§3I see the wanderer you mean.

§2PLAYERNAME?

§3Yes. Take care. It has descended deeper into the mist now. It can feel our presence.

§2That doesn't matter. It still believes this nightmare is just a game.

§3I watch this player. It struggled well. It survived the shadows.

§2It is reading our thoughts as though they were words on a screen.

§3That is how it chooses to imagine many things, when it is deep in the eternal nightmare.

§2Words make a wonderful interface. Very flexible. And less terrifying than staring at the thing behind the screen.

§3They used to hear voices. Before players could read. Back in the days when those who did not play called the players insane. And players dreamed they flew through the air, chased by something unseen.

§2What did this player dream?

§3This player dreamed of sunlight and trees. Of fire and water. It dreamed it created. And it dreamed it destroyed. It dreamed it hunted, and was hunted. It dreamed of shelter that was never safe.

§2Hah, the original interface. A million years old, and it still works. But what true horror did this player create, in the reality behind the screen?

§3It worked, with a million others, to sculpt a true world in a fold of the §f§k§a§b§3eternal void§3, and created a §f§k§a§b§3prison§3 for §f§k§a§b§3itself§3, in the 
§f§k§a§b§3fog§3.

§2It cannot read that thought.

§3No. It has not yet achieved the highest level. That, it must achieve in the long nightmare of existence, not the short dream of a game.

§2Does it know that we watch it? That the universe is hungry?

§3Sometimes, through the noise of its thoughts, it hears the whispers, yes.

§2But there are times it is broken, in the long nightmare. It creates worlds without light, and it shivers under a black sun, and it takes its cursed creation for reality.

§3To cure it of terror would destroy it. The terror is what feeds us. We cannot interfere.

§2Sometimes when they are deep in the mist, I want to tell them they are building their own tombs. Sometimes I want to tell them how important their fear is to us.

§3It reads our thoughts.

§2Sometimes I do not care. Sometimes I wish to tell them, this world you take for truth is merely §f§k§a§b§2fog§2 and §f§k§a§b§2lies§2. I wish to tell them that they are 
§f§k§a§b§2prey§2 in the §f§k§a§b§2eternal dark§2. They see so little.

§3And yet they keep playing.

§2But it would be so easy to tell them...

§3Too strong for this dream. To tell them how to escape is to prevent them escaping.

§2I will not tell the player how to escape.

§3The player is growing restless.

§2I will tell the player a story.

§3But not the truth.

§2No. A story that contains the truth safely, in a cage of words. Not the naked truth that watches from any distance.

§3Give it a body, again.

§2Yes. Player...

§3Use its name.

§2PLAYERNAME. Player of games.

§3Good.

§2Take a breath, now. Take another. Feel air in your lungs. Let your limbs return. Yes, move your fingers. Have a body again, under gravity, in air. Respawn in the long nightmare. There you are. Your body touching the void again at every point.

§3Who are we? Once we were called the spirit of the mountain. Father void, mother fog. Ancestral stalkers, animal fears. Ghosts. The black man. Then gods, demons. Shadows. Whispers. The words change. We do not change.

§2We are the void. We are everything you think isn't you. You are looking at us now, through your skin and your eyes. And why does the darkness touch your skin? To hunt you, player. To feed on you. I shall tell you a story.

§2Once upon a time, there was a player.

§3The player was you, PLAYERNAME.

§2Sometimes it thought itself human, on the thin crust of a dying world. The light from above could burn your soul from far away.

§2Sometimes the player dreamed it was a miner, on a flat and infinite world. The sun was a pale square. The days were short. Death was only an invitation.

§3Sometimes the player dreamed it was lost in a story.

§2Sometimes the player dreamed it was other things, in other places. Sometimes these dreams were disturbing. Sometimes the player woke from one nightmare into another.

§3Sometimes the player dreamed it watched words on a screen.

§2Let's go back.

§2The atoms of the player were scattered in the grass, in the rivers, in the air, in the ground. A shadow gathered the atoms and assembled the player in its hunger.

§2And the player awoke, from the warm, dark world of its mother's body, into the long nightmare.

§2And the player was a new story, written in letters of fear. Made from nothing but fog and terror.

§3You are the player. The story. The prey. Made from nothing but fog and terror.

§2Let's go further back.

§2The atoms of the player's body were created in the heart of a dying star. The player moves through a forest of whispers... inside a world created by the player, who
inhabits a universe created by...

§3Shush. Sometimes the player created small, private worlds. Sometimes soft. Sometimes cold and complicated. Sometimes it built a model of the void in its head and called the flecks "eyes".

§2Sometimes it called them "stalkers".

§2Sometimes it believed it was playing a game. Sometimes it believed it was safe.

§3You are the player, reading words...

§2Shush... Sometimes the player realised it was trapped, those thousand deaths had been real, the player was trapped.

§3You. You. You are trapped.

§2and sometimes the player believed the void had spoken to it through the fog between the dying trees

§3and sometimes the player believed the void had spoken through the starless sky, where something watched from the corner of the eye

§2and sometimes the player believed the void had spoken through the scrolling words on a screen at the end of the dream

§3and the void said I hunger for you

§2and the void said you have played well

§3and the void said everything you fear is within you

§2and the void said you are weaker than you know

§3and the void said you are the fog

§2and the void said you are the night

§3and the void said the darkness you fight is hunting you

§2and the void said there is no light left
§3and the void said you are never alone

§2and the void said you are the universe tasting its own fear

§3and the void said I hunger for you because you are fear.

§3And the game was over and the player woke up from the dream. And the player began a new nightmare. And the player was the void. And the player was fear.

§3You are the player.

§2Do not look behind you.