It started with a whisper in the simulation room.
A voice that wasn’t coded.
A command that wasn’t logged.
A child who wasn’t supposed to exist.
The field team had just finished calibrating a training layer for B-rank recruits when the first one froze mid-movement—eyes wide, blood trailing from his nose.
The last thing he said before collapsing?
"Simon says… run.”
He didn’t run.
He dropped.
Sanctuary HQ – Layer Security Wing
Riku leaned back in his chair, goggles pushed up, chewing on a stick of cursed peppermint gum.
“So let me guess… another rogue echo mimicking old childhood rituals?”
Maya didn’t respond. She stood with arms folded, the case file shaking slightly in her grip.
Tenchi stepped beside her. His voice was low.
“No. This one’s different.”
Elise spoke from the far console, her hand glowing faintly as she read the latest scan.
“It’s not just mimicking commands. It’s rewriting how they’re heard. The moment you recognize a command as coming from ‘Simon’—you lose control.”
-
If Simon says it—you must obey.
-
If you obey when Simon didn't say it—you bleed.
-
If you disobey a true Simon command—you vanish.
“I’ve never seen a Layer override willpower like this,” Elise added quietly.
Maya’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not just a curse. It’s a test.”
Riku clicked open the simulation node's code strings. “Well, lucky for you—I’m good at cheating tests.”
“You’ll need backup,” Tenchi said.
“You offering?” Riku asked with a smirk.
Tenchi look at Riku and said, “I’m watching your back.”
“You always do.”
Part II – Enter the Simulation Layer
The entrance to Layer 72-C wasn’t like the others.
There were no sigils. No corrupted vines. No haunted mirrors or broken playgrounds.
Just a perfectly pristine, white hallway with soft humming lights—and a red circle drawn on the floor with chalk.
Inside it stood a single speaker terminal, crackling slightly.
Tenchi and Riku stood just outside the line.
“It’s too clean,” Tenchi muttered.
“That’s the scary part,” Riku replied. “You ever seen an actual curse with a loading screen?”
The terminal popped once.
Then came the voice.
Childlike.
Mocking.
Clear.
“Simon says… come inside.”
Tenchi stepped forward.
Riku hesitated.
The chalk line blinked. Not glowed—blinked. Like a heartbeat.
The second Riku crossed it, the hallway shifted.
What had been flat walls became tilted carnival mirrors.
The ceiling stretched.
The floor turned into square tiles that clicked when stepped on.
A robotic giggle echoed around them.
"Simon says... crouch.”
Tenchi knelt immediately.
Riku smirked and stayed standing.
Suddenly—his foot was gone.
No delay.
Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
No flash.
Just a clean disappearance from the ankle down, like it had never existed.
Riku yelped, dropped, and hit the floor hard.
The tile under him glowed red.
His foot returned.
But the pain didn’t fade.
He gritted his teeth. “That… that wasn’t just illusion.”
Tenchi’s face was stone. “It’s not targeting body. It’s targeting identity. Your presence in the system.”
“Simon says… smile.”
A flash.
A light pulse.
And the hallway mirrors showed both Tenchi and Riku smiling.
Even though neither had moved.
Tenchi's voice was low.
“It's pulling motor data straight from our reflex layer. It’s bypassing thought. Just like—"
“—like command-chain override from a failed simulation AI,” Riku finished grimly. “This isn’t just a curse. It’s a cursed program.”
Suddenly, all the lights went out—
And a wall screen lit up at the far end of the corridor.
The same child’s voice whispered again.
“Oops. Simon didn’t say cover your ears.”
A shrill pulse blasted through the tunnel—frequency-engineered to paralyze.
Tenchi flinched for just a second.
Riku fell to one knee, eyes wide.
But when the noise faded, something else began to walk toward them.
From the screen emerged a digitized child—
Hollowed-out eyes. Limbs stretched and glitched.
His mouth moved, but no words came.
Then, glitching once more—
“Simon says… tag.”
He lunged.
Part III – Forced Reflex
The cursed child moved with the speed of a glitch.
His arms didn’t swing—they warped forward.
His legs didn’t run—they jittered like a skipping frame.
And he was heading straight for Tenchi.
“Simon says—tag.”
Tenchi’s sword was up before his body agreed.
But the moment he tried to swing—
His muscles froze.
His knees buckled.
His hand trembled, blade hovering in place.
The system had already made a choice for him.
Riku dove sideways, grabbing Tenchi by the collar and yanking him out of the red-glowing tile beneath him.
The impact jarred them both.
“It’s controlling motor impulses now,” Riku spat, coughing. “We’re not resisting. Our bodies are listening.”
The cursed child turned again.
“Simon says—breathe.”
Both Game Enders inhaled sharply—too sharply.
They gasped, overfilling their lungs.
Tenchi clutched his side.
Riku’s eyes narrowed. “It’s brute-forcing involuntary response. This thing’s hijacked the Layer’s command tree.”
He yanked his gauntlet open and typed furiously. "Give me thirty seconds.”
“We don’t have thirty,” Tenchi growled.
“Then distract him with style!," He yelled.
Tenchi exhaled, drawing his blade slowly—not against Simon, but against the cursed Layer around them.
He slashed sideways—
Skill: Crescent Blade – Refraction Cut
The blade glowed and cleaved into a wall mirror, which shattered like a glass scream.
The hallway flickered—revealing that the walls weren’t physical at all.
Just coded illusions.
Simon glitched again.
His voice became two voices—overlapping.
“Ssssiimonnnn sayss—st...op...”
“Sssstaaaay… stiiillll…”
Tenchi’s foot was beginning to fade again.
Riku’s fingers blurred across the command console now projected from his wrist.
“I can’t stop the commands,” he said, “but I can reroute them into a loop.”
“Can you shut the kid up?” Tenchi asked.
“Working on it.”
“Because I’m running out of—”
The cursed child appeared directly in front of Tenchi.
Glitch static burst around him like cursed lightning.
Tenchi moved without moving.
He ducked without deciding.
His blade didn’t rise.
But his elbow did.
He struck the cursed child in the jaw with a movement so fast it bypassed instinct.
“You didn’t say I couldn’t counter,” Tenchi growled.
Riku shouted, “NOW!”
He slammed the override node.
A pulse rippled through the hallway—reprogramming the Layer to echo Simon’s own commands back at him.
“Simon says… freeze.”
The cursed child froze.
Pixelated veins crawled up his limbs. His face distorted.
He looked down, confused.
“Simon… didn’t say…”
And he shattered into shards of red-glowing glass.
Silence returned.
But only for a moment.
Because deep beneath the Layer—
A voice whispered.
Not a child’s.
A man’s.
“Good. Let’s see how far they’ll obey.”
Part IV – Backtrace
The hallway was gone.
So was the cursed child.
But the chill remained—etched in the seams of their skin like leftover electricity.
Tenchi stood silent, watching the mirror shards twitch along the floor like living code.
Riku was already scrolling through five layers of firewall encryption on his wrist projector, lips pulled tight.
“There’s something wrong with this program.”
“It’s a cursed Layer,” Tenchi replied.
“No. I mean structurally.”
Riku enlarged the command tree—and what they saw made even Tenchi step closer.
The Simon protocol wasn’t running from Layer 72-C.
It wasn’t local.
It was pinging from deep within Sanctuary’s internal grid.
"You’re saying someone let it in?” Tenchi asked.
“Or someone coded it here.”
“Impossible.”
“Then how do we have an entity overriding our will from inside our home base?”
The air went still.
Riku tapped the mirror code again. The remaining fragments shimmered—then formed a pattern:
A single string of red glyphs.
“Simon says… wake up.”
Tenchi’s hand reached for his sword again, slowly.
“What if this wasn’t about killing us?”
“It wasn’t,” Riku said, his voice suddenly quieter. “It was a test run.”
Behind them, the final hallway screen flickered back on.
But instead of commands—
It showed images.
Snapshots of:
-
Maya during her Ghost Fire invocation
-
Elise forming a crystal seal
-
Kaze walking unseen past a boundary
-
Saya stepping into the Red Rover Layer
Each image had red markings—coordinates, energy outputs, response time logs.
Tenchi’s jaw clenched. “He’s watching us.”
“No,” Riku said, swallowing. "He’s studying us.”
Suddenly, all the monitors shut off at once.
A single line of white text remained on Riku’s screen: Simon says… see you soon.
Part V – Field Report Entry
FIELD REPORT — ENTRY #09
? Game: Simon Says
? Entity: Unknown. Temporary designation: “Simon” (Tier-Unknown Command Class Entity)
? Anchor: None confirmed. Apparent host is Layer-Embedded Command Protocol
? Survivors: Tenchi, Riku
? Status: Game Dissolved
? Breach Type: Internal – first confirmed
? Notes:
-
Curse did not originate in any known Layer. Protocol mimicked child’s voice to gain initial control.
-
Commands override motor function, reflex, and voluntary decision-making.
-
Disobedience results in severe memory bleed or physical retraction of identity (recorded via Riku's right foot incident).
-
Layer visuals suggest entity was actively scanning Sanctuary operatives, collecting tactical and spiritual profiles.
-
Cursed game may be a front-end testing field for a larger directive.
Maya’s Note: “A command you can’t resist is just another leash. And something’s pulling it from inside.”
Elise’s Note: “This isn’t just a game. It’s reconnaissance.”
Riku’s Note: “Whoever wrote that system knew how we move… how we think. It didn’t glitch. It adapted.”
Tenchi’s Note: “He’s watching. He’s learning. And next time—he won’t play fair.”