When I pressed my finger for the first time, I didn’t know that I had signed a contract.

At the other end of the contract, there is a luminous track extending to the invisible darkness. I became a beetle, a metal beetle welded to death on the rhythm. At first, it was just a corner, and the light lit up. I turned the direction, and the beetle shell rubbed against the track with a clear sound of “ding”, like knocking on the tuning fork.

But the tuning fork quickly turned into a hammer.

The track came to life, and it began to twist, knot, and split into a thorny fork in the road. Those light points that prompt the corner are no longer friendly. They have become knives. I have to step on the blade, a moment earlier or a moment later. The low voice in the background was no longer music. It sank to the soles of my feet and became a heavy sound of footsteps from the center of the earth. Bang. Bang. Bang. It is not in a hurry or slow, but it is always one step behind.

I found myself holding my breath. The whole world shrank into the crazy band of light in front of us. When I make a mistake, the beetle will make a harsh scratching sound, which makes my teeth sour, like scraping the bottom of the pot with a spoon. The screen will darken and turn red like rust. That’s how fear comes from — not the fear of death, but the fear of the sudden interruption of the “bang”, or that I can’t keep up with myself.

I fell into a silent fight with this track and what was chasing behind me. The harder I press, the faster it runs. My shoulders were stiff and my palms were sweating, but it had no body temperature, only a precise and cruel beat.

The transformation occurred after a long fall. I made a series of mistakes, and the beetle almost scattered. Just when I thought I was going to be swallowed up by the darkness, I gave up. It’s not to give up the game, but to give up the idea of “control”. I put my finger on my ear and gave it to the “bang” sound.

Something wonderful happened.

I’m no longer avoiding those blades, I’m stepping on them. Every precise step, the sound of “ringing” has changed from a judgment to a drum beat. I suddenly merged with the track and the footsteps behind me. We have become a team rushing to the end of the darkness, and rhythm is our only language. In the face of the huge existence like the colossus of the temple at the end of the level, what I felt was no longer fear, but a cold calm. Fighting is sacrifice, sacrificing all my attention, and dancing the most absolute dance in the steel-like law formulated by it.

When the music stopped abruptly, the silence hit like a wall. I sat in the sudden darkness, with only my own buzzing tinnitus in my ears and the distant and vague sound of traffic outside the window. My fingers are still trembling slightly, as if they are still stuck to the non-existent beat.

Later, once, I was waiting for the last bus at the railway station late at night. I was the only one on the empty platform. The train came from the depths of the tunnel, and the sound of wheels crushing the rails was from far and near, regular, heavy and unquestionable. When the light of the headlights pierced the darkness and illuminated the yellow safety line at the edge of the platform, I was in a trance.

At that moment, I seemed to be standing at the starting point of the luminous track again.

Our life may also have such an invisible track. The alarm clock in the morning, the countdown of the meeting, and a certain sentence that must be opened are all points of light that must be accurately stepped on. We are afraid of making mistakes, and we are afraid that the scratching sound that symbolizes failure will sound in life. The fine anxiety hidden deep in daily life turned out to be the same thing as the feeling of being suffocated by the metal beat in the game.

_Thumper_ didn’t give me any reward. It only gave me a pair of painful ears and a cold rhythm of being beaten into the body. But it also made me taste a little strange freedom after complete obedience. It is the moment when you and the terrible rhythm are completely in time, the short and hard resonance between you. It’s short, as cold as iron, but it tells you that even on a forced forward track, you can still adjust your breathing and try to hear the footsteps chasing you as your own heartbeat.

Then, continue to run forward.