The room went cold. The hum from the monitor grew into a rhythmic, mechanical pulse. Suddenly, his disc drive—which he hadn't used in years—shuddered open. It didn’t eject a plastic tray; it began to leak a thick, silver fluid that smelled like ozone and burnt copper.
The avatar turned around and looked directly out of the monitor, its eyes pixelated but filled with a terrifying, sentient hunger. A text box appeared at the bottom of the screen, the system font crisp and haunting: “Trophy Unlocked: The Guest.”
The silver fluid on the floor began to rise, taking shape, mirroring the avatar on the screen. Alex backed away, hitting the wall, as the "simulator" realized it wasn't meant to run the game on his PC. It was meant to run Alex on its hardware.
A window popped up, styled in the classic translucent black of the PS3 dashboard. But instead of "Games" or "Settings," there was only one menu option: Alex clicked it.