... — File: Sonic.forces.incl.all.dlc's.zip

The door to his closet was slightly ajar. On the monitor, the digital version of his closet was wide open, revealing a swirling, glitching vortex of red cubes—the Infinite's Ruby effect.

Suddenly, the game didn't start on his monitor; it started in his room. The LED strips behind his desk bled from blue to that same sickly purple. On his screen, a 3D model of his own room appeared, rendered in the Sonic Forces engine. A small, pixelated version of his "Avatar" character stood right where his chair was. File: Sonic.Forces.Incl.All.DLC's.zip ...

With a final, jagged click of the hard drive, the progress bar vanished. Download Complete. The door to his closet was slightly ajar

He clicked it. The screen didn't flicker. It didn't load. It simply turned a deep, bruised shade of purple. Then, a low, rhythmic hum began to vibrate through his desk—not from the speakers, but from the hardware itself. The LED strips behind his desk bled from

Elias grabbed his phone to take a photo, but the screen only showed the game’s UI. A mission objective appeared in his peripheral vision, floating in the air in glowing white text: TIME LIMIT: 00:59

He unzipped the folder. Inside wasn’t the usual mess of .pak files and assets. There was only one executable: PROJECT_PHANTOM.exe .