Chapter 1: The Lurking Post

Chapter 1: The Lurking Post

The August air was a thick, wet blanket smothering the suburbs. Inside Leo Vance’s bedroom, a single window fan did little more than stir the molten atmosphere, its useless whirring a mechanical sigh of defeat. It was the kind of soul-crushing boredom unique to the tail end of summer vacation, a boredom so profound it felt like a physical weight pressing down on Leo’s chest. He stared at the glowing CRT monitor, its hum a familiar lullaby, as dust motes danced in the shafts of late afternoon sun slanting through his blinds.

“Find anything yet?”

The voice belonged to Tim Carter, who was sprawled on Leo’s floor, propped up on his elbows and scrolling through his phone with a listless thumb. His face, usually alight with some new, reckless idea, was slack with the same oppressive ennui.

“Just the usual,” Leo mumbled, clicking through the tabs he had open. “Video game walkthroughs, arguments about which movie director is overrated… the internet is dead today.”

“Tell me about it.” Tim tossed his phone onto the carpet with a soft thud. “We could go to the pool.”

“And get boiled alive? No thanks. Besides, my mom wants me to clean the garage later.”

A groan escaped Tim. “The garage. The final resting place of all summer fun.” He pushed himself up and slouched over to Leo’s chair, leaning his chin on the headrest. “Let me drive for a bit. You’re always looking in the wrong places. You gotta go deep.”

Leo sighed and relinquished the mouse. He knew what “deep” meant for Tim. It meant the weird, forgotten corners of the internet, the digital back alleys where urban legends were born and festered. Tim’s fingers flew across the keyboard, his movements sharp and decisive. He bypassed their usual forums and social media pages, navigating to a site with a GeoCities-era design—a stark black background with jarring, electric-blue text and a pixelated skull logo that spun slowly in the corner.

“Net-Nihil,” Tim said, a spark of life returning to his voice. “The best place for the worst things.”

The forum was a cesspool of conspiracy theories and amateur horror stories, what they used to call creepypastas. Most were laughably bad, full of cliches about haunted video games and cursed VHS tapes. But Tim was a connoisseur of the strange, a thrill-seeker who believed that somewhere in all the digital noise was a signal of something real.

He scrolled past threads titled “Shadow People in my Attic” and “The Smiling Man Followed Me Home.” Then he stopped.

“Whoa. Check this out.”

Leo leaned in. The thread was simply titled: “The Subway Game.”

The original post was short, cryptic, and strangely compelling.

User: A_Watcher Posted: Three years ago.

There are doors that lead to other places. Not to other countries or cities, but to the spaces in between. The draft versions. The ones that weren't meant to be seen. If you want to see for yourself, there’s a ritual. A game. I can’t post the rules here. They don’t like being seen. But if you’re looking, you’ll be found.

Below it was a string of replies. The first few were from the time of the original post—people calling it fake, asking for the rules, daring the poster to prove it. Then, years of silence.

“Three years old,” Leo said, a skeptical frown on his face. “It’s just some creative writing project, man. Probably for a college class.”

“Maybe,” Tim mused, his eyes glued to the screen. “But look at the vibe. It’s not like the others. It’s not trying to scare you with cheap jumps. It’s… I don’t know. It feels different. Colder.”

Leo’s morbid curiosity, a character flaw he was well aware of, began to stir. He took back the mouse. “Let’s see who this ‘Watcher’ guy is.”

He clicked on the username. The profile was a complete void. No avatar, no signature, no other posts. The account existed only to create that one thread and then vanish.

“Dead end,” Leo announced, leaning back in his chair with a sense of anticlimax. “See? Just some dude who posted once and forgot his password.”

“Guess so,” Tim said, the disappointment evident in his voice. He slumped back onto the floor, the brief flicker of excitement extinguished. The oppressive boredom returned, thicker than before. The fan whirred. The computer hummed. The moment had passed.

Then, a sharp plink sound sliced through the quiet room.

It was the unmistakable notification of a new instant message, a sound they hadn't heard since they were mostly using social media chats. A small, generic chat window had popped up at the bottom of Leo’s screen.

The username was A_Watcher.

Leo and Tim froze, staring at the screen. A cold dread, sudden and sharp, trickled down Leo’s spine. It was impossible. They hadn't messaged the user. They hadn't even been logged into the forum.

“No way,” Tim whispered, scrambling to his knees beside the chair. “No freakin’ way.”

Leo’s hand trembled as he moved the mouse cursor over the flashing window. His heart hammered against his ribs. This wasn’t right. This felt invasive, predatory. He clicked.

The chat window opened. For a few seconds, there was only a blinking cursor. Then, text appeared, typed with an unnerving, steady pace.

A_Watcher: Hello, Leo. Hello, Tim.

The blood drained from Leo’s face. Tim let out a choked sound, a mix of terror and awe. This wasn't a prank. This wasn't a coincidence. It knew their names. It was watching them. Right now.

“How?” Leo breathed, his voice barely a whisper. “How does it know our names?”

Before they could formulate another thought, a new message appeared.

A_Watcher: You were looking.

And then, the rules. They appeared all at once, a block of text that seemed to suck the very warmth from the room.

The Subway Game: Rules

1. Go to the end of the line. The one that runs deepest. 2. Play alone. 3. Board the last train after midnight. It must be empty. 4. At the second-to-last stop, the lights will flicker. When they go out, close your eyes and hold your breath. 5. Do not open your eyes until you hear the bell. It will not sound like a normal bell. 6. When the doors open, get off the train.

Leo read them, and then read them again. They were simple. Cryptic. And impossibly, terrifyingly alluring. The casual curiosity of a moment ago had curdled into a primal fear. This wasn't a game they had stumbled upon. It was a summons. They hadn't chosen it; it had chosen them.

Tim stared, his face pale but his eyes wide with a dangerous fire. “Leo… this is it. This is real.”

“It’s a hacker, Tim,” Leo said, his voice shaking, trying to find a logical anchor in a sea of encroaching dread. “They got our IPs, saw our names on a social media profile or something. It’s an elaborate prank.”

As if in response, a final message from A_Watcher appeared.

A_Watcher: Don’t break the rules.

And then the user was gone. Leo clicked frantically on the chat window, but a system message popped up: User does not exist. He refreshed the forum page. The entire thread, “The Subway Game,” was gone. The link was dead. It was as if it had never been there at all.

The only evidence that remained was the open, empty chat window on his monitor and the six terrifying rules branded into his memory.

The silence in the room returned, but it was different now. It was a heavy, watchful silence. The familiar comfort of Leo’s bedroom had been violated, transformed into the scene of a paranormal encounter. The glow from the screen, once a beacon against boredom, now felt like the gaze of an unseen eye. The game was real, and they had just been handed the instructions.