I spawn in a fresh world, just me and the endless stretch of pixelated trees. Inside my cabin, everything feels safe—familiar torches line the walls, their orange glow pushing back the deep blue-black of night. My inventory is half-empty, tools barely used, and the world is perfectly unmodded. No signs of mobs, no friends on the server—just the gentle crackle of fire and the distant howl of wind.

I notice something odd—a torch near the door is gone. At first, I think I misplaced it, but then another vanishes from the corner. My heart thumps harder as the cabin feels colder, emptier. I check my surroundings, mouse hovering, but nothing moves but the flickering shadows.

Suddenly, the door creaks open by itself. I freeze, staring at the empty threshold, expecting a zombie, a skeleton—anything. But no mobs are there. Only silence, thick and pressing, as if the world itself is holding its breath.

I hear footsteps behind me—quick, uneven, not my own. My inventory is untouched, but my nerves are frayed. I open the player list: just my name. No one else. The wind outside stops, leaving only the sound of those footsteps, closer, then gone.

The chat pings—a message from a player I don’t know. UnknownPlayer: "Don’t turn around." My hands go cold. The screen flickers, sound cuts out, and everything slows. My breathing echoes in my headphones, louder than the game itself.

Every instinct screams at me not to move, but I can’t help it—I turn around. The screen erupts in static, pixels tearing and glitching. A distorted Minecraft face, eyes pure white, mouth a jagged black void, fills the screen.

A blast of shrill, digital noise drowns out everything. The world blinks to black as the face rushes at me, the scream tearing through the silence. The video ends. No sound, no image—just a lingering sense of something watching from the other side.