Hello, me. Reborn

What happens

• It grows, and it comes in hauntings. Saved in the world, with your play time: from a sign at the edge of your eye to something already standing where you are going. About ten minutes into a new world every song stops - the music, a record in a jukebox - and a moment later: It begins. From stage 1 it comes in hauntings: when the music dies, it has come, and it stays a few minutes; then a quiet that is never silent. Each stage it comes more often and harder.
• The world notices it. Your own way is walked a few minutes behind you, never seen. Animals near it stop, fall silent and turn to watch an empty spot; no new music starts while it is near; where it walked, your footsteps make no sound. Go to where they are looking, and its steps walk off along your old way. Your own dog stands and growls before it comes; your cat hisses.
• Your past self, standing still. You turn, and you are out there where you once stood, your back to you. Look a moment, and its head snaps round to you on a body that does not turn; it stares, then runs. From stage 3 its whole body may twist round to you without moving its feet - only while you watch - and scuttle off on all fours.
• Less and less you. First a grey statue of you with a solemn face; from stage 3 your own face, wrong - hollow eyes, a smile too wide - worse at stage 4 and up close, and in the dark, pale eyes. From stage 3 your own face in F5 or in your inventory is, now and then, the wrong one for a blink.
• It uses what you cannot see. It peeks from behind a corner, a door frame or a tree, and pulls back when you look straight at it. At night it stands in the dark corner of your room, facing the wall. At your chest you are already standing there, the lid open - and from stage 2 something is gone from it.
• The menu is not safe. The little you in your inventory stops following your cursor and stares at something else. Close the menu, and you are standing out there. At a crafting table, sometimes you stand right behind yourself.
• The sounds you made. A chest you opened, a block you broke, a door you shut - heard again where you did it. In a haunting, what you do is done again behind you, a moment late, closer each time. Back where you typed a line long ago, it is in your chat again, as you.
• You can go looking for it. Go back to where you walked long ago. Stand still and stare into the dark. Turn toward a sound - or go and see. When something walks on your roof at night, break through and look up. Or call out to it in chat - or whisper to yourself. Each time you meet it, it learns, and it comes sooner.
• It hunts you. Stay put long enough and your own footsteps come up behind you. Turn and face them, and they stop dead. Don't, and it strikes - turning, you see yourself for an instant, right behind you - and from stage 2 it takes what is in your hand (faced, until stage 3 it gives the last thing back). Sometimes it only stands there, and goes. From stage 2, where you cannot see it, it lunges: you, sprinting at you. From stage 3 turning round is not always enough, and its blow can kill.
• Its song. Sometimes, before it comes, the world goes quiet and a record plays with no jukebox anywhere, slowed and dragging - on the Hostile Creatures slider, so you hear it with the music off. A click cuts it. Then its steps.
• The night is its time. It hunts more and warns you later; rain hides its steps. From stage 2, faced at night, it may not stop: a crack, and it comes after you on all fours along the way you came. A shut door, getting out of its sight, or time ends it. At the edge of your light you glimpse yourself, nearer each time.
• Light weakens it, never saves you. At your light's edge it stops a moment, then comes in, slower. In the light your look stops it again, and your blows count twice. Stand there doing nothing, and it reaches you anyway.
• Fight it, and you fight yourself. Strike it and it reels - and you feel half of every blow you land. One blow stops its lunge; enough of them drive off its chase.
• It climbs after you. Build up to get away, and it climbs the outside of your pillar, hand over hand, its face turned up at you. By day, look down at it in time. At night only a look from the light, or a blow, throws it off.
• Home is not safe. At night your bed may say "You may not rest now; there are monsters nearby" - and there are none. Then your own door opens. Only an iron door keeps it out. Out late, past the hour you go to bed: "1/2 players sleeping". Nobody is - but your bed is occupied. Minutes later: "0/2".
• It takes your world, a little at a time. Your torches at night, a door left open, a stack from your chest, from stage 3 your bed. Things you once placed and took away are back where they stood. It digs toward you through the rock - and now and then breaks through. What it holds comes back when you win your place back.
• Where you died. At night, walking away from a place you died, you hear yourself get hurt behind you - and you are lying there. Look, and its head turns to you.
• Sleep paralysis. Sometimes, when you sleep, you cannot move. Something stands over your bed, holding your own sword, axe or trident - or reaching for you with bare hands. Struggle. Some day after, far off, you may see yourself standing with your head lolled onto your shoulder, the way it held it.
• The title screen. Leave the world and the menu shows where you just stood. You are not alone in it. Later the picture is taken from somewhere else: from where it stood, watching your back.
• It logs in as you. At the end, when its hunt finally catches you, no blow comes: everything goes silent. A second you in the Tab list. A line in chat that you never typed. Then it stops pretending to be you, and comes for you. Run, pillar up, dig in, throw a pearl, go through a portal: it follows your own way and does what you did. When it reaches you, the game's own "You logged in from another location" screen sends you out.
• After that, it lives your life. When you come back, it is already standing there. It walks your routes, talks with your words, and your pets follow it. By day it runs from you. At night it lies in your bed. Wake it, and take your place back with a sword - against your own best sword, armour and shield, the same fight on Easy, Normal and Hard; every blow strips a piece of you off it, until a stranger is left. It fights like you do. Lose, and you watch it take your place, with your face: <you> was slain by <you>. In hardcore its blow leaves you half a heart instead, and anything else that would kill you within 10 seconds puts you on safe ground with half a heart.
• Who comes back. Before the end, when it kills you, you hear its step behind your body. Lose to it often enough and its last win is not your death: <you> goodbye, me. - and when you come back, you stand where it stood, what it took is gone, and your own dog growls at you. Win, and it falls - as you, if it ever beat you. In hardcore, if you die late in the story, you watch yourself stand where you fell, pick up your things and go home: it plays on as you.
• With friends (checked with two players on a server). A line in chat from a friend, in their own words - one they wrote earlier, shown only to you. A friend who "left the game" - only for you. A friend far away, standing where they once stood. Your copy is real for them too: they see it, with your name, and they can hit it. And when it comes up behind you, your friends nearby hear its steps - and one who turns to it faces it for you.

Settings

• config/hellome-client.toml (each player): allowMimicOfMe, streamerMode, soundVolume.
• <world>/serverconfig/hellome-server.toml: the question (director.contract), pacing (stages, quiet between scenes, director.hauntings, director.menaceDirector - false: the 1.0.0 way), its hunt (walker.enabled, walker.strikes, walker.takes, walker.climbs, walker.song, walker.itsHours), the climax (climax.kickAtEnd, climax.deathReaches, climax.waitForHuntMinutes), the final fight (reclaim.enabled, reclaim.realDeath, reclaim.lastChances, reclaim.hardcoreAfterlife, reclaim.watchMinutes, reclaim.bedAnyTime), what comes after it (reclaim.lateSign), sleep paralysis, mimicry.

Commands (operators)

/hm status, /hm pace demo|normal, /hm stage [set 0-5], /hm heat (its pace at your stage), /hm walker (where your own way is walked now), /hm contract in|out|ask (your answer to the question, in this world), /hm ending [undo] (how it ended for you; undo gives back what it holds), /hm takeover start|stop|status, /hm on|off, /hm trigger <scene> (for testing and recording). stage, heat, walker, contract, ending and takeover act on whoever runs them.

Known limits

• A friend's copied line takes the look of their real lines on your screen; that was checked on an offline server (lines not signed). On an online server with signed chat it is shown without a mark, like theirs (not checked yet).
• The climax and the takeover happen only in the overworld: in the Nether and the End you still meet it, but the end of the story waits for you to come back. Your copy never goes through a portal.
• Its lunge, its chase and its climb are drawn only for the player it hunts: a friend nearby hears its steps and sees its blow, but their sword passes through it.
• With a shader pack (Oculus) the haunted title screen is skipped (the menu stays as it was). The rest works with Complementary Reimagined (checked on 1.0.2), but its own figures are drawn without the shader's lighting: brighter and flatter than the scene around them.
• A world from 1.0.0 keeps its old server settings (Forge only adds the new ones): /hm pace normal once takes 1.0.2's pace.