Wrath of the Chosen

Chapter 1

The late afternoon sun filtered through the Smosh office windows, casting warm patches of golden light on the cluttered desks and brightly colored walls. The entire office hummed with energy: distant laughter echoed from the adjacent filming space, and snippets of dialogue from the ongoing sketch floated through the air, punctuated by bursts of exaggerated sound effects. The vibe was the kind of organized chaos the crew thrived on, and Shayne Topp was right in the middle of it—or at least, usually he was.

At the moment, Shayne sat at his desk, absentmindedly tapping away at his keyboard. The cursor blinked at him from an empty document as he struggled to flesh out an idea for an upcoming video. His thoughts drifted, blending jokes and scenarios in a loop that only made him more distracted. Still, he found comfort in the lively buzz of his friends just a room away. The familiarity of it all kept him grounded, but a nagging feeling of restlessness gnawed at the edge of his mind, though he couldn't quite place why.

"Hey, Shayne!" Courtney's voice snapped him out of his reverie. She leaned into the doorway of his workspace, her blonde hair glowing in the sunlight as she flashed her usual, upbeat smile. "You coming to join us, or are you plotting world domination from in here?" she teased.

Shayne managed a grin. "World domination can wait. Just trying to finish up this sketch idea," he said, gesturing to the blank page on his screen. "Emphasis on 'trying.'"

Courtney laughed. "Well, hurry up! The rest of us are about to start a game while the shoot breaks. You know you can't miss that." She made a mock-serious face, then disappeared back down the hall, her laughter fading as she rejoined the others.

Shayne leaned back in his chair and sighed, rubbing his temples. As he debated whether to abandon the sketch entirely, something caught his eye. In the far corner of the room, an unusual glimmer drew his attention, half-buried beneath a stack of old scripts. It was a small, metallic object, so out of place that it practically begged him to investigate.

Intrigued, Shayne got up and made his way over. Kneeling, he pushed aside the scattered scripts and pulled the object into the light. It was a cube—ornate and mysterious, covered in intricate patterns that almost seemed to dance and shift in the sunlight. The way the engravings shimmered made it hard to look away as if the object had a subtle, hypnotic pull.

"What the hell is this?" he murmured, turning the cube over in his hands. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, and as he held it, he thought he felt a faint, rhythmic pulsing, like a heartbeat. He frowned, the sensation sending a shiver down his spine. He'd never seen anything like it before. The patterns almost seemed alive, as if they were whispering secrets just out of his understanding.

Before he could examine it further, the door to his workspace burst open. Damien, Angela, and Noah stumbled in, laughing and out of breath as though they'd been chasing each other down the hallway.

"Shayne!" Damien called, clapping his hands to get Shayne's attention. "Dude, you've been holed up in here forever. Come play the game with us before your brain melts from overthinking!"

"Yeah," Angela added with a playful smile, nudging Noah. "We need someone to be the resident wildcard, or it won't be as fun."

Shayne looked up, his focus split between his friends and the mysterious cube. "Yeah, hang on a sec!" he replied, though he didn't make a move to join them. Instead, he held up the cube. "Check this out. Found it hidden under all this junk."

Angela tilted her head and stepped closer, curiosity lighting up her expression. "Whoa, what is that?" she asked, leaning in to get a better look.

Shayne shrugged. "No clue. But it's weirdly... mesmerizing, right?" He ran his fingers along the patterns, marveling at how they seemed to shift under his touch.

"Dude," Noah said, his laughter dying down as he took in the object. "That thing looks like it belongs in a cursed treasure chest or something. You probably shouldn't mess with it."

Shayne, never one to heed a vague warning, smiled mischievously. "Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" He pressed his thumb against one of the cube's edges, and a soft click echoed through the room.

Instantly, the air seemed to vibrate, and a low hum resonated from the cube. Shayne felt a sudden surge of energy, like static electricity charging the space around them. The laughter and warmth of the Smosh office shifted, growing unnervingly still. A spark of unease crossed Damien's face.

"Uh, Shayne? You probably shouldn't—" Noah began, but he didn't get to finish.

A blinding flash erupted from the cube, filling the room with intense white light. Shayne stumbled backward, his grip slipping from the cube as he tried to shield his eyes. The light seemed to swallow him whole, along with the laughter and the comforting, familiar world of the office.

He felt weightless like he was being ripped away from reality. His heart raced, panic seizing him as he twisted in the void. "What the—!" he shouted, but his voice was lost in the roar of the light.

The chaos vanished as suddenly as it began. The light receded, leaving behind a suffocating darkness and an oppressive silence. Shayne's body slammed into something cold and wet, knocking the breath out of his lungs. He gasped, feeling the damp, rocky ground beneath him. The impact rattled through his bones, and he coughed, trying to steady himself.

"What just happened?" he muttered, pushing himself to his hands and knees. The world around him was unrecognizable. He was surrounded by a dense forest, the kind you'd expect to find in a nightmare. The trees twisted upward like gnarled hands clawing at the sky, their bark dark and slick with moss. Thick fog curled around the trunks, distorting the landscape and making it hard to see more than a few feet ahead.

The air was heavy, almost suffocating, carrying an unnatural chill that made Shayne's skin crawl. A shiver ran down his spine as he slowly got to his feet, clutching his aching side. "Guys?" he called out, his voice trembling. "Damien? Angela? Noah?"

There was no response, just the low rustling of leaves and the distant, unsettling creak of trees. Panic flared in Shayne's chest as he realized how alone he was. Whatever force had pulled him away from the office had separated him from his friends.

"Okay, think, Shayne," he whispered, his breath fogging in the air. "You've got to stay calm. Find the others." But the task felt impossible in this eerie, alien place. Every instinct he had screamed that he was in danger.

A sudden rustle in the underbrush snapped him to attention. He spun around, his pulse pounding in his ears. "Hello?" he called, his voice echoing back to him. The shadows seemed to shift and dance, but nothing emerged. Shayne swallowed hard, his hands balling into fists. "Guys, if this is a prank, it's not funny!"

The ground shuddered beneath his feet. Shayne stumbled, struggling to keep his balance as the earth itself seemed to shift and ripple. The trees around him groaned, their branches swaying ominously even though there was no wind. He looked down to see cracks forming in the soil, faintly glowing with an otherworldly blue light.

Then, a voice—a deep, commanding presence—cut through the darkness. "Shayne." The word echoed with an unnatural weight, like a whisper that carried a force of its own. Shayne's breath caught in his throat, and fear clamped around his chest. It wasn't Damien or Noah or any of his friends. This voice was something else, something ancient and powerful.

"Who's there?" Shayne demanded, his voice breaking. He took a step back, but the forest seemed to close in around him, pressing him further into the unknown. Shadows danced at the edges of his vision, and the world began to twist and blur, as though reality itself was unraveling.

Shayne's vision darkened, and he felt himself slipping away, as if he were being drawn into another realm. His last conscious thought was a desperate hope that his friends would find him, wherever he had gone—if they were even searching for him at all.