Aetherial

You have until dark.

Aetherial is a first-person psychological horror set in a forest that turns on you as the daylight dies. While the sun is up, the woods are navigable. You retrace his steps, recover the things he left scattered in the trees, and raise your camera to film what shouldn’t be there. Get it on tape and the dark loosens its grip — for a while.

Then the sun drops. Your compass begins to drift. Then spin. Then die. The ambient sound bleeds away until there is only your breathing, and every direction looks the same. You stop being certain which way you came from.

And you are not alone out here.

In these woods

• Retrace his steps. Recover the missing hiker’s belongings scattered through the forest before night falls.

• Film the impossible. Record the things that shouldn’t exist to hold back the fear. Optional. Tempting. Never safe.

• A compass that dies with the light. Your only way back to the path drifts, spins, and fails as the danger rises and the sun sets.

• Stray from the path and the forest changes. Fog thickens, time runs faster, and something begins to notice you.

• No combat. No escape. She’s already ahead of you. The only way out is to find everything before dark.

• Found-footage presentation. The whole descent runs through a CRT/VHS filter for degraded, recorded-tape dread — toggleable for accessibility.

Some people go into the forest and are not found. You came to see what it took.

You should have left while it was light.