'You've been invited to join Play Dead Online.'
I look at the email. The sender is Manolo Corporation. It's the first thing that I see in the subject line when I pull out my laptop.
"Earth to Killian," Liam tells me, "Are you there?"
"I just got this weird email," I state.
"You really need to leave those computer games alone," Liam explains to me, "What was that RPG game you played 2 months straight? I had to call you and remind you to fuckin' eat man."
I roll my eyes. Liam isn't my best friend. He's far from it. I honestly don't think the guy even likes me. He was my brother Shaunie's best friend. I say 'was' brother because my brother isn't around anymore. Ever since the accident, Liam feels responsible for me.
"Swords and shields," I tell him.
"Yo—you is a fucking nerd, my man," Liam explains, grunting, "We have to get you some pussy or...something. Like you're 18 now aren't you? Don't you want to do anything with your life?"
"I'm fine," I state.
"There's no money in these games. It's a waste of time. The money from the settlement is about to dry up. What happens then?" Liam asks, "Have you thought about that?"
I don't answer Liam. 5 years ago my family died. My brother Shaunie died in a car accident in high school. He was just two years older than me. Shaunie was the popular one. He was the beautiful one. Shaunie and his friends ran the school. They ran the town. They were the typical jocks that everyone loved to be around. Shaunie died in an accident on the way home from a basketball game. My dad, mom and little sisters Tonya and Tiffany were all in that car with Shaunie. They all died. The flames burned them to ash. I got nothing from their deaths but money.
Everyone in my family died except for me. I survived.
I survived because I was at home playing games that night.
I open up another Play Dead Online email.
Was this spam?
Usually, game invitations had these extreme visuals. Sometimes they had these advertising videos. This email had none of that. There were just words in a few sentences.
It read:
Killian Thomas,
We've been watching your performance on games for quite some time now. Due to your amazing performance you have been chosen to participate in the Beta Test of a brand new virtual environment called Play Dead Online. Participation in the beta test qualifies you to compete for a large cash prize. At 4:00 pm you will be contacted for further instructions on how to participate.
The email is odd. It's short. There isn't much to it. I grab the email and throw it in my spam folder on my laptop. It didn't sound like anything legit.
"Killian. I need to get you away from that computer for a minute and be real with you," Liam explains, "I can't keep hanging around with you if you keep acting like such..."
"A loser?"
"You said it. Not me," Liam states, "It's not a good look for me..."
Just at that moment, Liam's friends come into the Internet Cafe. I have no doubt they are looking for Liam. This isn't the first time they've come here. Liam usually meets up with me and does his charity work just before he leaves with his real friends.
"Liam, you coming?" Madden Patel asks.
Madden Patel was a god among men. He was tall, sexy Asian boy with very dark skin. He had this long hair that he always wore in a man bun above his head. His father was Filipino and his mom was from Vietnam. His hair was jet black and only contrasted with the color of his eyes. They were an emerald green. I'd never seen an Asian with those color eyes. Madden's face was chiseled. It was something that I swore I came up with in some wild gay wet dream I had. Except Madden was real. He had high cheek bones, brown big lips, pearly white teeth and a lean toned body. He was right at 6'2" about 180 pounds of lean muscle perfected from being a basketball player all his life.
