ARG Start [1]

David stared at the paused stream, his thoughts swirling.

The System's message replayed in his mind: "Make a reason to be watched…" He drummed his fingers on the desk, glancing around his dimly lit, barely furnished room.

The cracked paint on the walls, the worn-out desk, and the faint buzzing of the old overhead light didn't scream "viral content."

But it wasn't the room that needed to be exciting—it was the experience he created.

He had an idea.

Taking a deep breath, he leaned into his quirk, Projection.

It wasn't the kind of flashy power that could take down villains in battle or win the day in a fight.

But it could craft illusions so convincing they seemed real.

He'd been practicing, getting better at making his illusions interact with the physical world.

Tonight, he'd push it further and use it for his advantage.

"Alright," he muttered under his breath, cracking his knuckles. "Let's make them go ballostic."

David closed his eyes, picturing what he wanted.

Something—subtle but unsettling.

He started by manipulating the light in the room, dimming it just enough to give the place a darker, more ominous feel.

He focused on the opaque window behind him, the one that never let in any clear view from outside effectively making it the most untraceable and safe background.

He crafted the illusion of a face—just barely visible—something human-like but off, appearing every few minutes and then vanishing.

Next, he added a bit of movement.

The clutter on his desk—a notebook, an empty cup—slowly shifted, as if something invisible had brushed against them.

Just a little nudge here and there, enough to catch the eye but not so much that it looked staged.

With everything set, David opened his eyes, a slow grin spreading across his face.

This was exactly what he needed. He unpaused the stream, the game

UA Stars flickering back on-screen.

His character, Midnight, was mid-fight, and David picked up right where he left off, keeping his voice casual.

"Alright lets get back to it, let's see how far I can go with her without a single death," he said, his tone light, though his mind was elsewhere.

He kept one eye on the game and the other on the chat.

It was empty right now, but that would change soon.

After a few minutes of streaming and recording moments feom it with the added paranormal activity of the face, David decided to take the next step.

He alt-tabbed out of the game and opened his browser, quickly navigating to 8Chan.

If anyone was going to latch onto weird happenings on a random stream, it'd be this crowd.

He found a thread and made his post:

"Freaky stuff happening live on this stream—check it out . Link WWW.Herotube.Jpn/hks32."

He attached the stream link, along with a screen capture of the faint face in the window behind him.

It wasn't fully clear—just enough to make people question what they were seeing.

He switched back to his stream, heart pounding slightly.

The first viewer popped up after fifteen minutes. Then a second. Then five more.

"Nice," he muttered, keeping his voice casual as he fought a few in-game villains. "Hey, welcome to the stream. Just running some UA Stars tonight."

His eyes flicked to the chat, where messages started to roll in.

"Yo, did anyone else see that?"

"What was that in the window??"

"Dude, something moved on your desk!"

David smiled, but kept his expression neutral for the camera. "Huh? What're you guys talking about?" he asked, glancing over his shoulder at the window.

The face was gone, of course.

His quirk was doing the work, making it flicker in and out, only visible when he wasn't paying attention.

The chat exploded.

"It's gone now! But there was definitely something there!"

"Bro, that was creepy as hell."

"Is this some sort of prank "

David chuckled, still playing dumb. "You guys are messing with me. I didn't see anything."

He returned to the game, letting the tension simmer.

The subtle movements on his desk continued—a pencil rolling slowly, the cup shifting just an inch.

It was all designed to be subtle enough to make people doubt what they were seeing, but obvious enough that it couldn't be written off as nothing.

More viewers flooded in, drawn by the 8Chan members also sharing the clips on the forum post.

He was up to thirty now, the chat buzzing with theories about what they were witnessing.

"I swear, something's messing with your stuff, man."

"Check your window again! That face was back for a second!"

"Dude, this is freaky, stop ignoring it loke the stupid Horror movie actors!"

David kept playing the game, his face set in a mix of confusion and amusement. "I dunno, chat. Maybe it's just the lighting in here or something. Or maybe my camera's glitching."

As if on cue, the face reappeared in the window this time with a red tint—just for a moment, enough for the sharp-eyed viewers to catch it—before vanishing again.

The chat erupted.

"There it is!!"

"Holy shit, it was right there!"

"TURN AROUND, man!"

David finally indulged them, glancing back with exaggerated suspicion.

The window was empty, just as he'd planned. "You guys are messing with me. There's nothing there." He laughed nervously, as if he were starting to believe something was wrong, but still trying to play it cool.

The tension was perfect. People in the chat started throwing out ideas:

"It's gotta be a glitch or something, right?"

"Nah, man, that's paranormal shit."

"He's trolling us. No way this shit is real or its Probably some quirk user stalking him "

But David didn't respond directly to those claims.

Instead, he let the illusion keep doing its work.

The face would appear in the window again, faint and distorted, but vanish the second he turned around.

The items on his desk shifted just a bit more, as though something unseen was manipulating them.

And every time someone mentioned it in chat, he'd brush it off with nervous laughter sating how he may be dumb but he's not gonna buy into this.

Even framing the veiwers to be part of some sort of mass troll group.

More viewers piled in—fifty, then seventy-five.

The chat scrolled faster and faster, theories and accusations flying in all directions.

Finally, after a particularly noticeable shift where his cup slid across the desk and fell, David stopped playing.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes wide with mock fear. "Alright, chat, I don't know what's going on, but that—" He pointed at the cup.

"—that definitely just moved on its own."

The chat went wild.

"It's haunted, dude!!"

"GET OUT OF THERE!"

"I told you it wasn't a glitch!!"

"That's kinda hot "

David rubbed the back of his neck, pretending to think. "Maybe… maybe I should check things out real quick. This is getting a little too weird."

The chat exploded with warnings.

He stood up, moving just off-camera, but leaving the illusion running.

The face appeared again, pressed against the window, clearer now, almost human—but still slightly off. It lingered for a few seconds longer this time, enough for the chat to go ballistic.

When David returned, he looked shaken. "Okay, yeah, I didn't see anything. "

"But I don't think I'm crazy. There's definitely something going on here."

The viewer count continued to climb, nearing a hundred now.

People were hooked, and David knew he had them right where he wanted.

He just needed to keep ramping up the tension and mystery, slowly increasing the activity until the whole stream felt like it was spiraling into something more sinister.

David smirked internally. He had their attention now.

This was just the beginning.

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Stones and Reviews please