But tonight, the altar felt desecrated. The ramen stink had gone sour, heat from the overworked circuits clinging like mildew on their skin. The hum of machinery buzzed thin as a mosquito trapped in a stasis pod. Every pixel of light seemed to stutter, as though the room itself wanted to look away.
The longtime friends sat among the relics, eyes downcast. Plastic dice rested like bones in the dust. Once, this room had roared with their laughter, their curses, their mock battles against faceless mobs. Now the silence gnawed the edges of everything.
No one said his name. The empty seat screamed it for them.
A holo-field flickered above the controller, pixel static drifting like dust motes. The interface resolved, retro-font glowing in sickly neon:
PLAYER 2: METEOR STRIKE
Status: Waiting to log in…
Beside the text hung Jihoon’s old profile image, frozen long before his face turned impossibly flawless. A crooked smile in braces, his lucky hat askew. The boy they remembered. The boy who wasn’t supposed to vanish.
“...So we’re just not gonna talk about it?” Echo finally muttered, shoving a stack of chip bags aside. “He was our guy. Friday raids. Pizza runs. Jihoon. And now—”
Her words bled into the voice that seeped from the battered speakers of the HEXA Herald, glitch-glossy and smug. Lisa Liemawr.
“—banned lithium augments. Combustion risk higher than your grandma’s vape pen, people. Campus golden boy? More like campus fraud. He went boom because he cheated. And let’s be honest, nobody turns that pretty without paying for it. But hey, don’t just take my word for it! Witness reports are in. Kyra, yes, the girlfriend, says Jihoon was desperate to be someone, at any cost. Fame, fortune, flames, baby!” Lisa’s laughter bubbled, synthetic and cruel. “Play stupid games, win spontaneous combustion.”
Plague’s fist slammed the table, rattling a graveyard of half-broken controllers. “She’s killing him twice,” he snarled. “This is so messed up. The guy wouldn't even update to a vision augment. Always said putting metal in your body was just one bad update away from the morgue.” His fist balled tighter, trembling. “I thought he DNA-hacked himself… thought he chose it. God, I thought he wanted to leave us behind.”
The others flinched. They had thought the same. They’d mocked him, shut him out, just like the popular ones always did to them. Jihoon had laughed it off, pretending everything was fine. Pretending—like them—that he wasn’t burning inside.
Echo turned away, her hair a curtain. But then came a shuddering breath, the sound of denial breaking. Her voice spilled into the stale air, soft as a scalpel, merciless as truth.
“I keep seeing him on fire,” she whispered. “In my dreams, he’s burning and screaming, and I try to drag him out… but my hands just pass right through.” Her tears traced clean tracks down her cheeks. “I always fail. And we failed him. We didn’t even ask if he was okay. We just… looked away.”
The confession landed heavier than silence.
Ghost said nothing. He picked up the twenty-sided die, the sacred artifact of their friendship, their last excuse for avoidance. He didn’t roll it. He hurled it into the darkest corner. The clatter echoed, final as a coffin lid.
In the ringing quiet, the group froze. For a heartbeat, it felt like the room itself recoiled. Then Ghost keyed his holo-pad. A map of the city sharpened into view, its glow bleaching their faces. Jae Won University Hospital. The map drilled down through glass and steel until it locked on Intensive Care, Room C, -- YOON JIHOON.
Ghost said nothing. He picked up the twenty-sided die, the sacred artifact of their friendship, their last excuse for avoidance. He didn’t roll it. He hurled it into the darkest corner. The clatter echoed, final as a coffin lid.
In the ringing quiet, the group froze. For a heartbeat, it felt like the room itself recoiled. Then Ghost keyed his holo-pad. A map of the city sharpened into view, its glow bleaching their faces. Jae Won University Hospital. The map drilled down through glass and steel until it locked on Intensive Care, Room C, -- YOON JIHOON.
Ghost’s hologram gloves flickered, projecting his urgent sign language into the dusty air, “Done pretending.”
The words hung like a verdict. Ghost turned, his shadow dragging long across the relics as he walked for the door.
For a stunned beat, no one moved. Then Plague’s fist uncurled. Echo scrubbed her eyes raw, standing straighter than she had in weeks. Echo pushed her chair back with a final scrape.
One by one, they followed. Haunted, ashamed, and no longer hiding, they left the mausoleum of play behind.
Jihoon was waiting. ...In the hospital, in their nightmares, in the fire they could never unsee. Whatever had consumed him, it hadn’t been augments, or hacks, or doping. It was something far worse. And they had let him face it alone.
...
Such a powerful and pivotal chapter. This was written months ago, and it was just pure luck that Cyber Fair just so happens to have a major cool game in it! I was just blow away by how neat it was and the quality of the work. I went to the GeckoGames main store to get more help on setting up the game. So here I will pass it along for you, so you can play your own games!
