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THE NEWSPAPER LISTED three names in three separate paragraphs, as if someone wanted to keep them apart with all intent and might. Skandar Knowles, 15, comatose after a car crash, unlikely to wake. Amelia Pescud, 13, found dead in her bedroom, game console still plugged in. Arnold Clarke, 10, discovered in a treehouse after being missing for a day.
I read them twice. Folded the paper, then unfolded it again. I wasn’t in the paper. Not yet.
A few weeks earlier, Dad and I had gone to the Computer Fair. The place smelled of plastic softened under lamps. Dad touched every box, convinced some bargain hid in plain sight. We found a visor, gloves, and a handful of games. Used, clearly—smudges on the lenses, initials fading on the straps.
I asked if that mattered. Dad waved me off. ‘If it runs, it runs.’
At home he called the basement our TechLab. It was really just a desk with cables knotted underneath. Still, I wanted it to feel official. I slid on the visor, gloves tight against my wrists.
The first game opened into a corridor that seemed too long for the screen I owned. A badge glowed on my chest: PRISONER 1.
Another boy appeared across the hall. His movements were too precise, too late, too human. ‘I’m Skandar,’ he said. No preamble. ‘You’re not here for what you think.’
I didn’t answer. The air around us shook—footsteps, alarms. He tugged at my sleeve, running. Guards came from both sides, rifles humming. We ducked, sprinted, squeezed through a door. At the shuttle dock, dots of red light scattered over our bodies like a rash. We jumped anyway.
When I yanked off the visor, the printer on the desk had already spat a slip of paper:
HELLO. I AM SKANDAR KNOWLES. STUCK HERE. SAVE ME. TRY GODS OF GUNS.
Next game. The saloon smelled faintly of wood smoke. A glass of something dark sat waiting in front of me. A boy leaned at the counter. His badge said sheriff, but the way he held himself was ordinary, like he was tired of standing. ‘I’m Arnold,’ he said. ‘Your friend’s waiting at the back. He’s got horses.’
The doors swung open. More men than I could count filled the room. One singled me out with a voice that felt ritualistic. ‘Too small a town for both of us.’
Arnold didn’t give me time to reply. He grabbed my arm. ‘We should go.’
Gunfire cracked as we ran, glass breaking above us. We climbed out a window, scrambled onto horses already snorting in the dust. I barely knew how to hold the reins. We rode until the horizon blurred.
The screen congratulated me, and the printer stuttered again:
I AM ARNOLD CLARKE. WE HAVE TWO MORE LEVELS. TRY DRAGON’S CASTLE.
The castle was damp. The walls sweated. Smoke clung low.
At the top of a staircase, a girl was waiting. Not waiting like a trapped princess—waiting like someone already working. A glowing dial on her wrist pulsed with commands. Metal figures stood behind her, obedient. ‘I’m Amelia,’ she said. Then, almost impatiently: ‘They need help more than I do.’
I looked back. Arnold’s sword bent at the hilt. Skandar was coughing, trying to push himself upright. I found another blade leaning in the corner and swung it without skill, just to be part of it.
The machines finished the fight. Amelia didn’t thank us, but she didn’t need to.
Another passage opened, leading into light. The printer had another message ready, words bunched close together like it wanted to be done with them:
LAST LEVEL. GOOD LUCK.
The last game was a cell. No windows. Just us four.
Skandar explained quickly, as if he’d been rehearsing. The accident, followed by their memories getting pulled into the device. Amelia said she’d been on the line with him when it happened, playing the same game. Arnold added that he’d been partnered with her.
Their faces flickered in and out of focus.
‘Why me?’ I asked.
Amelia looked down. ‘For all reasons, or maybe for none. Who knows? Anyways, has anyone got a plan?’
‘Worst question ever,’ Arnold replied, pointing towards the skeleton swipe card.
He found a key that shouldn’t have been there. The door opened to sirens and heavy boots. Automatons filled the corridor, their bodies shining as if freshly made.
Behind them came something that wasn’t a machine. Not code. Not pixel. Khunqroil is what his army kept chanting.
He smiled in a way that seemed borrowed. ‘Now you know my name,’ he said, ‘so you know why you’re afraid.’ His story unfolded like he’d told it many times: a planet far away, radioactive bodies, the invention that could transfer identity into someone else’s frame. ‘I’ve already mapped you,’ he said, almost tender. ‘One switch, and I leave this prison for yours.’
I didn’t think twice. I moved. A shard of metal in my hand, the kind of thing you don’t know you’re holding until it cuts your palm. I aimed for him, missed. The shard struck the switch instead. Sparks. Noise. Then blackness followed.
I woke up with the visor still pressing down on my face. Gloves damp with sweat. The screen showed two words: GAME OVER.
Days later, Dad told me the equipment had been stolen from a hospital. He said it casually, as though it were an odd detail, not the hinge of everything.
The slips from the printer are still inside the drawer of my desk. The ink has smudged at the edges, but the names don’t fade.
Sometimes when I close my eyes, there’s breath that isn’t mine in my lungs. Four of us, maybe. Or just one.
I don’t know if I lost them or kept them.
I don’t know what ‘over’ means anymore.
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