Chapter 6: The Arcade of Lost Souls

Chapter 6: The Arcade of Lost Souls

The staircase descended into a humming, electric dream. Each step down was a step away from the grimy reality of the kitchen and into a place that pulsed with impossible power. The air, thick with the scent of ozone and burnt sugar, vibrated with a low, synthesized hum—not the chaotic cacophony of a real arcade, but the steady, single note of a machine at rest. Flickering, multicolored light washed over Jonah, painting the crumbling brick walls in shifting hues of sapphire, emerald, and blood red. It was hypnotic. It was a trap.

At the bottom, he stepped into a space that was both a perfect replica of his memory and a horrifying perversion of it. This was Wham! Arcade, but reborn, spectral and unnervingly clean. The carpets weren’t stained with soda, the air held no trace of cigarette smoke, and the rows of game cabinets stood in silent, perfect formation, their screens glowing with a uniform, predatory light. It was a mausoleum disguised as a place of joy, and Jonah felt like a desecrator of graves, even though he knew he was the intended guest.

He was alone, yet the feeling of being watched was overwhelming. He could almost feel the phantom presence of David at his shoulder, a ghostly game warden patrolling his private zoo. His desire was simple now, stripped of all complexity: find the game, play the game, get out. The obstacle was the very nature of this place, a library of terror where every shelf held a story of a life ruined and a soul consumed.

He forced his legs to move, his footsteps swallowed by the low hum. He walked down the first aisle, his flashlight beam now seeming weak and pathetic against the arcade’s own supernatural glow. He looked at the first cabinet. The side-art was a garish cartoon of a grinning, pig-faced butcher in a blood-stained apron, brandishing a cleaver. Above him, sausages and hams with terrified faces whispered to each other in speech bubbles. The title of the game, in dripping red letters, was BUTCHER’S BLOCK!!

Jonah’s blood ran cold. He remembered the urban legend from the forum. My grandpa used to say the butcher, Wolfgang, went mad because he heard voices coming from the meat locker. He leaned closer, peering at the glowing screen. The high score table was displayed, a list of single names. At the top, in stark, blocky letters, was the name: WOLFGANG.

He stumbled back, a horrified gasp escaping his lips. He moved to the next machine. The art depicted a frantic, tweed-clad man fleeing from a tidal wave of books, the letters on their spines rearranging themselves into monstrous, threatening words. The title: BOOKWORM’S REVENGE!! The top score: ARLEN, the name of the literature professor who’d been arrested for screaming at his customers.

This was the horrifying turning point, the moment the true, systematic nature of the curse became clear. He wasn't just in a haunted arcade. He was walking through a graveyard. Each cabinet was a tombstone, a digital monument to a person the building had broken and devoured. The yoga instructor, the soap maker, the coffee shop owner—he didn't know their names, but he knew with sickening certainty that they were all here, their greatest fears immortalized in 8-bit graphics and synthesized sound.

The building didn't just haunt people. It consumed them. It digested their anxieties, their phobias, their failures, and turned them into a playable exhibit. Claudia’s words echoed in his head: It’s a system. This wasn’t a haunting; it was a collection. A library of torment, and he was its newest patron.

His legs felt like lead as he continued down the row, past games called SOUL-CHILLING DRAFT! and ARTISANAL AGONY. Each one was a testament to a failed dream, a life derailed by this parasitic entity. He felt a flicker of connection to these nameless victims, a fellowship of the damned. How many of them had stood where he was standing now, heart hammering, knowing they were about to play for a stranger’s life?

He reached the end of the aisle and turned into the next. And there, at the very end of the row, was one machine that was different.

While the others glowed with a steady, uniform light, this one flickered with an inviting, insistent pulse. It was the only one that seemed truly active, the only one whose attract-mode demo was playing. The sound from its speakers was a low, rhythmic beeping, like a heart monitor.

Jonah approached it, his dread so thick it was almost a physical taste in his mouth. He already knew what he would find. The cabinet's side-art was a nightmarish scene. A terrified, gaunt woman with blonde hair strapped to a hospital gurney. Around her, shadowy figures in green surgical scrubs and masks loomed, their eyes glowing red in the dark. In their hands were not scalpels, but impossibly large, gleaming syringes filled with a viscous black liquid. The title of the game was written in a clean, sterile font that was somehow more menacing than any dripping gore.

HOSPITAL NIGHTMARES!!

His gaze fell upon the screen. The demo showed the blonde woman running down an endless, sterile hallway, dodging the grasping hands of the scrub-clad figures. Jonah’s heart clenched. He looked at the high score table on the right side of the screen. It was a short list. At the very top, blinking in a pale, sickly yellow, was the name CLAUDIA, listed as CURRENT PLAYER.

As he watched, a new line of text materialized beneath hers, letter by agonizing letter.

NEXT PLAYER: JONAH K.

The machine knew him. It had been waiting for him. This was it. This was Claudia's game. He was here to play for her life. The thought was so overwhelming he felt his knees weaken. He, Jonah, the man who had failed at his business, at his marriage, at a simple video game against a seven-year-old boy, was now responsible for a woman’s very existence.

He reached out a trembling hand and touched the joystick. It was warm. Not with the heat of electronics, but with a faint, feverish heat, like it was alive.

The screen flashed, the demo mode vanishing. In its place, two words appeared in big, bold letters, pulsing in time with the beeping heart monitor.

INSERT COIN

He looked for the coin slot. There wasn't one. The front of the machine was a smooth, unbroken surface. How was he supposed to play?

As if in answer, a sharp, metallic clink echoed from inside the machine’s chassis, the unmistakable sound of a quarter dropping into a mechanism. The screen flashed again, blindingly bright.

PLAYER ONE READY!

A child’s voice, quiet and eerily polite, whispered directly behind him, the words tickling his ear like a cold breath.

“For her life, Jonah. Good game.”