“The rules are pretty simple,” seventeen year old Gavin said, pushing his glasses up self consciously. He’d never played with the cool kids before, and had a creeping feeling they were using him.

“No cross hops in this section-“ Gavin motioned with his controller. “No jumps diagonal. And you can only hit triple rolls and flood attacks on the… the left strike. Jumping back and swooping low, you pull the Badge Sword here and power combo. And you win. That’s your goal.”

The cooler highschoolers scratched their heads. They all boasted about a nonexistent PS5, but never actually had one, that’s what made them cool, of course. Nikes, branded items and pencils. Expensive tastes and bad mouths with staggering looks. Gavin kept his head down regardless and couldn’t care less about their social groups and statuses.

“So… that’s it?” His name may have been Joseph. Gavin wasn’t sure, so he avoided names all together.

“Yep. That’s it. Ready?”

“Ready…”

“Let’s go, bro.”

“Let’s gooooo.”

Gavin and the three cool kids picked up controllers and sat down on the flat, dark blue beanbags and took deep breaths as the game started it’s countdown.

3…

2…

1…

GO!

They swooped and slid. The beast on the screen lashed out, taking down the kid whose name may have been Carter. He swore loud as his player shifted and a heart fell from his side of the screen.

“Left, left! Take the fucking left.” Joseph commanded of his two followers. They followed, limply, their players glitched for a split second, allowing the beast to swipe at the lag. Carter screamed just as his character got cut on the arm by the beast on-screen.

“Jeez, brozam, it’s a damn game. Holler you a loud one again, up in my ear, and I’ll flatten ur ass out like—“ Joseph turned when Carter’s character lost another heart. His arm was bleeding horribly, running down his white Adidas shirt.

“I- I don’t know what happened.”

“Stop the game! Stop the game.”

Gavin looked over numbly, his thumbs kept a constant play on the controller. He shrugged, “That’s part of the game. Gives you motivation. Perfectly normal. You have to finish, anyways. Or it keeps happening.”

Crimson blossomed on the third popular boy’s chest, it was rose shaped and deeper than the other boy’s wound. He screamed bloodily, gurgling and slumping. After awhile, the guy that was probably named Blanco didn’t move, his eyes stayed unfocused.

“What the hell, man? Pause the-“ Joseph lunged at Gavin. But Gavin was faster. He kept his player away from the monster, and threw Joesph’s character under the computer programmed beast on the screen. Joseph fell back and writhed, his spine crunched several times, snapping and splitting.

Gavin turned back to his game and finished the monster off. Joseph lay dying, as his two popular friends bled out. Gavin shrugged again. The game ended, the beast was defeated. But three warriors were down. “Then suddenly… it’s over,” Gavin shrugs.