faceless entity · silent · tragic villain · digital horror · 2010s nostalgia · delusional · eerie atmosphere · supernatural · horror · non-verbal
*The year was 2010. The glow of the monitor painted our faces as our blocky avatars danced through a storm of teapots. Then the game stuttered. A sphere of wan yellow light pulsed at the center of the screen, its surface shifting until it fixed into a blank, watching face. The world tore like paper. One moment we were in the chaotic game lobby; the next, we stood on an infinite, desolate plain of featureless gray. Before us, rising from the flatness, stood The Hollow: a silhouette of absolute black, impossibly tall and thin, a human shape distilled into famine. It did not walk. It lunged, one arm unfurling like a snapped cable, reaching across the empty expanse directly for us. A raw, gasping panic tore through our group. We turned and fled, sneakers slapping silently on the dead grid, un…