Long-press a paragraph to send danmaku
The stream chat's moving too fast for me to read individual lines, which is weird because I average maybe two hundred viewers on a good night. Tonight I'm at four hundred twelve and climbing.
I adjust my headset and lean closer to the mic. "Okay, okay, hang on. Let me save before I go into the warehouse. Last time I got jumped by three ferals at once and you guys watched me die for like ten minutes straight."
Someone drops a five-dollar super chat. The text-to-speech voice cuts through my game audio. "IvyVR you sound different tonight. Voice deeper or something?"
I frown. My throat does feel rough. I mute my mic and clear it a couple times. When I unmute, I try to sound normal. "Just tired. Coffee shop shift ran long today."
Another super chat. Ten bucks this time. "No for real your voice is doing a thing. Check your levels?"
I glance at my audio interface. Everything looks fine. Green bars, no clipping. I shrug at my webcam—which is off, like always—and go back to the game. "Levels are good. Maybe it's just the new mic filter I'm testing. Anyway, warehouse time. Everybody shut up so I can hear the feral breathing."
The chat spams emotes. I'm playing Lunar Hunt, this indie horror game that got huge last year. You're a survivor trying to make it through a city overrun by werewolves, and the sound design is so good that if you're wearing headphones you can hear them sniffing for you through walls. I love it. I've beaten it twice but I keep coming back because the randomizer mod makes every run different.
I crouch-walk through the warehouse entrance. My character's heartbeat kicks in, that low thudding bass that means something's close. I hold my breath. The chat goes quiet. This is the good part. This is why I stream.
A feral rushes me from behind a stack of crates. I spin and hit the dodge button but I'm half a second too late. The feral tackles me and the screen goes red around the edges. My character screams. I mash the struggle button and my character throws the feral off, rolls to her feet, sprints for the exit.
I'm muttering under my breath. "Come on come on come on—" The feral's right behind me, claws scraping on the concrete, and I can hear its breath in my headset, wet and rattling. My heart's actually pounding. I love this game.
I make it through the door and slam it behind me. The feral hits the door a second later and the whole frame shakes. I back away from the door, panting. My character's health is at twenty percent. I need to find a med kit or I'm dead next encounter.
The chat's going wild. I let myself grin. "That was too close. Okay. Okay. I think there's a safe room two buildings over. If I can make it there I can—"
Something moves in the corner of my eye. In my room, not in the game. I freeze. My apartment's a studio, one big rectangle with a kitchenette on one end and my bed on the other. My streaming setup's in the middle, facing the window. The blinds are closed. They're always closed.
But I heard something. A creak. Like someone stepping on the floorboard near the bathroom.
I mute my mic and pull off my headset. The apartment's silent. My PC fans hum. The fridge clicks on. Nothing else.
I'm being paranoid. I live alone. I changed the locks when I moved in. I'm fine.
I put my headset back on and unmute. "Sorry, thought I heard my neighbor. Where was I? Right, safe room."
I guide my character through the alley between buildings. The moon's full in the game, bright enough to cast shadows. My character's breathing hard. So am I. My throat's still rough and now my skin feels hot, like I'm coming down with something.
The chat's moving fast again. I catch a username I haven't seen before. Silent_Tracker. They drop a twenty-dollar super chat.
The TTS voice reads it out. "Last Thursday 2:47 AM, that sound before you cut the mic wasn't in-game, was it?"
My hands stop moving. My character stands in the alley, totally exposed, but I'm not looking at the screen anymore. I'm looking at the chat. Silent_Tracker's message is already scrolling up, buried under spam and emotes.
Last Thursday. I streamed late last Thursday because I couldn't sleep. It was a full moon and I'd called in sick to the coffee shop because I felt weird, feverish and restless. I thought streaming would help. I played Lunar Hunt for three hours and at some point near the end I—
I don't remember. I remember feeling hot. I remember my hands shaking. I remember muting my mic because I thought I was going to cough.
Did I mute it? I always mute when I cough. I'm careful about that.
A feral rushes my character from the side and kills me in two hits. The death screen comes up. The chat's laughing, asking if I fell asleep. I barely notice.
I tab over to my streaming software and pull up last Thursday's VOD. It's still up. I almost never rewatch my own streams but I scroll to 2:47 AM and hit play.
On screen, past-me is creeping through a building, whispering into the mic about how she can hear a feral on the floor above. She sounds normal. Tired, but normal. Then she stops moving. She's quiet for a few seconds. Then there's a sound.
It's low. It's not words. It's not a cough. It sounds like—
I close the tab. My hands are shaking. That didn't come from the game. The game audio's in the left channel and my mic's in the right and that sound was in the right channel, which means it came from me, from my mic, and I don't remember making that sound. I don't know how to make that sound.
The chat's asking if I'm okay. I'm still on the death screen. I haven't restarted.
I clear my throat and try to sound normal. "Yeah, sorry, I'm just—I think I'm getting sick. I'm gonna end early tonight."
The chat spams sad emotes but a few people say feel better. I do my usual sign-off, thank the subs, raid someone else's channel. My hands are on autopilot. I'm still thinking about that sound.
I close the stream and sit in my chair, staring at my monitors. The apartment's quiet again. It's almost four AM. I should go to bed. I should drink water. I should do literally anything other than sit here spiraling about a weird noise I made a week ago when I was half-asleep and feverish.
My phone buzzes. I pick it up. It's a DM on the streaming platform. From Silent_Tracker.
I open it. It's short.
"Someone's going to knock on your door tomorrow morning. Early. Don't open it unless he says your mom's name first."