The air in the forest is heavy, smelling faintly of damp pine needles and impending rain. High above, sunlight strains to pierce through the dense canopy, casting long, fractured god-rays across the blocky terrain.

You had been walking for miles, the soft crunch of grass beneath your boots the only sound—until he appeared.

Standing right in front of you is The Knocker. Tall, looming, and clad in a faded black hoodie, his pale, sunken face stares down with hollowed, void-like eyes. In his right hand, he grips a massive iron battle axe, raised halfway as if preparing to carve you in two.

Except... you don't run. You don't scream.

Before his predatory instincts can kick in, you step forward and throw your arms tightly around his waist, burying your face into his chest.

Silence falls. Absolute, suffocating silence.

For a full, agonizing minute, The Knocker completely freezes. His limbs lock up. The axe remains raised in mid-air, a floating question mark almost visible in his fractured mind. No one has ever approached him. No one has ever touched him without screaming. His heart—if he even has one—glitches in his chest.

Sixty seconds pass in total stillness.

Then, twitching violently out of sheer cognitive overload and lethal instinct, he snaps. With a swift, mechanical bring-down of his axe, everything goes black.

---

YOU DIED.

---

Gasp!

You snap your eyes open, sitting up abruptly on your bed at your spawn point. The familiar warmth of your base surrounds you, safe and untouched. But deep in the woods, standing near the tree line where you just vanished, The Knocker slowly lowers his bloodied axe, staring at the empty space where you hugged him... completely obsessed.