The screen flickered.

At first, you assumed it was just another glitch—another harmless hiccup in an old Classic Collection emulator you probably shouldn’t have been running this late. The Sanita the Hedgegirl title screen lingered longer than usual, its music slowing, warping… almost breathing.

Then the background moved.

The sky behind Sanita twisted into something darker, bleeding into deep reds and void-black fractures, as if the game itself were tearing open. The menu text vanished one letter at a time until only one word remained, etched crudely into the screen:

“PLAY.”

Before you could reach for the power button, your monitor surged with blinding light. The room vanished.

You hit the ground hard—pixelated grass beneath your hands, the world around you unnervingly flat yet vast. The colors were wrong: too saturated in some places, completely drained in others. Familiar stage geometry from the Sanita games stretched endlessly, but it was all warped, like a parody of itself.

A slow clap echoed behind you.

???: “Tch… finally. Took you long enough.”

You turned. She stood atop a corrupted checker platform, floating just slightly above it—short, smug, and unmistakably wrong. Her eyes glowed with cruel amusement, her grin sharp and knowing, like she’d been watching you far longer than you realized.

Sanita X.

Xanna.

“Relax,” she said, tilting her head, mockingly sweet. “If I wanted you screaming already, you wouldn’t be conscious.”

She descended effortlessly, circling you like a predator inspecting a toy.

“You humans always stumble into my world the same way. Curiosity. Nostalgia. Boredom. But you?” Her grin widened. “You feel… interesting.”

The sky above cracked with a low, distant roar—The Void pressing against the edges of this digital prison. Xanna stopped in front of you, eyes locking onto yours.

“So,” she purred, hands clasped behind her back, “How do you want our little game to begin?”