Stream On

I find myself on a balcony, overlooking a serene looking resort town.

The town is located on a set of mountains apparently, though it's hard to see from this angle alone. It reminds me of Switzerland or Austria. The architecture is pretty German, and the streets below are cobble.

There's a smaller coastal town further out, looking equally beautiful. There's an eclectic mix of Japanese and Italian architecture that somehow all fits together, or at least it seems like it does from this distance. I can see a port there too, with one small cruise ship, and dozens of smaller fishing trawlers, sailboats, and yachts in the area.

The door opens. There's a blue figure in a butler uniform giving me a bow as he enters. He looks just like the NPCs from the classroom.

I know I probably have no need to be afraid of him, given that this world looks safe, but I can't help but keep thinking back to said classroom.

The butler takes no heed of my nervousness, and approaches me with a headset.

"Mr. Saeki, sire." He gives me a small bow. "Your streaming equipment?" He hands me the headset, which I proceed to put on my head. Despite looking like a standard pair of headphones, the moment I put it on, I can see a giant screen to my side, a layout of stream comments.

Holy shit, that's a lot of comments. It's not quite professional streamer levels, but the chat is actually moving at all.  Some two thousand viewers are watching me this instant. To the top, I end up noticing a pinned comment from Chisaki in the chat.

"Hey everyone! Make sure to behave yourselves...or maybe not, it's more fun when you guys don't~"

I bite my lip. I'm a bit miffed that Chisaki seems to have taken over my channel, but it's getting me a big boost in views. I check the chat and immediately regret it.

"Main character with no charisma build"
"This is filler give us Chisaki"

I'll show these fuckers who owns the stream.

"So, heyo folks, my name is SaekiKatanaBlade, and welcome to 'Our Little Forever'!" I say, opening up with my classic intro.

For some reason, it feels a lot more cringe than usual.

"Uh, yes, in case you are wondering, yes, I am Hinata, the son of Saeki Taro! Hope you'll enjoy my channel!" I glance at the chat once more, hoping for the better.
"Why is he talking like a tutorial NPC?"
"Not beating the nepo baby allegations"
"WHERE IS CHISAKI???"

Honestly, I can't say I'm even surprised. To my surprise, Chisaki's in the comments defending me.

"And where's your 2k stream chat, you mindless otaku?"

T-thank you Chisaki...

I look outside. If I ignore the chat, the whole world feels peaceful.
"Wow uh...lovely world, isn't it?" I ask the viewers.

Wow, amazing response Hinata. Are you sure you're cut out for streaming?

I figure I should progress the game. I head on out, hoping to find Chisaki outside as I attempt to entertain the audience, but the response is lukewarm.
"Bro spawned in and forgot his lines"
"Skip dialogue plz"
"Mods asleep?"
Whatever. 

I head down the beautiful oak stairs and out of the house, where I'm shocked by the sight I see outside. Far behind the house, from an angle I couldn't see from the window, there is a giant Chisaki, lying on the mountains as she eats what appears to be equally giant potato chips.

"Chisaki..." I mutter as the giant Chisaki looks down at me. The bag of chips dissipates as she swallows it and licks her fingers seductively.

"Hinata~ I always knew you'd come back to me. Do you like the town?"

"Chisaki, what...what the hell?"

"Don't like big girls? That's a shame." Chisaki shrugs. "For those of you not in the know, I'm not actually this big, but I figured I'd give you a little something to see anyways." As she does, I can see her eyes darting back and forth, to me, then to what's probably some invisible panel I can't see. Her eyes then linger on that panel, and I can see Chisaki pressing the air, as if there are buttons there.

I look down at the chat once more. I'm not really surprised at what I see.
"Dev knew exactly what he was doing"
"Game wild for this"

"Very funny everyone!" I say with a laugh, trying not to piss myself, if that's even possible in game. To be fair, I won't deny, if I was in the chat and not face to face with an eldritch horror I doubt I'd be reacting any differently.

"Alright everyone!" Chisaki says. "We should all come up with a good punishment for Hinata. You know, for running away and all. I know! What about a public poll?"

I indignantly look down at my chat, and lo and behold, there's a poll down below. The options read as follows:
- Scary punishment
- Smelly punishment
- Cinematic punishment
- Something else? (Comment below)

I grumble as the numbers fluctuate between the options.

"Does Hinata get a say in his punishment?"
"Nope" Chisaki responds over text, as she glimpses at me every now and then.
"That doesn't seem fair, you should care about him more"
"Give him a chance damn"
"Soz, lol" Chisaki responds back

The chat seems to love this.

"Soz? What is this, 2003?"
"Chisaki's an unc"
"Still would tho"

"Having fun down there?" The giant Chisaki asks me, as I look back up at her. "This is one of the places I enjoy hanging out in, but since you were so mean to me last time, I figured I shouldn't show you all this. But then, I realized if I didn't, you wouldn't realize you were missing out so..."

There's a massive popup from a 30 dollar superchat. Apparently these things appear like notifications even when I'm not looking at the chat itself.
"FUMBLE OF THE CENTURY HINATA YOU DUMBASS" it says.

"Oh, shut up!" I yell into the mic. "You're not the one that almost got stabbed by her!"

"Everyone, please don't bully Hinata!" Chisaki says, with a giggle. "After all, I'll be bullying him plenty in just a moment..." she says to the chat with a wink. And with that, Chisaki snaps her fingers, and a hole appears before me as I am sent tumbling down into the empty abyss.

***

I smack down onto a wet and empty floor, and a loud thud echoes throughout the room. The first thing I see after the cold concrete ceiling is a superchat, worth ten dollars.

"Deserved for fumbling" it says.

The peaceful mountain breeze is gone, replaced with something damp and rotten. I get up. I'm in a large warehouse of some sort. There's a large unreachable platform suspended from the ceiling, and on it is a (normal sized) Chisaki, looking down at me.

I rub my back and stagger up.

"Chisaki?"

"Hi~na~ta!" Chisaki says with a sickly sweet voice. "How are you doing down there?"

Awful?

"Chisaki, what the hell? Chisaki!"

She ignores me.

"We've just now decided that your punishment will be..." There's a drumming sound effect. "Being chased by horrifying monstrosities! As decided by a democratic vote of course!"

I look in horror down at chat, who seem to be delighted by this.
"RUN HINATA RUN"
"THIS IS CONTENT"
"LMAOOOOO"

"Chisaki, wait!" I protest. "I...in this room?"

"Yep!" Chisaki says, with a smirk. "The zombies rely primarily on sight. That means, they can't hear you! They're also not too bright, so I hope you can use your big brain to outsmart them! You're smarter than a zombie, aren't you?"

A pale, gaunt, demented looking humanoid figure pops out of a door on ground level. Then another. And another. My blood runs cold. Just the sight of these things is enough to be nightmare fuel.

"Chisaki, hold on!" I stumble backwards. It's a closed room, there's not enough space to tactically-

I am punched in the chest by the 'zombie,' who seems more interested in smacking me than biting. I fall over, but manage to dodge a sideblow, and scramble back up, trying to keep myself alive.

"Shit shit shit!"

There are a set of stairs leading up onto a second floor, or at least an elevated area. I know it'll only stave off the inevitable, but begin to run up the stairs. A giant superchat worth a hundred dollars pops up just then, and before I have time to read it, I trip and am sent falling backwards, bowling into the crowd of 'zombies'. The good news is, this knocks the zombies over. The bad news is, now I'm on top of them.

I get back up, but not before the zombie whips me across the back.

I feel like something's broken. I grit my teeth and start climbing the stairs once more, making sure my hands are on the rails, even though the rusted rails are disgusting to grab.

Whatever, dignity was never your strong suit, Hinata.

The moment I get up onto the stairs, I almost feel like taking a break. My whole body hurts. I want to lie down. Heck, I'm even thirsty. I pray that I don't actually need to drink in this game, because I know very well from almost fainting at work that dehydration is a thing. And I'd rather not suffer it right now.

I manage to kick a zombie back down the stairs, and just like before, it bowls down onto the ground, sending another with it. It lands with a sickening thud, and it no longer moves. A grin, and take a brief moment to look around at my surroundings. I'd like to look at chat, but it's not really the time.

From the other end of the raised area comes more zombies. I quickly notice a metal pipe on the ground, and grab it. A weapon?

"Oh, I forgot to bolt that down. Whoops." Chisaki shrugs. "Well Hinata, I don't recommend you..."

I wrestle the zombie with the metal bar, but hitting them doesn't actually seem to do anything other than temporarily knocking them back, and there are others swarming over. The worst bit is, the superchats keep obscuring my vision whenever they pop up!

"Can I lick Chisaki feet" The superchat asks, just as the zombie takes the chance to smack the flashbanged Hinata across the face. The game must have modeled biology real well, because my ears ring, and I can feel blood coming out of them. I kick the zombie aside, and keep running. I didn't even check the amount of money I got.

"Excellent suggestion, thank you for the supa Nosifer!" Chisaki says, as she apparently is, reading chat. "As a reward, you can eat this ban!"

Honestly, I'd find the situation pretty hilarious if I wasn't fighting for my life down here. I run into a corner, and for a moment, it seems like the zombies have lost me, but there's no time to celebrate.

"Hinata, in case you think I'm being unfair to you, not to worry! I'm giving you a chance."

Huh?

"In this room, there is...drumroll please, ONE safe room you can hide in! Wohoo! And you might like what you can find inside. Care to take a look?"

Almost like a HUD, I can immediately make out the location of the room through the walls. There's even a distance meter underneath it.

So damn far. The room's not that big, but when you consider the fact that I'm surrounded...

I muster up the last of my strength, and with a burst of adrenaline, drop the pipe, letting the zombie hit the floor, and block a strike from a zombie. The pain shoots through my arm, but it doesn't matter, better it than something else.

Honestly, I can't tell you how I managed to slide past the horde, because I myself have no clue. I practically charge forward on autopilot as I try not to pass out from the pain.

I slide into the room, and collapse by the door. Fortunately, the zombies don't seem to follow me into the room, and wander away, as if I disappeared from their radar.

There's a CRT TV in the room - by now, what I assume is just Chisaki's signature communication method - which lights up.

"Hey Hinata!" The Chisaki onscreen says. It looks like she's broadcasting from the platform. There's a small crack in the wall in which I can see the platform from, and when I do, Chisaki looks away from where the 'camera" to the CRT screen is, and waves at me before turning back and facing the TV. "You're alright, Hinata. Just breathe. Ignore them for a moment and focus on what you need to do." There's a calm, serene expression on her face that almost puts me at ease, but it's quickly replaced by a more mischievous one. "Oh, and if you want to disable the superchat popups, you know there's a setting for that. Should have told you ahead of time. Whoops."

I decide to look down at chat. The viewers seem to be pretty darn excited, but I glide over them as I head to the settings. Still, I won't deny, them being positive for once puts a smile on my face.
"He made it???"
"NO WAY"
"CLUTCH KING"
"Y'all are being too harsh on him, give him a chance!"

"T-thanks." After a bit of stumbling, I navigate to a selected option that says 'superchat popup (not recommended for intense moments' and uncheck it. "I suppose I'll last a few more seconds longer, then." Chisaki giggles.

"Oh Hinata you silly goose. You think I'd give you a saferoom without any gear? Look around Hinata. You have healing, upgrades, and...for the lack of a better word, gear." She winks. "Oh, would you look at that. I think the zombies are about to figure out how to get inside! Byebye!"

The CRT shuts off, but from the crack in the wall, I can see Chisaki on the platform blowing me a kiss.

There is the sound of a single zombie slamming on the door. Just one, so far. But I know it'll be more. I look around. There are bandages laying by a table, which I immediately grab. As I do, I can feel the pain in my body fading away.

Healing, alright. There are some strange looking cookies next to the bandages. They are labelled "strength", "stamina", and "health", like it's Alice in Wonderland.

I know what these are. I shove them all into my mouth.

"Look behind you dumbass" someone says in chat. In my desperation to look around the room, I didn't notice the chat fuming at me for missing something. After a brief overview, I realize I missed the elephant in the room. There is a metal crate labelled "weapons.' I open it.

There are guns inside.

Bingo.