Page 63 of Now Streaming

Min pushed her avatar to limp around, searching desperately for healing, wondering if this new map meant that the med kits spawned less often. Probably, if it was considered a map for advanced players. It wasn’t until she wandered into her third location to do a scan that she found it.

A door into the castle.

It was hard to see, covered in overgrown plant life and hidden unless you angled your camera just right. Even the path up to the door was non-existent, with no clear sightlines for snipers that Min could see.

If med kits were anywhere, they were going to be inside. So that’s where she was going.

Min kept her camera moving, trying to have eyes everywhere as she approached the door. Soon she was inside, wedging the door closed with a nearby large stone that had fallen from a wall.

She made her way carefully down a maze of hallways, all while admiring the space. She was in what must have been made to look like a servant area, with close walls and long hallways. She found several doors, some wedged shut, some with nothing but empty rooms. She considered setting traps, but she needed healing first. That was the priority.

Min turned a corner of a hallway and found herself at the open doorway of a large room. It was maybe a ballroom, with high ceilings and a second floor that looked down onto the floor she was currently on. It was fancy, fancier than she had seen thus far in her search, but what had her freezing was what lay in the middle of the room.

A med kit.

All by itself. Her infrared goggles didn’t show any heat signatures, but that didn’t mean anything. In the game, for every boost there was another item to counteract it, meaning that for all that she had infrared goggles, someone could be in this room with stealth gear. She had to be careful.

But she was in the yellow for health. She needed the kit. Even if this was a trap, she had to go for it.

Searching again and seeing nothing, Min circled the kit, keeping the door behind her in sight. Her instincts were screaming at her that someone was in this room, waiting to make a move. But nothing happened, even as she inched closer and closer. So she kept moving, growing more and more anxious.

And then she heard the telltale click of the trap.

A curse escaped her, exploding onto the otherwise quiet comms and making her other opponents laugh. Min ignored them as she watched her avatar yanked up by the snare trap that she had failed to see. Now she was trapped, upside down, her foot in the air, her vision swirling in a circle until the physics of the trap settled. Min was pissed at herself. She knew this was a trap, she should’ve seen the snare. This was a rookie mistake. She knew she was better than this.

“You make it so fucking easy, Flame.”

Min froze at Alex’s voice, at the hate and menace infused in it. The crowd cheered, thinking it was just one of their favorites facing her, probably not even registering how vindictive his voice sounded. When her avatar finally stopped spinning from the physics of the trap, Min adjusted her camera, spotting his avatar on the balcony above her. He must have found the stealth gear after all. Fuck.

Not hesitating, she pulled out her knife and started sawing at the snare, trying to move quick as he came closer to her. A single shot rang out, and her health went down into the warning zone, her knife dropping out of her hand. She was a sitting duck waiting for the timer of the snare to run out and release her.

“You should’ve dropped out, Flame. No one wanted you here. No one thinks you deserve to be here.”

There were cheers from the audience at that, supporting him and his hatred of her. And that hurt, more than Min was really expecting. She knew she wasn’t loved, knew the vast majority of the audience was here to watch her fail. But still, the reality of it, of listening to them cheer on the man who had ruined her career with his pettiness made her anger grow, the unfairness, the hurt, the lies, everything coalescing in her heart and burning with the fire of a thousand furnaces.

“I have just as much right to be here as you, Alex.” She bit off the words, hearing the rest of the chatter from the comms die down as the other players eavesdropped. Even the audience was silent. Min had stayed quiet for the most part so far, and everyone wanted to hear how she would handle this situation. Were practically holding their breaths to hear more.

“Yeah right.”Alex laughed, bitter.“Everyone knows how you ‘earned’ your place in the tournament, Min. Couldn’t keep your fucking legs closed, even after getting called out on the internet.”

Min shouldn’t have been surprised he would go there, that he would be so crude in his accusations and even call her by her real name, but she was. At one time she had trusted him, so for him to speak about her like this, knowing that he had set her up, knowing that nothing he said was true, made her sick. And she was done protecting him.

“You really want to do this here, Alex? Because I’m happy to talk about what really went down, and who the person was in the photos. Because it was the same person who leaked those photos. The same person that trashed my hotel room two days ago, although I don’t have the proof yet. And I suspect was one of the people responsible for the very false allegations that came out today. So, if you really want to do this here, then we fucking will.”

“You lying bitch!”Alex exploded over the comms, his avatar aiming his gun, the shot ringing out, and Min knew she was done. She didn’t have the health to survive a shot at this close range from any weapon. The fucker had won.

Except….

“What the fuck?”Alex was practically spitting into his comms, his avatar on the ground on one knee. Min spun her camera, searching, to find another player had entered the room without either of them noticing—someone named TeddyBearHugs. It wasn’t anyone she recognized, which meant he was one of the lesser-known streamers.

As she watched, the avatar pointed his shotgun at her, and with a boom, Min watched her avatar fall to the ground, now free of the snare.

“Hey, Flame. I’m a big fan.”

Min exhaled, not believing what was happening. “Hey Teddy,” she said, trying to keep the shake out of her voice. “I’m going to be really sorry to kill you later.”

“Looking forward to it.”

Teddy gave her an emote—a salute—and then turned and left the room. Min was now alone with Alex’s avatar, who was still on his knees, his weapon nowhere to be seen. Min could hear Alex frantically smashing the buttons, trying to get his character up and moving. Min didn’t hesitate, racing toward where she saw the nearest weapon had fallen. But Alex was quick, his avatar up and running next to hers. Shit.

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