A Synonym for Chill [COMPLETE]

5. Two-Player Game

Eli and I sat cross-legged on my living room floor, gripping our PS4 controllers so hard, our knuckles turned white. The wubs and bass of "Digital Paralysis" nearly shook the house, causing me to reach out and grab the remote for the soundbar in a frantic attempt to turn the volume down. In the process, I lost the streak I had attained, and Eli scooped it up.

"Hey!" I shouted, giving him a glare. He smiled back at me.

"All's fair in a game of Amplitude!" He laughed. I gritted my teeth and continued playing, the music now less house-shaking and more subdued. After a few hours of choosing and playing through a bunch of random songs, I scooted up to the shelf where the games were sitting and began to sift through the few games we had.

"What are you looking for?" He asked.

"A game we can play together and be on the same team," I said simply, finally pulling a case out and tossing it to him. He looked at it with confusion.

"Call of Duty?"

He looked up at me, raising an eyebrow and tossing the case back. I gave him a shrug, wincing in pain as the plastic case smacked me in the face.

"Hey, it's the only decent game I have that includes multiplayer. You try playing zombies alone," I replied, popping the disk out of the case and sliding it into the system, hopping back to sit next to him. "Besides, it's the only HD zombie game I own." He laughed again.

"Fair enough!"

The game booted up, I selected our game mode, and within a few minutes, we were standing in the Tranzit map. I quickly ran to find a weapon, only to be met with barricade after barricade.

"Great. I forgot where the guns were," I muttered, making my character swivel around and go to the other side of the room where Eli's character stood. "If we stick together, we have a better chance at living." Eli nodded, maneuvering his character over to a closet-esque space and purchasing a gun, much to my surprise.

"Got some firepower." He said simply. I had to laugh, making my character go get the gun as well. Suddenly, the barricades began to break as the zombies started to spawn.

"Let's do this," I said, giving him a grin. "Find the bad guy, push 'em aside, then move on forward with a friend at your side-!" I had been doing a good job slaying zombies until I found myself almost swarmed. Eli ran in and, with some expert knife skills, slaughtered the zombies until there was one left, shooting it through the head.

"It's a two-player game, so when they make an attack, y'know y'got a brother gonna have your back." He said, grinning at me. I grinned back, both of us speaking in unison.

"Then you stay on track and - AH! - remain on course, and if they give you a smack, you - GAH! - you use your force. And if you leave your brother behind it's lame 'cause it's an effed up world and it's a two-player game!" We cleared the first wave with minor injuries, Eli buying our way to freedom via the bus station door. In the calm before the next wave, I decided to rebuild the barricades that had been broken down earlier in an attempt to gain some more funds so that Eli wouldn't have to bail me out every second.

"So...what do you think?" I asked. Eli shook his head, gunning down a few zombies as the next wave started.

"He's scamming you. He's scamming you super weirdly." He replied.

"But what if he's not?" I retorted. "This could be huge! All I have to do is give my former friend who...torments me...six...hundred..." The realization hit me like a bag of bricks, and I paused the game. "Yeah, he's totally scamming me," I finished. "I'm doomed to be a loser until the end of time! No, probably then, too!" Eli reached over and unpaused the game.