The soft, golden light of a Saturday morning streamed through the kitchen window of the Hardcox apartment, painting everything in a warm, domestic glow. The air was thick and rich with the sounds and smells of a family breakfast: the percussive sizzle of bacon in a pan, the rhythmic scrape of a spatula against well-seasoned cast iron, the gentle gurgle of a coffee maker dispensing its dark, aromatic lifeblood.
Cathy stood at the stove, her movements economical and practiced, a faint sheen of sweat on her brow that made her skin glow. She hummed a soft tune, her hips swaying slightly in her comfortable, form-fitting home clothes as she flipped a perfect golden pancake.
Across the kitchen island, Vera was a whirlwind of efficient motion, chopping fresh fruit with a sharp knife, the 'thwack-thwack-thwack' a counterpoint to the stove's symphony. Her voluptuous figure, accentuated by a simple tank top and apron tied snugly around her waist, bent and shifted with a powerful, earthy grace. The scent of ripe strawberries and mango mingled with the savory smells.
Nadia moved between them, setting the large dining table with a serene smile. Her generous curves, showcased in a soft, knitted dress, brushed against chairs and countertops as she laid out plates and cutlery with a quiet, matriarchal dignity.
Bella, already seated at the table, provided the modern note. Dressed in athletic shorts and a tight tank top that showed off her toned, youthful body, she was engrossed in her phone, her thumbs flying across the screen, a slight, absent-minded smile on her lips.
The harmonious scene was shattered by the shuffling entrance of Emily. She looked like she'd been dragged through a hedge backward by a poltergeist. Her usually vibrant hair was a tangled bird's nest. Dark, purplish circles hung under her bloodshot eyes. She was wrapped in a thick, fuzzy blanket like a cocoon, and she moved with the sluggish, groaning gait of the undead. She collapsed into a chair next to Bella with a sound that was half-sigh, half-death rattle.
"Dios mío, mija,". Vera glanced over, her dark eyes taking in the wreckage of her niece.
"You look like you got run over by a truck. And then it reversed to make sure it finished the job." She returned to her fruit, a smirk playing on her lips.
"Yikes!... Bad night, much? You were streaming super late, right? Something about a new game or something?". Bella looked up from her phone, her eyebrow arched.
Emily just groaned, burying her face in her hands on the table. Her voice was a raspy, broken thing when it emerged.
"Couldn't sleep... Not a wink, every time I closed my eyes… I heard it. The crying… Or that fucking radio static… I swear I kept checking my closet, I saw her standing in the corner twice., Turns out, it was just my robe, but…". She shuddered violently, pulling the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Cathy turned from the stove, her maternal instincts immediately overriding everything else. Her brow furrowed with concern.
"Why, honey? What on earth happened? Did you have a nightmare?" She wiped her hands on a towel and took a step closer, her expression soft and worried over Emily condition.
"It was Sael," she mumbled into the table.
"He… he made a game…. A horror game and he asked me to test it, and helped him promote it on stream last night... And it… it…" She shuddered again, a full-body convulsion of remembered terror.
"The game was so scary that I almost pissed myself, mom…. I've never been that scared in my life... Not even close…". The skepticism in the room was palpable. Leaning that the house resident hermit, it was Bella who voiced it first, her tone dripping with disbelief.
"Sael? Our brother? Made a game? A good one?". She let out a short, incredulous laugh.
"Since when does he know how to code? Or design? Or… anything except looks pretty and be a bitch?". The old habits of referring to his past self-died hard. But Cathy's reaction was different. A slow, wistful, and incredibly proud smile spread across her face. She looked toward the hallway that led to the bedrooms, as if she could see him through the walls.
"He was always so talented at drawing when he was little, you know,". she said, her voice soft with memory.
"He could spend hours with just a pencil and paper, and his music… he could hear a song once on the radio, just once, and sit down at his little keyboard and play it back perfectly… He had a… a creative spark... A real one.". Her smile faltered slightly. "Before he… decided to lock it all away."
Vera nodded, plating the fluffy scrambled eggs with a thoughtful expression.
"It's true. The boy had perfect pitch. Un don… A gift." She shook her head, a shadow of old sadness in her eyes.
"And then, He just… buried it all… Pretended it didn't exist... and you know how it goes after that,". Her tone, however, now held a new note—not of sadness, but of dawning, hopeful realization. Emily waved a hand weakly, trying to cut through the history lesson.
"Well, he definitely dug it all back up…. And then some… Oh! And by the way, he made a whole company for his game…. It's called 'Meteor Studios'. And… guess what, he's the only employee."
The claim was so audacious it rendered Bella speechless for a moment. She simply stared, her mouth slightly agape. Cathy's expression shifted from nostalgic pride to confused practicality.
"A whole company? Sis, games like the ones you play… they're made by big studios… With hundreds of people working on it... Artists and programmers and… things. Not just one person in his bedroom…". But Bella's curiosity was now a burning thing. Without a word, she picked up her phone, her thumbs stabbing at the screen.
"Meteor Studios, you said?" she muttered, typing the name into her search bar.
Her eyes went wide. "Whoa…".
Emily, intrigued by her sister's reaction, fumbled for her own phone on the table. "What? What is it?".
"It's real," Bella breathed, her voice full of awe.
"He's got Chirper, Facepage, MeTube… all of them. And they've got that little blue checkmark. They're verified…" She looked up, her eyes meeting Emily's. "Everyone… he posted a trailer..."
Emily, now fully awake with a jolt of nervous energy, unlocked her phone and navigated to MeTube, pulling up the Meteor Studios channel. A simultaneous, sharp gasp escaped both sisters, so loud that Cathy, Vera, and Nadia all turned. Bella was the first to find her voice, which came out as a strangled squeak.
"Five… five million views? Emily, it has five million views!". Emily's face was pale. She was staring at her own screen, the numbers searing into her retinas.
"It was posted at four this morning," she said, her voice a stunned whisper.
"It's been five hours. That's… that's a million views an hour…". As if to prove her point, her thumb hit the refresh button. The number jumped.
"Five million one hundred thousand… It's going up, STILL going up! Right now!!...".
The sounds of the kitchen died. The sizzle of the bacon seemed deafening in the new silence. Cathy's spatula hung motionless over the pan. Vera's knife rested amidst the half-chopped fruit. Nadia froze; a stack of plates held in her hands.
Slowly, as if moving through syrup, all three women turned away from their tasks. Their faces were a uniform mask of stunned, utter disbelief. Their eyes were locked on the two girls at the table, who were holding up their phones like religious artifacts.
Cathy found her voice first, though it was barely a whisper.
"…What?". The kitchen was a tableau of suspended animation. The only movement was the lazy curl of steam rising from the forgotten bacon, now burning to a crisp in its pan.
Five pairs of eyes were locked onto the two phones, the numbers on the screens ticking upward with a relentless, hypnotic rhythm. Five million, one hundred thousand. Five million, one hundred and twenty thousand. It was a silent, digital avalanche happening in the palms of their hands.
The spell was broken by a sharp, insistent 'PING!' from Emily's phone, followed by a rapid-fire series of chimes. She flinched, blinking as if waking from a trance. She looked down at the notification banner scrolling across the top of her screen. It was a cascade of messages from the Octopussy group chat, but one from Amora was marked urgent.
Her thumb, trembling slightly, swiped it open.
"AMORA: EMILY GET YOUR FINE ASS TO A TV RIGHT NOW!!! TURN ON CHANNEL 7 THE MORNING SHOW THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT YOU AND THE GAME ITS INSANE!!!". Emily's bloodshot eyes widened.
"Oh my god," she breathed. Then, louder, her voice cracking with a sudden, electric urgency,
"Oh my god! Guys, turn on the TV! Now! Channel 7!".
The command shattered the frozen silence. It was like kicking a beehive. Bella was the first to move, launching herself off the dining chair and scrambling for the living room remote. Cathy abandoned the smoking pan, grabbing a dish towel to wipe her hands as she hurried after her. Vera clicked off the stove, her chef's instincts warring with her curiosity. Nadia, ever graceful, simply set down the plates and followed, her expression one of profound curiosity.
They piled onto the large, worn sectional sofa in the living room, a jumble of anxious feminine energy. Bella mashed the power button on the remote and frantically input the channel number.
The screen flickered to life, revealing the hyper-polished set of "Good Morning New San Antonio." Four hosts—two men, two women, all impossibly attractive and dressed in sharp, bright clothing—sat around a modern glass table. But their usual veneer of relaxed banter was gone. Their posture was leaned forward, their expressions animated with a genuine, buzzing excitement. The chyron at the bottom of the screen screamed:
`INTERNET BREAKING HORROR GAME? METEOR STUDIOS TAKES OVER!`
"[—and if you haven't seen the clips circulating online]," the male host with perfectly coiffed hair was saying, his voice charged with energy. "[you are officially living under a rock! Streamer XxEmilyxX was literally broken by this game last night on her channel!]".
The screen cut to a clip. It was the moment from Emily's stream where Lisa's face filled her view right before the safety shutdown. The audio of Emily's raw, primal scream echoed through the Hardcox living room, followed by the sound of her gasping sobs and the subsequent dead silence from the pod.
In the living room, all heads swiveled to stare at Emily, who had gone from pale to a deep, mortified crimson. She tried to sink into the cushions, pulling her blanket over her head like a shield.
"Emily Hardcox!" Cathy's voice was a mix of shock and maternal concern. "Did you pass out?!".
"...maybe.". A muffled, embarrassed groan came from within the blanket cocoon on her.
On screen, the female host, a brunette with a dazzling smile, shook her head in mock dismay. "[I mean, just look at that reaction! And this isn't some staged bit, folks… Our producers have confirmed this was a live, unscripted stream!... The game is called Silent Hill: First Fear from a mysterious new developer, Meteor Studios...]".
The segment wrapped up. The lead host, smoothing his tie, looked directly into the camera, his expression turning theatrically serious. "[ It's captivated the entire online world in a matter of hours... And now, for the first time on broadcast television, here is the official cinematic trailer for Silent Hill: First Fear.]".