Page 2 of Fake Game

I begin running my character up a stairwell to reach him on the third floor, but the closer I get to him the more a distant noise begins to register in my headset. I spot Jackson’s character, and my shoulders relax a fraction.

Until that distant noise turns into a very decipherable sound.

Nails dragging on the ground.

“Oh no,” I whisper. “Oh no, no, no.”

“Go, go, go,” Jackson shouts, mirroring my dread. “It’s just straight then left.”

“I hate that sound,” I hiss, running my character through the maze of corridors behind him. “I hate it. I hate it.”

“Oh. I lied. It’s just straight,” he corrects when we come up to a dead end.

“Seriously?”

We backtrack, but the noise gets louder. My jaw clenches as my heart rate speeds up. Horror games and I have a love-hate relationship. They scare the crap out of me, but I live for the adrenaline. It’s a nice change from my cozy games, and it’s also helped boost my streams to a new level—people love to watch people getting scared.

“Fucking hell, I really hate this.”

I continue to run down the hallway, but like a noob, I turn around for a split second to see how far behind me the creature is.

Its chalky white body instantly fills my screen, and I let out a short yelp as it kills me.

I lightly slam my mouse against my desk in frustration as my screen flips to the observer view, and I watch as Jackson continues to attempt his escape. Considering the creature just satisfied itself with my corpse, he should be able to make it out.

So annoying.

“Good try,” Lee muses.

Since we’re both dead, we can chat again.

“I should’ve survived that,” I pout before grabbing a sip of water from my pink rhinestone tumbler. “What killed you anyway?”

“A Corpsewalker.”

I can practically hear her lip curl as she spits out the name.

“Ew, I hate those things.”

I turn my attention to my second monitor and browse the comments. It’s hard to keep up with them whenever I stream with friends because I tend to get lost in the gameplay.

My eyes catch on the video of myself in the top corner, and I frown as I fix my curly pink hair under my headset.

“Fuck. What an L.”

Jackson’s deep timbre startles me, and I look back at my main monitor to see his character’s body get dragged away by a giant fourteen-legged spider.

“That’s rough, buddy,” Lee consoles.

“You two need to stop dying,” he grunts. “This is a co-op game for a reason.”

My jaw pops open. “Excuse me? You’re the one who led me down a dead end.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t see me die because of that.”

My mouth opens and closes, but no words come out.

The audacity of this man sometimes.

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