Little Squid

Chapter 1

I think a lot about what people will say about me when I'm dead. What they would read aloud to my near and dear from behind a sad, wood podium at my funeral. It's a sort of mood gauge for me - these morbid fantasies, a way for me to measure my days.

Yesterday I thought they would say something along the lines of:

"She was the top of our class in programming. I always thought she was going to be the next software agent for some fancy new age company." (I'm unbelievably narcissistic like that. But doesn't everyone want to feel like a hero at their eulogy?)

Or a week ago when my parents told me that they were going to be going back to their old jobs  instead of following their dreams to open up that bakery my dad always wanted:

"She was our little tiger. Always chasing after some unattainable dream." (This would, of course, be followed with my mother taking the microphone away from him to argue against that point profusely. Dad was the dreamer. Mom had always kept her heels firmly on cement.)

Today...

I rammed my knee into the stone face of the final column on my side, blinking as the system gave a low warning beep in my ears and my health flinched. 

Today I thought the eulogy would go something like:

"She always wanted to disappear... Maybe that's why she played those silly games so much."

There were a lot of ways to break the stone towers leading down each lane, two for each side, each one needed to be knocked down before you got to the other side's nexus in the hopes of destroying it. On a normal night, it would be better to just cast a few spells and bring the sucker down but tonight - well, tonight I guess I just wanted to make things more difficult.

Breath sawed from my lunges, hot and unforgiving in the dewy night air. The weight of the golden staff in my hand was becoming heavier and heavier by the moment but I couldn't bring myself to use anything but my own body, sweat coursing down my ribs and spine. My fist gave an ache, health bare wincing once more above me. This was dumb. I was being dumb.

Sometimes I couldn't explain these moods - the sudden downcast on an otherwise clear day. Maybe tomorrow I would think back and realize that I hadn't gotten enough sleep. Or that more trolls had found their way to my streaming chat than usual. But on days like today, hours like this one, I found myself staring at my hands for some reason, maybe the milky in-between of clouds fading into the Seattle gloom, and thinking: what would be like to...be...somewhere else?

Of course, thoughts like that always led one place.

"They're pushing us in the bottom lane," our support called across the line and my eyes immediately drifted toward the shadowy figure currently encamped behind the foreboding enemy tower just a few feet away. Currently, he was trying desperately to kill a three-headed cat and looking far more roughed up than he should. Begrudging annoyance ate away at me, gnawing at the bottom edge of my heart as I paused, recalculating. 

The opposite middle laner had picked a powerful but short-lived assassin, his coil of ebony hair and russet-toned face almost completely obscured by the hood of his robes. He had made the mistake of getting to the lane too late, giving me enough time to kill most of the creatures that inhabited the lane from my nexus to the enemy tower and level up all of my abilities. 

Old habits died hard. Whatever self-destructive trip I was on quickly got thrashed to the side in favor of my own greed for a win. I could use a win today. 

Runes burned along my hands, my skin prickling with the sudden flare of magic. My gut clenched, the mounting anticipation making me nearly giddy. I felt a surge of static electricity in my gut, the clips adorning the crown of my staff making light tinkling noises as I drew it back and then released the sonic boom of energy. Over the years they had increased not only the feel of damage on a player's body to ensure more immersive play but also the feel of magic as well. Attacks that used to feel like a light breeze dying now felt like I was dancing in a field of electricity, the string of damage spells activating making my skin prickled.