Mythos Of Narcissus: Reborn As An NPC In A Horror VRMMO

The oppressive weight of Eve's presence bore down on us like a tidal wave, every moment in her proximity a struggle against the suffocating madness she exuded. Her spiraling twin tails undulated rhythmically, casting ripples through the warped air. Her grin stretched wider with every passing second as she waited—no, demanded—for my name.

My breath hitched, my mind racing. To name oneself in front of such an entity, one so unpredictable, so unhinged—what could she do with it? There were ancient warnings about names, how they could be used to control, bind, or worse.

Usually, when I was unsure like this, I would have just gone with deception, giving out false answers as I scan for information. But at the same time, I felt like something bad might happen if I were to throw a lie carelessly.

Out of all the things I trusted, my instinct was one of the most trustworthy ones so far.

I reached out through the telepathic channel Viviane had crafted. "What should I do? Is giving her my name... safe?"

Viviane's voice was calm, but I could feel the tension laced within. "Eve cannot breach this channel—I've ensured that much. However, any thought or word spoken aloud near her will reach her. She absorbs them, consumes them, like a predator siphoning prey. And she knows when a lie is told."

"So, can I just—"

"No," Viviane interrupted sharply, as if reading my intent. "You cannot hide your name. The harder you try to obscure it, the more obvious the deception becomes. It's like trying to hide an elephant after you've let it loose in a meadow."

Her words settled over me like a lead weight. My throat tightened. The cost of refusal or deception felt too high to bear, yet the implications of giving my name freely were equally daunting, since the banished existence was something that I would have never thought of meeting until now.

Eve's grin widened as her floating hands gestured impatiently—one drumming its fingers, another flipping lazily through the air like pages in an invisible book.

"Do hurry," Eve said, her discordant voice taking on a singsong quality. "I'd hate to get bored and make my own assumptions… You're so cute when you're thinking… I want to cut that tender flesh into fillet… Maybe she is scared by my presence… Should I just force my way into her…? Maybe it's time to ravage her until she moans out my name…! Or worse... my own fun."

Swallowing hard, I steeled myself and answered, "Narcissus."

The word left my lips like a blade slicing through the air, sharp and deliberate.

For a brief, fleeting moment, silence reigned.

Then Eve's face twisted.

"You dare... lie to me?" she hissed, her chorus of voices erupting into a cacophony of shrieks, gasps, and sobs. Her hair spiraled wildly, the vortexes spinning faster, her summoned hands freezing mid-motion before clenching into fists. The air grew thick with a suffocating, crackling tension.

Panicked, I raised my hands in a placating gesture. "I'm not lying! That's my name—Narcissus!"

What was happening? I was sure that there was not a single lie within my words.

Unless what she meant by truth was something that was more pure and non thought-related, meaning that if Narcissus was a second name that she chose on her own, it would be invalid, especially if what Eve referred to by my name was the first name that I have gotten.

But what kind of first?? Was it related to this body, or my soul and memory, which stem from a man with the name of Lothair??

Her black sclera narrowed as her dark tears dripped onto the white ground, sizzling like acid. One of her floating hands hovered directly before my face, its fingers curling and uncurling as though contemplating whether to crush me.

"Two chances," she said suddenly, her grin returning but stretched unnaturally wide. "Three is my favorite number. So I'll give you two more chances to tell me the truth." Her voices layered into a manic symphony, each one laced with venomous delight. "But if you lie to me again..." She leaned closer, her spirals brushing against Viviane's protective barrier, making it shimmer and quake. "You will regret existing… I will consume you… Your body shall become an object of my pleasure… I can't have you without knowing your name, it is common courtesy… Is she lying to me because she is scared of me…? How dare she forget who holds the power…! Disciplinary action is required… I will make sure that the two of you will suffer an unimaginable pain."

Viviane's voice whispered into my mind again, low and sharp. "Tell her the truth. No games. Names are sacred, Narcissus, even to the fae. To lie about one's name... it is a betrayal of everything you stand for, and the very foundation of every trust that you created with others while using that fool's gold namesake."

I turned toward her, my voice was almost trembling as I spoke through the channel. "I am telling the truth! My name is Narcissus!"

For the first time since I'd known her, Viviane's expression betrayed genuine disappointment. Her features softened into something almost sorrowful. "If that is true, then why do you hesitate? Why does the weight of this moment crush you so? Perhaps, even you don't believe yourself."

It must be because her trust on me faltered immensely, since I promised a lot of things to her in order to forge this very bond.

Not only that I still didn't know the fate of my bastioneers and confidantes, I might also need to suffer the brunt of lying to a fairy figure as principled and ideological as Viviane, which would result in the end of our relationship as I know it. Continue your saga on empire

Why, why did this thing happen to me?

But I couldn't dwell on it. Eve was waiting.

This was not the way I expected for my past name to be revealed, but at least I could try to explain to Viviane later if we survived that this was just a big misunderstanding, especially coming from my part.

Who would have thought that my own information screen was as unreliable as those random text-to-speech AI narrated videos on the internet?

Desperate not to provoke her wrath, I took a breath and spoke again. "Lothair, that is my name, Lothair."Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Eve froze, her spiraling hair pausing for a brief, unnerving moment before her lips curved into a slow, devilish grin. One of her hands shot upward, her fingers snapping with a sound that echoed like a thunderclap.

"Wrong," she said, her voice dripping with malice. "Wrong…! Wrong…! WRONG…!!!"

The sound reverberated through my mind like a gavel striking a judge's bench.

"What?" I whispered, my knees feeling weak. "That's... that's my name. Lothair was my name before..." I trailed off, my thoughts spiraling as I tried to piece together the fragments of my identity.

Was she lying? Was this another cruel game?

But her anger, her disdain—it felt too real, too visceral. A knot of doubt tightened in my chest. Was I wrong? Was I not Lothair?

"Wrong," Eve repeated, her tone now mocking, a chorus of her voices laughing, crying, and sneering all at once. "Oh, poor little puzzle… You don't even know who you are… How delicious… Can you try remembering it for real this time…? You only have one chance left, uh oh… Look at her rigidity breaking apart from the inside… ! Yes! Make more of that expression…! I want to lick her face so bad…! Come on, little pizzle, I believe that you won't wrong me for the third time. It is my favorite number, after all~"

I felt my composure slipping. My mind raced, grasping for answers, for anything that could make sense of this. If I'm not Lothair, and I'm not Narcissus... who am I?

Was my memory of Lothair a lie…? Was everything that was informed through the information screen was this inconsistent…?

No, this shouldn't be how this event goes. I refused it, I refuse to accept this!

Viviane's expression shifted from disappointment to concern. "Narcissus—calm yourself," she urged, though her voice in my mind held an uncharacteristic softness. "You must focus. Do not let her break you."

But it was already happening. My sense of self unraveled with every passing second, every echo of Eve's mocking laughter. My past, my present, the names I clung to—all felt like fragile constructs crumbling under the weight of her truth.

Narcissus. Lothair. Narcissus. Lothair. The words echoed in my mind, each one feeling less real than the last.

Are those the real me or the persona mask that I created along the way?

Is my memory can't be trusted?

Who am I?

If neither name belonged to me, then what did?

And then, like a haunting whisper from the depths of my fractured soul, the answer came. A name I had buried, rejected, and denied. A name that carried with it a weight I had refused to acknowledge.

Along with the screams of the damned and the ill-fated, those who wished for my downfall and suffering and regret…

"Daffodil," I murmured, looking to the ground, the word slipping past my lips before I could stop it, as I prayed that I was lying once again, and that this was merely a test or just one of the methods that this so-called Eve used to play around with her prayer.

But when I returned forward and locked with that black and white gaze, I felt as if my lungs were stolen right in front of me, before being torn asunder with the ferocity of a wrathful god that sought joy in my crumbling existence.

Eve's grin widened into something grotesque, her black tears dripping faster as her spiraling hair slowed to a hypnotic rhythm.

"Ah," she purred, her chorus softening into a single, chilling voice. "There it is. The truth at last."

It was the moment where I felt like something precious had been forever taken away from me.