came to game development.

She had no idea how long a full game took to build or the massive resources it consumed.

But having seen Tony pull off Silent Hill solo, she fully trusted her little brother's abilities.

If he said he could do it, then he could.

"I did promise early access to the first 50 players, but not for just beating the game. It had to be a 100% achivements." Tony smiled slyly.

Natalie froze. "Wait... what? Wasn't the last one beating the game?"

He laughed lightly. "The protagonist dies in that ending. It's not the perfect ending? What PureWhite got was just the normal ending."

Her eyes widened. "You mean... there's an alternate ending? One where the main character lives?!"

"Exactly."

Natalie was stunned. "But... isn't the guy a total scumbag? He murdered his wife and daughter because of some crazy suspicion. Why would you let him live?!"

Tony just smiled. "Who told you he's a bad guy?"

She blinked. "Isn't he...?"

But Tony didn't answer, just kept smiling mysteriously.

Her brain stalled. Was this story actually hiding a massive plot twist?

"Well, let's wait and see." Tony stretched lazily. "The new game is almost done. I'm curious to see who'll be the first to reach the true ending."

He wasn't planning to take any action for now.

But the players weren't so patient.

After the PureWhite video went viral, gamers flooded the steam forum.

"Come on! Someone's cleared it! [New World Studio], give us the new game!"

"New game! We want the new game!"

Some fans even DMed PureWhite directly.

"Hey, has the dev reached out to you?"

But PureWhite was just as confused. He was sure he was the first. He had cleared the game, uploaded the video before anyone else... yet there was no sign of contact from [New World].

When their pleas went unanswered in the Steam comments, players turned to the only other known contact.

Natalie's Twitter.

"Natalie! Help us reach [New World]!"

"You promised the top 50 would get access!"

"Make the lazy dev do something!!"

In no time, Natalie's Twitter exploded with tens of thousands of comments.

"Tony!" she called again, phone in hand. "My Twitter is exploding! Everyone's tagging me to get to you!"

Tony sipped his coffee calmly. "They're just excited. You can post an update, same as we discussed."

"Alright..." Natalie nodded. "Wow, I feel like a celebrity. Should I open a youtube account next?"

"You should," Tony replied seriously. "It's good to make videos of your streams, more exposure for you.

"Okay, okay! Looks like I'm going global!" she grinned and started typing.

Soon after, a new post appeared on her Twitter.

"[New World Studio] has received your pleas."

"But it's not that the developer's breaking promises, no one has met the actual condition."

"Reminder: The developer said 100% Completion. The ending where the protagonist dies? That's not the true ending."

The internet exploded again.

"100% COMPLETION?!"

"There's another ending?!"

"The protagonist survives?! He's a monster! Why should he live?"

Some fans even started questioning the dev's moral compass.

Natalie muttered under her breath, "Hah... mere mortals can't comprehend my brother's genius design."

Following Tony's instructions, she added another post.

"Pay close attention to the details. The key is small... and it's everywhere. Follow the clues, and the answer will appear."

"Good luck, players!"

She stretched after posting. "Ahh~ this feels amazing. Like I'm the mastermind behind everything!"

Tony gave her a side eye. "You? Mastermind? Please."

---BREAK---

The fire was lit.

Players were abuzz. Even PureWhite, the current top player and self proclaimed Silent Hill expert, was shocked. He thought he'd seen it all, but a hidden ending?

No way he could ignore that.

"Let's see what secrets I missed," he muttered as he logged back into the game.

The familiar dim hallway greeted him. He'd walked it thousands of times. Every corner etched into his mind.

He couldn't have missed anything... right?

But Natalie's hint echoed in his mind:

"It's small. It's everywhere."

That meant the clue wasn't rare. It was probably something he saw constantly... something he overlooked.

Then his eyes narrowed.

On the floor, along the walls... cockroaches.

They crawled around almost unnoticed.

PureWhite's pupils contracted.

That's it.

That's the clue.

1166 Words.