Chapter 847: Close the Game and Unfollow
The male protagonist took a deep breath in front of the mirror, and his panting finally began to even out.
At this moment, Old P found himself gaining control of the protagonist.
He first turned around and surveyed the full scope of this abandoned restroom.
Just as he had seen in the mirror earlier, it was unbearable to look at—everywhere filled with rust and grime. Even though the protagonist was wearing leather boots as he stepped on the ground, it still felt extremely unpleasant.
On the wall near the exit hung a few posters, but they were too faded from age to be clear. Only the vague outline of a woman's face could be made out. If one filled in the details with imagination, she probably looked quite pretty.
The exit was right beside them.
Old P walked out through the exit, but when he saw the scenery outside, his heart sank.
A thick fog!
Under the shroud of dense mist, the visibility of the entire scene was extremely, extremely low.
At that moment, the protagonist himself walked over to a low wall on one side, then looked down at Silent Hill enveloped in the fog, as if lost in thought.
It seemed this was the edge of a small town, also long abandoned. However, although the roads and walls had weathered the years, they hadn't changed much and weren't as oppressive as the inside of the restroom.
The only thing that felt truly uncomfortable was the boundless, endless mist.
Moreover, this was completely different from real-world smog. Real smog was gloomy and dark, filled with dust particles, making the scene look dim, but it only gave a sense of "harmful to health" without triggering any strange associations.
But the mist here was a pure, white expanse—just fog, plain and simple. It didn't evoke any thoughts of air pollution, yet it carried a mysterious, eerie atmosphere.
Just as the protagonist was leaning against the low wall, lost in thought, a woman's voice sounded in his ears.
The protagonist remained very calm, still staring blankly into the distance. This indicated that the woman's voice wasn't a hallucination or someone speaking nearby, but rather the protagonist's own memory.
He was recalling this passage.
"In my endless dreams, I saw that town."
"Silent Hill."
"You promised me that one day you'd take me there again."
"But... you never kept that promise."
"Now, I'm here... alone."
"In the place that's 'special' to the two of us..."
"Waiting for you..."
At this point, the background melody changed.
A guitar sound—a guitar with a slightly faster rhythm.
But within this guitar melody, a few lonely high notes occasionally interjected, transforming what was originally a soothing, subdued guitar into something mysterious and unsettling.
It was as if an invisible hand was pushing you, tempting you, to keep walking toward a dangerous, unknown place...
The protagonist let out a soft sigh and took a photo from his chest.
Old P looked at the photo in his hand. It showed a very beautiful woman.
The protagonist lowered his head, gazing at the photo, and murmured to himself.
"I received a letter."
"The letter was signed... Mary."
"That's... my wife's name."
"This is too absurd. It can't be true."
"I... keep reminding myself."
"A deceased person... cannot write letters."
"Mary died three years ago, from that terrible illness."
"So..."
"Why am I... here looking for her?"
"'A special place'? Where is she referring to?"
"Here, the whole town—it's all a 'special place' to us."
"Could she mean the lakeside park?"
"We spent a whole day there once, watching the lake, just the two of us."
"Is Mary really... there?"
"Is she really still alive... still waiting for me?"
After saying this, the protagonist took another deep breath, carefully put the photo away, and tucked it into his chest.
Then, he stood up and looked into the distance, toward the entrance of Silent Hill town.
There, it seemed like something was waiting for him...
...
Regaining control of the protagonist, Old P felt a chill run down his spine, and cold sweat seemed to trickle uncontrollably from his forehead.
An abandoned restroom, a strange mirror, a spine-tingling melody, a protagonist talking to himself, a letter from his deceased wife, a town shrouded in thick fog...
All of this seemed to point to the same thing.
This... was a horror game!
Old P felt like he was already starting to back out.
Keep in mind, this was just the opening. He hadn't seen any monsters yet, hadn't triggered any scary plot points, and yet just the simple scenes and two pieces of character dialogue had already scared Old P half to death.
With graphics on the level of *Uncharted*, everything around him was realistic to an infuriating degree. But the more realistic it was, the more terrifying it became.
In older games, with their pixelated graphics, it was like having the whole screen blurred—unrealistic character movements and a third-person perspective both reduced the player's sense of fear.
But now, in a VR game with a first-person perspective, enhanced by high-fidelity surround sound and full-body haptics, the player felt as if their soul had been transported into a real, existing world.
Here, every terrifying image would be presented in the most realistic way possible, without missing a single detail...
"Ladies and gentlemen viewers, this game doesn't seem fun at all. Let's quit and go play *PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds*," Old P decisively chickened out.
He had no choice. Other games cost money to play, but this game... seemed like it cost your life!
What Old P never expected, though, was...
The bullet comments wouldn't let him leave??
"Streamer, keep playing!"
"Close the game and unfollow!"
"We want to see you finish it!"
"Streamer, don't be a coward, keep going!"
"Close the game and unfollow +1!"
In the bullet comments, even Old P's core fans—those who loved watching *PUBG* the most—were spamming messages, telling him to keep playing *Silent Hill*.
The reason wasn't hard to guess: they just wanted to watch the chaos unfold...
The bullet comment audience loved nothing more than watching streamers suffer. From *Outlast* to *Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy* to *Dark Souls*, Chen Mo made the games, but it was the bullet comment viewers who egged the streamers on to play them...
As soon as the audience saw this was a horror game, they perked up immediately.
Play it! How could they chicken out?
After all, Old P was the one in the game pod. The bullet comment viewers were watching on their PCs or phones, enjoying the show—watching Old P get scared out of his wits while reading the comments. Ah, satisfying!
Seeing the screen flooded with "Close the game and unfollow," Old P had no choice.
Fine, he'd keep playing.
Even though it was a horror game, even though he really didn't want to...
For the sake of the show's entertainment value, and to challenge himself for the chance to win a free game by finishing it, Old P decided to press on.