You Can Hide

Contamination

The shadows are constantly shifting. Morphing. Slithering in and out of the city's decay, the orphans of a sunny day long extinguished. Sometimes materializing into something, sometimes not. Sometimes a friend. Sometimes not.

Axenia1337: Frnd or foe?

By now you can type it like some people blink.

There's a noise somewhere around you, but it's outside of your sphere of attention.

Your hands are clenched, damp, cramping over the mouse, you're a perfectly honed machine. The moment crystallizes into two commands: Attack. Don't.

But first, wait. The shadow will reveal itself to be another human player – or a code-born monster, words that'll mindlessly chew through you. Say something, say something, say something, come on.

The game can't touch you. It can't cut you or stab you. Can't reach a rusty wire rod into your brain and rip it lobe to lobe. They don't let them make those kinds of consoles. All it has is your soul.

So there's an artificial delay, 3 seconds or 10 or 20. You used to think it was a difference in typing speed. Bathroom breaks. Kids interrupting, dumping their noise and need. It wasn't.

It was the game.

Playing its playthings.

BOOM. BANG. CRUSH.

You're waiting. Your muscles are spiked up and burning adrenaline. Your brain is a buzzing lightbulb left ablaze for too long. You hate it, you love it, it really doesn't matter. The shadow will reply 'friend' – or it will try to claw your face off.

The lack of physical feedback is a hammer crushing your numb hand while you watch.

CRUSH. BAM. (Someone in the apartment above is really not having a great day.)

The game can't hurt you. All it has is your soul. You have moments to react before the screen goes BLACK. 1. 2. 3. The veil lifts and the lurking horror is closer and it is ending your life bit by bit. Think fast. Don't think. Don't die. BLACK. 1. 2. 3. 4. The screen is bleeding, something explodes into your field of vision bashing you over and over like a mad dog beating itself to a pulp on a wall, BLACK.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Are you dead yet?

You are out of ammo and out of grenades and out of healing kits and out of lives. Think fast. Don't think. Don't die. BLACK.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. BANG. A scream from upstairs. Your secrets are guarded by your lovers, but even more so by your neighbours.

BLACK.

BLACK.

BLACK.

BLACK.

The black ripples with nerves of drained colour, afterglow blisters on your retina. No GAME OVER cheerfully leering in red letters on the TV screen. Just nothingness.

You're about to press Enter and start over when the ceiling trembles again. There's thrashing and crashing. Someone crying.

Should you check what's happening up there? The prospect of leaving the game and interloping on private embarrassments is unappealing. Part of you thinks, that's how people get murdered, later everyone wondering why no one noticed the noise. That's not the part controlling your fingers. That part has already pressed Enter and restarted the game, back in the alley where you died.

CRUSH. The ceiling rains loose dust on the TV.

You sigh and press the Esc key to return the game to the opening screen. You find yourself forgetting to rise slowly, and for a moment your consciousness dances in front of your eyes, leopard spots of darkness. You lean against the wall until it passes and the needles in your knees melt away. These things, they should worry you, but they're not severe enough for impact. The threat has gone stale. You've achieved equilibrium. The symptoms don't exacerbate, they flutter at the tips of movements; and you, you acquiesce by keeping the doctors out of the equation.