The power surged. A spark flew from the motherboard, and the room went pitch black.
In the character select screen, a new portrait appeared that Minh didn't recognize from any wiki. It was a silhouette of a woman standing in front of a cracked mirror. The text underneath simply read: "THE REFLECTION." Curiosity outweighed caution. He selected her.
When the sun rose, the laptop sat dead on the desk, its screen spider-webbed with cracks from the inside out. Minh was gone. The only thing left was a single file on the desktop of his secondary monitor, which somehow remained powered on. It was a screenshot of a completed level, showing a high score and a new character unlocked.
The screen flickered with a dull, rhythmic pulse, casting a cold blue light across Minh’s cramped bedroom. It was 2:00 AM. He had spent the last three hours scouring obscure forums for a very specific file: "Mirror -v3.3 TAT CA DLC- Link Google Drive mien phi."
The crystalline sound grew into a deafening screech. The mirror shards on the screen shattered outward, and for a split second, Minh didn't see a game at all. He saw a version of himself trapped inside the monitor, screaming silently, while the thing from the doorway sat in his chair.
The puzzle board appeared, but instead of the usual colorful gems, the pieces were shards of glass. Each time Minh made a match, a sharp, crystalline sound echoed through his headphones, vibrating deep in his jaw. The "opponent" didn't attack. She just watched.