On the counter of the small communal kitchen, Angie lined up the ingredients with the precision of an alchemist: a jar of lightly toasted feijucas, a bottle of ground black pepper, a handful of cumin, and other common spices. Beside them, a strainer rested over the sink, ready to rinse the beans under running water. But the most valuable — and most curious — ingredient lay atop a carefully folded light blue towel.
It was a clear glass bottle, the ordinary kind, but slightly faceted. In the light streaming through the window, it gave off an almost imperceptible glow, as if it pulsed from within. That was the so-called "Moon Water" — tap water she would boil, let rest, and leave by the window night after night. The bottle absorbed lunar mana until the liquid turned a deep blue. When it reached the ideal point, the water looked crystalline and radiant — almost alive. It served as the base for the special sauce she prepared on anxious days.
While separating the feijucas and organizing the jars, her gaze occasionally drifted to the laptop set on the far end of the counter. The screen showed the dashboard of the external platform Conduvia — a remote supervision tool for Arcane Seeds, used by developers who preferred to monitor their projects without directly connecting to them, thus avoiding unnecessary use of personal mana.
The best part of having an independent account, with no ties to the university, was exactly that: autonomy. Via Vitae Coniunctionem — Conduvia's motto appeared at the top of the screen. "Through connection, life." It sounded beautiful... and cost a fortune.
The professional subscription was expensive. But compared to the weekly fees she'd have to pay using the Brazilian version — with charges per megabyte and limited features — subscribing to Conduvia was a long-term investment. Everything she needed to know about her Arcane Seed's performance was right there: users' emotional fluctuations, average immersion time, escape spikes, most-clicked decision points, spectral analysis of engagement. And most importantly, all of it without her needing to touch the seed directly.
As she ran the feijucas through the strainer, the water hitting the beans with a muffled, rhythmic sound, Angie felt her mind start to drift away from the present. It was always like this: hands in motion, but her brain wandering down parallel paths. She thought about the latest version of the asylum scene, Lucas's ragged breathing, the way the flashlight trembled. Was it moving too fast? Were players absorbing the tension, or just getting lost in the sensory chaos?
The special sauce wasn't on the stove yet, and she used the time to mentally revisit unresolved points. The difficulty level, for instance. She had configured the Seed's reactions to adapt to players' emotional pace, but she knew some would prefer something more manageable, something more… predictable. Maybe she should include a slow-branching option, for sensitive or newly awakened users. That could go into the next update. Or maybe be released as an alternative version — a "guided sensory reading" of the same narrative core.
She also thought about the absence of a clear interface. There was no minimap, no progress tracker, not even a "chapter end" notice. That was intentional — part of the concept. Break the mold, force the observers to feel, not just play. But maybe some would interpret that as a flaw. Angie knew that anonymity protected her name, but not her idea. What if the interpretation spun out of control? What if the Nexus started generating effects even she hadn't anticipated?
She wondered what the first players were seeing now. Had they reached the plantation yet? Had they heard the whisper behind the wall in the east wing of the asylum? Had they realized the old camera showed more than what was in front — that it revealed what had been left behind?There was a part of Angie that wanted to watch everything unfold in real time. But another part... preferred to keep her distance. As if, by looking too closely, she might corrupt what she had planted.
A sharp sound cut through the air of the kitchen. A dry, metallic beep from the laptop. Angie quickly dried her hands on an old towel and stepped closer. The notification blinked in dark blue in the corner of the screen:"1,000 access milestone reached | Conduvia alert: evaluation spike."She had set up an automatic alert for that moment — a way to avoid checking it obsessively. Even so, the notification still caught her by surprise.
She clicked the icon. A small spreadsheet opened automatically, showing the latest data: an average rating of 4.5 stars, over two hundred comments, many marked with emotional impact icons. Most were in Portuguese, as expected from the regional network.One of the comments was highlighted, flagged by Conduvia for "high emotional resonance":
"I felt fear. But it was an old fear. Like I remembered something I've never lived."
Angie read and reread that sentence, as if it were a hidden line of code embedded in the game. Something inside her settled.It wasn't an objective response, nor a technical review. It was exactly the kind of impact she had hoped for — an emotion that cut through explanation.
In silence, she turned back to the stove. She touched a copper button embedded into the side of the counter, and the glass surface lit up with a soft greenish glow. There was no flame — the heat came from the enchanted core beneath the surface, powered by small rechargeable mana crystals.The bowl slid by itself to the center of the induction ring. The blue liquid of the Moon Water had already begun to fuse with the spices.
With a gentle motion, she added the mashed feijucas and the remaining ingredients. The stove itself began the slow, precise rotation of the mixture, as if reading the intention behind the recipe.
Angie pressed the side button of the technomagical stove and set the timer: the exact time for the mixture to reach ideal consistency and stay warm without altering its flavor. A faint glow appeared on the display, indicating the auto-shutoff function was active.It was the kind of detail she liked: predictable, silent, functional.
She picked up the laptop by the edge, folding it halfway before walking to the living room. The floor creaked slightly under her feet, and the air was cooler there, lightly scented with the incense Mike had burned earlier. The room was a patchwork of textures and makeshift comfort: cushions stacked in the corner, a shelf improvised from fruit crates, and the old low table — recycled metal with a frosted glass top — where Rafa assembled his seed kits.Angie sat cross-legged on the floor and placed the laptop on the table with the care of someone laying down a relic.
The Conduvia dashboard was already open. The graphs pulsed with real-time updates: engagement lines rising like a predictable tide, emotional peaks appearing at the exact points where she had mapped maximum tension. There was a quiet satisfaction in it — like watching a harvest sprout exactly as planned.But Angie didn't want just numbers. She opened other tabs: forums, video platforms, traces of the first echoes.
"Lament of the Forgotten Souls" was already causing small ripples. There was no official topic yet — deliberately so. The absence of a central hub forced the curious to piece the puzzle together on their own. Comments were blooming from all corners, variations of the same spell-like refrain:
"Is this a movie? Because it felt more like a game.""Is it a haunted documentary or just a despair simulator with disturbingly realistic graphics?""Whatever it is, it's brilliant. But... does anyone know where it came from?"
The name Nexus appeared nowhere in the source code, but the stylistic signature was unmistakable for those with trained eyes. Theories began to pop up — some absurd, others dangerously close to the truth. They said the project might be the work of a reclusive artist, a secretive collective, or even an old AI awakened through a corrupted Seed. Angie didn't know whether to laugh or worry.
The average rating was rising slowly, but steadily. 4.5 stars so far. Comments marked by Conduvia as "high emotional intensity" appeared highlighted. She clicked on one:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐"I've never felt this from any game before. It's like someone designed this world to fit my exact fear."⭐⭐⭐"I don't know if I was supposed to play it, watch it, or go into a trance. But... it worked."⭐⭐⭐⭐"The aesthetic is brutal. It reminded me of old dreams I had as a child."
And then, Raul's familiar face appeared in a live stream window. The thumbnail showed him with crooked glasses, pointing at the screen with an exaggerated expression. Angie clicked and watched in silence as he narrated:
"This thing wasn't made to entertain you. It was made to dig you up."
The sentence hit so precisely that she paused the video for a second. Rewound. Watched again. Smiled. Within hours, Raul's stream had already gone viral, spawning clips, memes, and, of course, new theories. Other streamers began challenging each other to play it as well, and reports of side effects started to surface: a sense of presence, vivid dreams, episodes of sensory confusion. And one testimony, in particular, was gaining traction:
"I can't explain it, but it feels like this film was made... on the same frequency as me. Not how I see, but how I feel."
The comment had been posted by another young autistic person, and was now spreading as a starting point for a deeper conversation on sensory art, emotional accessibility, and the role of Seeds as vehicles for connecting subjective realities.
Angie leaned back against the wall behind her. The room around her seemed still, as if time had paused for a few minutes. The technomagical sauce continued its cycle in the kitchen, the laptop reflected the cool light of the statistics, and she, in the middle of it all, felt something rare: not euphoria. But belonging.
And that, for her, was miracle enough.
She ran her fingers across the touchscreen, flipping between forum tabs and Raul's stream, when a new notification popped up in the corner of the screen:-"Highlighted comment | Verified source — Professor Ismael R. Faria (43rd District)."-
Angie raised an eyebrow. Professor Ismael? She knew the name. A senior researcher in Arcane Narratives, well-respected in the district — and known for his critical eye, always cautious of any work that promised more than it delivered. If he had commented this early, less than five hours after Nexus went live, it was a sign that the Seed was starting to take root.
She opened the comment with a tightness in her chest.
"I've never underestimated the potential of Seeds as an emotional language. Nexus demonstrated, with uncomfortable clarity, that there are forms of narrative that don't just tell stories — they inscribe them into the body of the observer. An experience that deserves attention and discussion."
Angie let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. Her hands trembled slightly.He understood. Not just understood — he recognized the reach.
The sound of the front door made her look up. Rafa walked in, dropping his backpack in the corner with a sigh. Mike followed behind, balancing a bag of fruit and fresh seeds in one arm.
"Hey, got home early today," Rafa said, sinking into one of the cushions. His eyes landed on the laptop. "Tracking the mini-chaos?"
Mike came closer. "Already got two links in the class group. 'Weird film,' 'creepy immersive experience'... This Nexus thing. Not even five hours online and it's already everywhere."
She hid a smile. "Must be people's curiosity."
Rafa crouched beside her, peering at the screen."Look at that... 4.5 stars, almost 1.000 views already? That fast? This is going to cause a stir."
Mike laughed."A guy in my group said he dreamed about a hallway he's never seen before. I don't know, Angie... if I start dreaming about cassava fields, I'm suing you," he joked.
Angie stifled a laugh and momentarily closed the Conduvia dashboard. It was still early. But even with just a few hours of exposure, Nexus was already leaving traces — in the most unexpected corners.
That was the kind of thing she could never have programmed.And that, in itself, was what scared her the most.
Before she could return to the data tab, Raul's voice echoed from the still-open stream in the background — loud, sharp, cutting through the air like a blade:"Oh my god... what is this?!" he exclaimed, his tone alarmed.
Rafa and Mike immediately stopped talking. Angie leaned forward, dragging the laptop a little closer to the center of the table.
On-screen, Raul looked visibly tense. He was exploring one of Nexus's alternate paths. This time, he had entered the building with Pedro. The video showed flashes of rotting wood floorboards creaking beneath each step. At one moment, the floor gave way — Pedro fell abruptly through to a lower level.
Now, Raul was moving through the basement, the camera shaking in his hands. Dim light, dense shadows. He narrated with a trembling voice:
"Pedro... he fell right here... but... he's gone..." he said, panning the camera around. The image froze for a second, then resumed.
Then, something strange appeared on-screen: from the recording of the dropped camera, Pedro could still be seen walking — but the footage seemed delayed compared to what Raul was perceiving live, as if it was capturing a fragment of time out of sync. Pedro was heading toward a dark corner the live camera couldn't quite reach.
"No, no… this isn't normal… this wasn't part of the previous path," Raul almost whispered, as the chat exploded with messages.
That's when he turned the camera toward a wall covered in old markings — symbols scratched in something that looked like charcoal… or blood. And then, a sudden movement: a blurry figure darted across the edge of the screen.
"Oh my god…" Raul repeated, now breathless, backing away.
"Okay, that I want to see," Rafa said, grabbing a cushion and sitting beside Angie.
Mike frowned, staring at the screen. "Wait... that just happened? He's live?"
Angie only nodded, eyes fixed on the screen, a faint smirk on her lips. There was something fascinating about the play of light and shadow — an old trick, but always effective. All it took was an indistinct silhouette or an out-of-place object, half-hidden in darkness, for the human brain to fill in the gaps with its worst fears. It was inevitable.
No matter how prepared someone was, trying to rationalize was useless. The mammalian brain, shaped by ages of daylight vigilance, carried an ancestral fear of what lurked in the dark. In the shadows, imagination became the enemy — and Nexus knew exactly how to exploit that.
On screen, Raul advanced further into the basement. His breathing was audible, his steps cautious. A sudden creak broke the silence. The chat exploded:
"What was that?!""Run, Raul!"
"Easy, easy… just the wind… just the wind," Raul muttered, trying to steady his voice.
He barely finished speaking when a swarm of rats suddenly burst across the camera's beam of light in a frenzy of feet and squeaks. The effect was immediate. On screen, the character Lucas — controlled by Raul — jumped back, letting out a sharp, unexpected scream:
"AAAAAAH!"
Lucas flailed, bumping into old crates and nearly knocking over the camera. The footage blurred with the motion. The chat went wild:
"OMG lmaooo 😂😂""Lucas screaming like I would IRL 💀""This game is just a reflex test, I swear"
In the chaos, a hanging chain was struck and began to sway on its own. The metallic clink echoed through the empty basement.
"Shit… shit…" Raul panted, steadying the camera again. "Okay… that was not cute. That was— that was instinct, okay?!" he said, his voice still shaky, drawing laughter from the chat.
Rafa burst out laughing. "Dude! That scene. He really got scared."
Mike chuckled, shaking his head. "And Lucas jumping like a maniac… that was perfect."
Raul slowly turned the camera, as if afraid to disturb the basement's oppressive silence. The shaky beam of the small built-in spotlight revealed the damp walls, stained with years of mold and moisture. The heavy, metallic smell of the place seemed to cling to the air, mingling with the faint creak of the old beams supporting the ceiling.
At the center of the room, a single iron chain swung on its own, hanging from a rusted hook in the ceiling. Its movement was slow, almost hypnotic, and seemed out of place in the absolute stillness of the basement. Raul felt his pulse quicken, the rhythm of the swaying chain syncing with the beat of his own heart — as if the room itself was alive.
He took a step back, still gripping the camera tightly, and spoke in a low voice, thick with tension:"Okay… this is not helping… this is really not helping."His words echoed softly off the walls, but there was no reply — only the dense, stagnant air, pressing down on everyone watching.
Rafa shifted on the cushion, leaning forward as if he wanted to dive right into the screen."Man, this is way too well done," he said, his eyes shining with a mix of awe and fear. The tension in the group was palpable, and even Mike, who crossed his arms with a stiff posture, couldn't hide his unease.
"It's impressive how just a swinging chain makes you want to shut down the stream," Mike said, his voice firm but with a tone that betrayed discomfort. The screen showed the basement in its entirety — a space forgotten by time, where every shadow seemed to hide something unseen.
Angie stayed silent, eyes sharp, taking in more than what the image displayed. The simple environment, yet heavy with symbolism, spoke directly to the instinctive fear that Nexus managed to evoke. Here, the true terror wasn't in what was visible, but in what was imagined lurking in the darkness.
In the lower corner of the screen, a prompt appeared, softly blinking, drawing attention:A — Follow the corridor to the right, where the chain was swinging.B — Inspect the wall of symbols on the left.
Raul swallowed hard, hesitated for a moment, then clicked option B."Let's check those marks first," he murmured, bringing the camera closer to the wall.
The thick charcoal markings covered the entire surface: intertwined spirals, distorted humanoid figures, and inscriptions belonging to no known alphabet. Raul slowly moved the camera, capturing every detail with an almost reverent whisper:"Okay... okay... this is new. Didn't see this on the other route."
The air seemed to grow even heavier around them. The shadows gained denser contours, and Raul felt a chill run down his spine. He stepped back a little, feeling the weight of the silence once again.
A new prompt appeared on the screen, as unexpected as the feeling hanging in the air:
A — Go back through the corridor.B — Continue exploring the basement.
"Of course we keep going," Raul said, trying to sound confident, and clicked on B. He advanced cautiously, eyes fixed on the camera, each step muffled against the concrete floor. The silence was almost tangible, broken only by the distant sound of water dripping down the walls.
As he went deeper into the basement, the feeling of claustrophobia grew, as if those dirty, peeling walls were starting to close in around the group.
The air was heavy, saturated with an old smell of mold and rust, and each breath seemed harder than the last. Raul's skin prickled, aware that every sound — a snap, a whisper — took on a new dimension in this place forgotten by time. The camera's flickering light barely cut through the growing darkness, and he knew that any mistake here could be fatal.
A few meters ahead, a rusty side staircase appeared, its steps so corroded it seemed unlikely they could hold much weight.
A — Climb the rusty side staircase.B — Crawl under the fallen beam.
Without much thought, Raul chose the first option. He felt the weight of the decision almost like a challenge thrown by the environment itself.
The creak of the stairs under Lucas's weight echoed loudly, breaking the deep silence of the basement like a scream in the night. Each step seemed to protest its use, groaning and trembling, and Raul held his breath, feeling his chest tighten, the tension rising like a rope about to snap. It was as if the space itself tried to warn them — advancing here wouldn't be simple.
As Lucas climbed, the camera captured the details of the staircase: the corroded steps, covered in rust and grime, the fragile structure that seemed unable to bear any more weight. The air changed slightly, growing colder and drier, as if the basement wasn't one single space, but divided by invisible boundaries. Raul felt a pang of apprehension — a mix of curiosity and fear growing inside him.
At the top of the stairs, a small secondary room appeared — cramped and suffocating. The camera's light barely pierced the gloom that dominated the place, where boxes stacked haphazardly partially blocked the view. The boxes, some crushed and others covered with thick layers of dust and cobwebs, seemed to have been abandoned long ago, forgotten in a remote corner of that dark basement.
The smell of mold and old paper hung heavy in the air, reinforcing the sense that ancient secrets were kept there.
Raul moved the camera slowly, showing the environment carefully, while feeling the tension rise. That place exuded history, and maybe something more — a silent presence lurking in the shadows.
A new dilemma appeared on the screen, illuminating the options before them:
A — Search through the stacked boxes.B — Examine the half-open door at the back.
"Let's check the boxes first," Raul said, clicking on A, curiosity winning over fear. He approached the boxes slowly, feeling the weight of the environment and the history those boxes held. With the camera trembling slightly in his hands, he began to reveal the contents carefully, as if touching something forbidden.
Among yellowed papers and old envelopes, pieces of photographs worn by time appeared. Raul focused on what he could capture: images of patients and doctors wearing uniforms from past eras, posing formally as if smiling at nothing. But there was something disturbing — the faces were scratched out, mutilated, as if someone had tried to erase memories or hide secrets that no one should see.
Silence once again dominated the room, heavy and oppressive, as Raul continued to rummage with the camera, revealing more dark details. The feeling that they were not alone grew with each photo shown, and the camera's light highlighted shadows that seemed to move at the edge of vision. A shiver ran down his spine, but he didn't look away.
Without hesitation, Raul turned to the last visible choice in the prompt, breath held and hand steady on the mouse, ready for the next step in that maze of mysteries:
A — Try to open the door.B — Return through the newly revealed side corridor.
"Okay, time to change the route," Raul said, clicking on B.
As Lucas turned to follow the newly revealed side corridor, a fleeting movement caught his attention. A shadow slipped quickly at the far end of the screen — a humanoid silhouette, but distorted, almost translucent, as if it were a mere fingerprint left in the gloom. Raul's heart raced, and he felt an intense chill rise up his spine.
His eyes widened, voice almost failing as he tried to convey what he had just seen:"Oh my god... did you see that?!"
His breath caught in his throat, and the tension in the air seemed to cut the very light from the camera, making the environment even more sinister.
In the room, Rafa leaned forward, his voice urgent: "Rewind that part, rewind!" The heavy atmosphere seemed to infect everyone, making even Mike — usually so calm — remain still, eyes fixed on the screen, absorbing every detail with heightened attention.
Angie, meanwhile, gave a barely perceptible smirk. Her eyes sparkled with that mix of fascination and anticipation. She knew, better than anyone, that Nexus was beginning to show its teeth — gradually revealing its true face, sharp and dangerous.