In the reflection, Elias didn't see his digital avatar. He saw himself, sitting in his darkened room, the glow of the monitor illuminating the sweat on his forehead. Behind him, in the reflection, a figure was standing. It was the Oscar of Astora, the knight who gives the player their Estus Flask, but his armor was rusted through, and his visor was a dark, empty hole. Elias spun around. His room was empty.
His laptop began to heat up. The fan screamed, a high-pitched mechanical wail that sounded like a dying animal. The screen bled red, the "YOU DIED" message appearing over and over, stacking until the words were illegible.
The screen went black. The laptop died with a final, pathetic spark. In the reflection, Elias didn't see his digital avatar
Elias reached for the power button, but his hand stopped. He couldn't move. His muscles were locked, his joints stiffening as if turning to stone—or perhaps, to ash.
His character was a hollow, but its face—rendered with unsettling detail—looked exactly like Elias. It was the Oscar of Astora, the knight
The next morning, Elias's roommate found the room empty. The laptop was a melted husk of plastic and silicon on the desk. On the screen, etched permanently into the dead pixels, was a single, flickering image: a bonfire, finally lit, burning with a flame that looked suspiciously like a human soul.
The installation was silent. No splash screen, no license agreement. Just a single icon appearing on his desktop: a bonfire, unlit and grey. His laptop began to heat up
When he looked back at the screen, the knight was gone from the reflection. Instead, a line of text crawled across the bottom of the monitor, mimicking the game's font: