1 Knock Knock

"No… fucking… way…" 

Nial's jaw dropped. On his monitor, the perfectly rendered statue of an owl carved from huge blocks of stone gave a groan. The sound of ancient machinery grinding back to life echoed through his ancient computer's sound-system.

The statue quivered once, shedding a wave of pixelated dust… then a deep, slow rumble in the outdated speakers made his rickety desk begin to rattle.But Nial couldn't have cared less. He could barely hear the vibration over the thrill buzzing in his head.

Onscreen, light appeared suddenly in broad beams emanating from behind the statue, and as Nial's heart threatened to pound through his ribs, the live chat exploded, jumping halfway up the screen at each refresh because so many watchers were typing at the same time.

Machintrans: This is DOPE

HeBeOne: Has he really found it?

KeyboardOrc: IT'S JUST SOME SHIT SIDE-QUEST. 

Chrlsinchg: Wanker

Machintrans: Wait, this is a mod, right?

JoyBoy: GO NERO!!

KeyboardOrc: I bet the devs gave him a cheat code

User666: THIS IS AWESOOOOOOOOOME

HeBeOne: Has he really found it?

The chat stream scrolled so quickly, Nial didn't even try to follow it. He couldn't. He couldn't take his eyes off the screen where the game had switched to an even better quality graphic.

Cut-scene. It was a fucking cut scene!

Nial watched avidly as rocks and dust tumbled from the ceiling of the cave. More light beams appeared behind the statue and it began to slide towards him, its eyes open and glowing red. 

"Welcome, Traveler."

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, booming around the chamber, the controller buzzing in his hands to simulate the quakes happening in the computer generated world.

Niall's hands were shaking on the controller, but he didn't care.

This was it. It was happening. They had mocked him and said he was crazy, that the alternate ending didn't exist. 

But they were wrong.

"You bastards watch and learn," he muttered, knowing everyone on the stream would hear it. But his smug smile faded quickly. His hands trembled. And he could barely breathe.

Two years. He'd been playing Chrono Nexus every day for two fucking years, fighting his way up until only one player consistently kept him out of the top spot on the global leaderboard. Six months ago, he'd almost given up. Everyone said the rumored hidden ending was nothing but a publicity stunt. But Nial had had a feeling. And he'd known if he could find it, it would finally bring him to the pinnacle of the rankings. 

That conviction had raised the hair on the back of his neck even the first time he read the leak notes. Something had told him it was real. And now… it looked like he was right. 

Holy shit!

The chat moved so fast the entire screen refreshed every second now. 

Chrono Nexus was an independent game. Most days Nial was lucky if fifty people logged in to watch him play. But now there were over a thousand in the stream, and more entering every second. 

Word was getting around: Nial had done it. He'd found the Secret Chamber. And now he would embark on the hunt for the real ending—and the nemesis, Scar Silenda's, true identity. 

Nial's stomach fizzed. When he finished playing tonight, he would be ranked first in the world. Top of the Global Leaderboard in Chrono Nexus: Dorian's Rise. And they all knew it.

Nial could barely grip the controller because his hands were shaking so badly. 

He watched, holding his breath, as the view of the statue on the screen faded to be replaced by a super-close-up image of the main character, Enganador "Dorian" Rex. 

Dorian was the quintessential anti-hero, peppered with tattoos that he liked to let women discover as they peeled off his clothes, his black hair usually worn oiled and slicked back from his handsome face–except for a few strategic strands that fell over his forehead and into his eyes whenever he grinned at an enemy… or a conquest.

His broad shoulders were draped in a cloak so darkly red it looked black in low light. The cloak inexplicably swirled and rippled around his knees even when he stood in a still room. Dorian claimed to have chosen that color because the dried up blood of his enemies wouldn't show.

He was a seething pit of violence and selfish ambition. And technically the villain of the story. Though most players played him as the hero. 

Nial played him better than anyone else.

But at this point in the game, Dorian was ragged and messy. Scraped and bruised. And dirty. 

In the extreme closeup, Dorian's eyes were closed, his sleek black hair had fallen out of its leather to stick to his scraped, hollow cheeks, fluttering as if whatever force had moved the statue also moved the air in the room. As the picture began a slow zoom out and more and more of Dorian was revealed, along with small pieces of the unknown chamber behind him, Nial's heart began to pound even harder.

Then Dorian's eyes widened, the music gave a sharp crescendo, then faded to stillness. And all that could be heard in the chamber was the echoing of a heartbeat, so loud, it rivaled Nial's pulse booming in his ears.

A low, doom-laden harmony, like ancient monk chanting, began to rise as the game spoke again. But this time, it was the deep, gruff voice of Dorian himself.

He smiled out of the screen, smug and malicious, directly at Nial. "Got you."

The two words boomed out of the ancient speakers in the same second that the door behind Nial exploded into the room like it had been rammed, flying open so fast the wood splintered. Still on its hinges, the door cracked against the wall, then shuddered as it swung back, only to be stopped dead by a massive, open palm and booted foot.

Nial almost fell out of his chair as he whipped around to see what had happened. When he caught sight of the man, he was frozen in place, gaping over his shoulder.

A man stood in the doorway of his basement, the light from the single, bare bulb glinting in his eyes.

Sleek black hair.

Piercing blue gaze.

Shoulders so broad they barely fit through the narrow doorway. 

Black clothing, black boots, black soul… And that fucking cape, rippling around his knees.

Dorian?

As his eyes drank in the sight of the character he'd spent thousands of hours with, Nial's mind screamed that this wasn't possible. Yet each one of his senses insisted that Dorian Rex stood in his doorway, in the flesh. 

"What… the… fuck?!"

"Told you," Dorian growled. "I got you."

And then, as the sound of a sword being drawn rang through the air, he swept into the room.