Chapter 3: The Local Lobby Curse

The jungler replied: "I also added the marksman who was flaming her earlier. He lives in Maple Heights, same as me. What about you?"

"Whoa, me too!" I typed, then quickly corrected myself, "Wait, there are like half a million people here. It's normal for us to get matched together."

I tried to laugh it off, but the coincidence was too much. I could feel my heart beating faster.

He asked again: "But here's the weird part—we're all in District Four. What about you?"

"Me too!"

By now, a chill was crawling up my spine. This can't be real.

I glanced around my room, half-expecting to see someone staring back at me from the shadows. The streetlights outside suddenly felt too far away, the world outside my window too quiet.

The jungler kept messaging:

"Just as I thought."

"Hold on, I'll add the mage and ask where he lives."

"If the three of us living so close is just a coincidence, there's no way he lives here too, right?"

Each new message made the room feel a little colder. I started tapping my foot, waiting for the next shoe to drop.

All I could say was: "Okay, go ask. I'll wait for your update."

But the whole thing was so weird, I couldn't help but spiral. I went to the Maple Heights community forum to check things out.

I opened up my browser, fingers flying across the keyboard as I searched for anything that could explain what was happening. The familiar logo of the neighborhood forum popped up, and I started scrolling through the posts.

What I found made my heart stop—

There was actually a news story about something that happened right here in Maple Heights!

The headline jumped out at me. It was like something out of an urban legend. I clicked the link, barely breathing.

It was exactly the same as what happened with QueenOfGames tonight.

Someone home alone with a baby, boiling water for a bath, putting a baby less than a year old on the stove to warm the water.

Then started playing games, lost track of time, and ended up burning the kid...

The details were all there, down to the smallest, most horrifying parts. It was like reading a transcript of what had just happened in our game.

This really happened!

I stared at the screen. My mind was racing. Was this some kind of elaborate prank? Or was it possible that what we'd just heard was real?

But when I looked at the date on the article, I got even more freaked out—

It happened seven days ago.

If it had just happened tonight, there's no way the news would be so detailed.

The article was long, with interviews, police statements, and even photos of the apartment building. It had all happened a week ago, almost to the hour.

Just then, the jungler messaged me again: "The mage lives in Maple Heights too! Something's seriously wrong here. I'm making a group chat!"

My phone buzzed in my hand, and I realized I was sweating cold. The air in my room felt thick, like I was breathing underwater.

There were four of us in the group, everyone except that woman.

The group chat icon popped up, three little avatars and mine, all clustered together in a digital huddle. It felt weirdly intimate, like we were all sitting in the same room, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I didn't even read what they were saying—I just dropped the news link into the chat and said, "Guys, look at this! Isn't it exactly what happened tonight?"

My fingers shook as I pasted the link, half-expecting my computer to freeze or the lights to flicker. The others went silent for a second, then the chat exploded.

They only took a minute to read before they started freaking out.

Messages flew back and forth—"No way!" "What the hell?" "Is this a joke?"—and I could feel the panic building, even through the screen.

But the jungler was the first to point something out: "Did you see the end? That woman was hacked to death by her husband!"

I scrolled to the end of the article, and sure enough, her husband killed her.

The words jumped out at me, the final twist in a story that was already too twisted to believe. My mouth went dry.

"And after she died, today makes exactly seven days."

"The seventh day—the day the soul comes back."

The jungler typed it out like he was narrating a ghost story around a campfire. But this time, nobody was laughing.

Everyone in the group lost it.