The eyes went dark, and there was no sound in the ears, as the hush fell in this metal compartment.
At the same time, a burst of cold air was felt.
The semi-closed game compartment also has its own cooling system. Players can choose to turn it on or off, and some games adjust themselves after it is activated.
"Be careful, the gap is... that's another parallel reality."
"I am who I am. Are you sure you're the only you?"
Two lines of subtitles appeared in front. A bit confused, the meaning of these two sentences wasn't clear yet.
But before the meaning could be figured out, the game screen appeared.
At the beginning, the protagonist woke up on the icy ground. With the air-conditioning effect activated by the VR game compartment, there was an involuntary shake.
The screen in the game shook synchronously with it.
A very realistic cockroach crawled in front, causing a twitch of the mouth.
Though he is 1.85 meters tall, there was still some misery when it came to cockroaches, spiders, and similar bugs. It wasn't about fear, but more about disgust.
The tightly closed wooden door of the room suddenly opened by itself with a creaking sound.
This didn't make the heart fluctuate at all. After all, it was just the beginning of the game, and this kind of scene was not rare. The mood remained calm.
Looking around, the starting point of the game was a dark room. It was surrounded by rough concrete walls, and a wooden door was ahead with a small gap open. A faint light from an incandescent lamp bloomed weakly.
Not rushing forward, some basic operations were performed. Only simple actions like walking, moving hands for basic movements, and squatting were possible.
Crawling, jumping, or running didn't work—there was no response. Clearly, the game hadn't added that action system yet.
There was no UI prompt in the game, which wasn't surprising. After all, this was just a demo for testing, not the final game.
Hopefully, the next part would be more engaging.
The mood remained relaxed.
Pushing open the door revealed a narrow corridor.
The space could only accommodate two people walking side by side, with incandescent lights mounted on the walls and ends of the corridor.
But the light propagation was strangely limited. The areas around the light were bright, but elsewhere, it was dark.
This contrast of bright and dark created a strange, eerie feeling throughout the game.
Noticed, too, were the murals on the walls. Some were very clear, while others were intentionally blurred, leaving the content completely unclear.
With the new version of the VR equipment, performance had improved dramatically, making the overall game experience feel much closer to reality.
This kind of realistic picture, combined with the eerie atmosphere, suddenly filled the air with tension.
However, as a carefully selected tester, Li Yue had seen many big scenes. He paused for a moment, then moved on after taking a quick look at the surroundings.
In the middle of the hallway, there was a recess on the right-hand side, which happened to have a table in it.
An electronic watch sat on the table, showing the time: 23:59.
Above the watch on the wall, there were several vague paintings. One of them seemed to depict a U-shape, but with a black dot in the middle, which looked very strange.
A number of empty wine bottles were stacked in the corner near the table, suggesting that the house's owner was a frequent drinker.
It didn't look particularly special, but something about it felt off. The main issue was the surrounding silence.
Each step Li Yue took echoed loudly in the quiet, making it feel as though the sound of his footsteps was striking his heart. The complete silence, broken only by the sound of his movements, made the entire game experience feel oppressive.
After confirming that the electronic clock was nothing special, Li Yue continued down the corridor.
He soon reached the end, where the hallway turned sharply. A narrow corridor stretched behind the corner.
To the left, there was a wooden cabinet with a disorganized mess on top.
Among the clutter was a damaged phone, pictures that appeared to show the house's owners, and a scattering of white pills. It was all chaotic and unkempt.
As before, Li Yue didn't find anything of importance and proceeded forward.
At the corner, there was a door that couldn't be opened. Ahead, an open door led to a basement. On the left side of the hallway, a clothes hanger stood. To the right was a photo of the owners, along with a radio and several cigarette butts.
Above, a dimly lit chandelier hung from the second floor.
As Li Yue approached, a noisy sound began emanating from the radio, gradually becoming clearer. It sounded like a news broadcast.
The report was about a murder:
"On the day of the incident, the father went to the trunk of the car, pulled out a shotgun, and shot his wife, who was cleaning up the kitchen after lunch."
"When his 10-year-old son came to investigate, the father shot him too."
"The 6-year-old daughter, wise enough to hide in the bathroom, was later lured out by her father, who told her it was just a game. She was shot in the chest at close range."
"The wife, who had been killed, was pregnant at the time."
Police arrived at the scene after receiving a call from a neighbor who found the father listening to the radio in his car.
In the days before the murder, neighbors said they heard the father repeating a string of numbers aloud, and they described it as if he were chanting some strange spell.
There was another family shooting in the same state last month, and one last December.
A man killed his entire family with a shotgun and a cleaver, and in every case, the culprit was the father.
State police said the series of family tragedies appeared unrelated, although they might be tied to unemployment, child-rearing, and other social problems ordinary families face.
Li Yue stood at the scene for a while, absorbing key information from the radio.
Could this house be the one from the previous massacre? And could he be playing the murdering father?
He privately examined the area but found nothing unusual.
Still, a sense of unease gripped him.
It felt as though a monster might suddenly appear to startle him.
So far, there hadn't been any particularly intense scenes.
He had played Escape, developed by Chen Xu, and had been frightened by some of its content. But those moments were just startling.
Now, this simple demo called Silent Hill PT gave him a completely different feeling.
It wasn't just because it was a VR game. More importantly, it was the game's overall atmosphere.
Li Yue took a deep breath, pushing aside these unsettling thoughts, and refocused on the game in front of him. After all, he still had to test it.
He moved forward slowly, slower than an elderly man walking through a park.
Passing through the open door, he descended the steps and opened the door again. Li Yue froze.
Everything in front of him looked so familiar.
This was the corridor at the beginning of the game.
Had he... returned?
The two lamps were arranged one after the other, the blurry picture on the left wall was still hanging, and the electronic clock displayed 23:59.
Ghosts? Was it ghost-hitting-the-wall?
Li Yue suddenly felt a chill run through him.
Until now, the entire game had taken place in the corridor.
Except for the cockroach at the beginning, nothing else had appeared. Yet, the atmosphere already made him feel a growing sense of dread and panic.