The game didn't ask for wood or stone to upgrade the shrine. A prompt appeared in the center of the screen, written in a font that looked like scratched bone: To proceed, provide a memory of warmth.
As the download clicked to 100%, the room temperature seemed to drop. Arthur double-clicked the executable. Instead of the usual colorful Devolver Digital logo, the screen bled a deep, visceral crimson. The titular Lamb didn't look cute anymore; its fleece was matted with digital static, and its eyes tracked Arthur’s mouse cursor with an unsettling, sentient focus.
Arthur felt a sharp tug in his mind. Suddenly, he couldn't remember his grandmother’s face. The shrine in the game pulsed, growing larger, glowing with a golden light that felt unnervingly physical.
As the Lamb raised its black sword on the screen, Arthur looked down at his own hands. They were turning white, soft, and woolly. He tried to scream, but the only sound that escaped his throat was a high, rhythmic bleat. On the monitor, a new follower joined the circle. Its name was Arthur.
Arthur tried to alt-tab, but his keyboard was unresponsive. In the game, his cult was already built. Hundreds of followers, all named after people from Arthur’s real-life contact list, stood in a perfect circle in the temple. At the center stood a digital recreation of Arthur himself, kneeling before the Lamb.
"Welcome back, Vessel," a voice hissed through his headphones—not the stylized gibberish of the game, but a clear, distorted whisper.
