Elias spun around. The room was empty. But when he looked back at the screen, a new file had appeared on his desktop: ThankYouForPlaying.exe . He never tried to pirate a game again. Should we explore a for this story, or

“The Galar you want isn't here, Elias. But we’ve been waiting for a new host.”

He clicked. The screen went pitch black. Then, a text box appeared in a font he didn’t recognize—sharp, jagged letters that looked like they were bleeding into the pixels. “DO YOU SEEK THE CROWN OR THE CHAOS?”

The room temperature dropped. Elias reached for the power plug under his desk, but as his hand touched the cable, the monitor erupted in a flash of white light. When his eyes adjusted, the emulator was gone. His desktop wallpaper had changed to a photo of his own room—taken from the perspective of his webcam—showing him sitting at the desk, looking terrified.

In the photo, standing right behind his chair, was a silhouette with a rusted sword.

The neon glow of the monitor was the only light in Elias’s room as he stared at the forum thread: