When she opened her eyes, she was lying on the cold floor of a dark, damp basement. The air hung heavy with the metallic stench of blood, and her entire body was tightly bound inside a metal cage.
I was just on my way home from work… wasn't I?
She remembered a hole—like a sudden sinkhole—opening beneath her feet, the sickening feeling of losing her balance and falling. She should have woken up in a hospital, yet here she was, trapped in a makeshift dungeon.
Even stranger was her own reflection. The short brown bob she’d worn for years was gone, replaced by long, cascading strands of gold. She wanted to reach out, to tug at the hair and prove it was hers, but the heavy ropes rendered her immobile.
Blinking away the fog in her mind, she tried to piece the scene together, only for an ominous sound to echo from the stairs above. Heavy, deliberate footsteps, taking their time as they descended.
The man who stepped into the light possessed a chillingly handsome face—hair as black as swallowed darkness, framed by piercing, tempestuous gray eyes. His face was impossibly, terrifyingly familiar.
Why… why is Silas here?
Silas Blackwood. At a glance, he appeared to be an impeccably dressed gentleman, tailored and refined. But she knew better.
She knew the absolute madness lurking beneath that polished facade.
He was a character from The Devil’s House, the horror game she had been obsessed with lately. More specifically, he was the primary antagonist—a serial killer who, before his true identity was unveiled, went by the horrific moniker “The Butcher.”
“Awake, are we?”
He spoke in a light, almost casual conversational tone. She tried desperately to process the impossibility of the situation, but staring down an active serial killer, the question was no longer “How did I get here?” but “How do I stay alive?”
Could this be a dream? If it was, would dying at his hands wake her up in her own bed?
No. The coarse bite of the ropes around her skin, the bone-chilling dampness of the room, and the copper reek of blood were far too vivid. Dreams never felt this real.
“You’re quick to catch on,” Silas murmured, a bright smile gracing his features. “I was planning to put you down immediately if you made a scene.”
The warmth of his smile only rendered the threat more agonizingly cold, sending a violent shiver down her spine.
What do I actually know about Silas?
She racked her brain, frantically searching her memory of the playthroughs. Amnesia, severe psychopathy, refined manners, a silver tongue that effortlessly deflected suspicion… and the first victim’s cage.
She hadn’t even reached the game’s true ending, so she had no blueprint for escaping the mansion or contacting the authorities. In the game, the player controlled a police officer who had to infiltrate the house and coordinate with a squad to clear the level.
There was no way for her to handle this on her own.
Could she really survive without being “disposed of” before Silas was caught? Given his track record of slaughtering scores of victims, the odds were practically zero. Helplessness washed over her, and tears began to spill down her cheeks.
Why did I have to get reincarnated into this? she thought bitterly. Other people wake up as princesses or romance heroines… Why am I the doomed first victim in a slasher game?
“You’re actually quite lucky,” he murmured, stepping closer.
At that moment, the game's opening dialogue flashed in her mind.
“You’re the first guest in this mansion, aren’t you?”
Those were the exact lines that triggered the prologue. Though the first victim was only briefly mentioned in police case files later on, her role in the narrative was vital: she existed solely to demonstrate Silas's sickening cruelty to the player.
That grisly fate was now her reality.
How… how do I survive this?
She forced herself to take slow, shallow breaths, but her pulse was pounding so hard she could feel it in her throat.
“You’re special,” he said quietly.
“Si-Silas.”
Clang!
Hearing his own name slip from the lips of his prey, Silas lunged forward, pressing himself against the bars of the cage. The long blade in his hand scraped against the iron with a screeching, metallic rasp.
“What are you? How do you know my name?”
“….”
“What are you!”
Panic seized her. Any second now, he would unlock the cage and gut her. Tears blurred her vision, but survival instinct drowned out the terror. What could she possibly say to stay alive? In the game, not a single victim had ever made it out alive.
No… I can’t give up yet. Even if I’m backed into a corner, if I can just keep my head…
At the very least, he was a human being she could talk to. She understood his lore. That had to count for something.
She summoned every ounce of concentration she possessed, desperately hunting for a lifeline. But no matter how she spun it, there was no logical way out of a killer’s basement…
Wait.
An idea struck her—less a concrete plan and more a desperate, suicidal gamble. But Silas’s patience was evaporating by the second; she had no time to draft a plan B.
“H-Honey! Don’t you remember me?”
“…Honey?”
“Yes! It’s me… your wife!”
She remembered reading an article once about real-world serial killers: many of them maintained a bizarre, fiercely protective soft spot for their pets and immediate family.
She couldn't exactly start barking like a dog, so playing the devoted wife was her only shot. Besides, Silas suffered from bouts of amnesia. If she played it with enough conviction, he might just doubt his own memory.
“You’re telling me you’re my wife?”
“Yes! That’s right! I’ve been searching everywhere for you… I never imagined we’d meet like this…”
I’d have preferred we never met at all, she swallowed the bitter thought down.
Silas narrowed his eyes, his sharp gaze scanning her from head to toe. She squeezed her eyes shut for a fraction of a second, clenching her bound fists to stop her hands from trembling. Her life depended on total composure.
“What’s your name?” Silas asked, an eyebrow arched in quiet skepticism.
There was no way he would remember the name of some nameless victim in a file.