That cat. The one that died, somehow, mysteriously, flashes before my eyes. That’s when I notice it. Again, maybe. Or I suppose. I don’t know.

In the midst of the assembly hall still turbulent with hysteria, and as people split up and regroup together according to their assignments, crying and fighting and cussing each other out, I notice something odd. Without trying to, and with absolutely nobody around me, I feel pushed. Or pulled. Or somehow guided. Maybe. All I know is it frightens me. A pinch, sort of like lightning, but smaller. Static makes a muscle twitch in my back, and I take a step forward, towards the auditorium door.

I try, without knowing where it comes from, to get a sense of myself again. Not as though I didn’t have a sense of myself to begin with, but to make an adjustment. In my mind. What just happened? The question seems to linger in my head longer than it’s supposed to. As if I’m not supposed to be thinking of the question, and instead, should be walking towards the door.

That’s when I get closer to the thought. That’s it! Whatever it was that I just felt, it was somehow, me, and not me. And the part that wasn’t me, definitely seems to make it clear that it wants me to walk towards the auditorium door. It. I’m not sure what it is. But I somehow make this connection with that cat being killed, and whatever just pushed me, and this, it.

As I stand there, I watch as people climb over each other, scrambling to make their last adjustments to the newly started game—who they’re supposed to be with and what not—before many of them head out the door. I instinctively check my surroundings to see if anybody else has had this experience. Did anybody else just see that? Just feel that? Is anybody being pushed by the game? And who is doing it? From where?

In one sweep of the room with my eyes, it appears nobody else seems to notice. Unlike me—who is frozen in a stance, analyzing everything—everybody else is busy panicking. Rushing. Leaving. And on top of that, I don’t see any evidence that anybody else is being led, or pushed, by this mysterious it.

I look up, for some reason. Glancing at the light fixtures on the rafters. Or maybe in that general direction.

There aren’t many bedtime stories for little children in this town. Of them, one in particular is the most coveted. By adults and children alike. The story, in this instance, and for the first time, sort of seems less like a bedtime story, or folk lore, and more like some kind of warning. A veiled one maybe.

There’s this myth. Since nobody really knows where this town started in history, or how it came about. But the story goes, that there were these two original players, once upon a time. They were called the zeroeth players.

The reason for the name is simple. The theory goes that there was a time before player characters or non-player characters ever existed. A pre-player character era, where everyone was just simply a gamer. A level playing field, where all the lands were free and the villages spilled over with nature, and community. This, we’re told as young kids, was the true intention and beginnings of the Genuine Reality System. A world of common immortal gamers.

But there came a moment when power was sought. From village to village, the violent idea spread like wildfire, and the boundaries of the system were stretched towards the infinite possibilities of battle and war. Eventually, the seed of the idea that a single ruler could rule them all was planted, and even those still seeking peace could not hide. A world war broke out, what some call earth’s Greatest Free-For-All in history, until there were just two gamers remaining. And this is where our town comes in.

In this story, we’re told the zeroeth players met here for their battle, and the result was the split between player and non-player character classes. One made the other submit, and voila, the two factions—the winner responsible for the spawning of the dominant population of player characters, their immortality still intact, and the loser condemned to re-spawn the population of non-player characters, their immortality now limited. This part of the story—the part about the split—is always told when you’re tucked in, laying on your pillow, listening to your father stare at his hands as he pulls the story from his mind in a creepy and dark way that even he doesn’t seem to understand. No matter how many times you hear it from a parent, or how many other kids you share the story with, everyone notices this part. The seriousness. The sense of wonder. The mystery. The fear in each other’s eyes. An overly concise—and kid-ish, perhaps—child’s story of a divide that nobody I know or have ever heard of, living or dead, understands in any more detail than that. At least, that’s where you eventually come to rest your own understanding of it as you grow older. A child’s tale. After all, who would believe that our town could possibly be that important to history?

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But the part of this story that is suddenly making my skin crawl, the hairs on the back of my neck stand, as I look up into the rafters of the assembly hall, is the part they don’t tell you about. The part they don’t tell you about is where the child’s tale ends, and the real mystery begins.

I came across a document I uploaded when my kit was jailbroken last year. I was desperate for anything I could find after spending the first few weeks having a jailbroken kit still with a gun that couldn’t shoot. In this document, it revealed that the terms player character and non-player character were merely used as a cover. The terms only helped to solidify a gaming culture that’s divided into two populations of gamers who only look on the surface. Keep their heads down, their noses in their screens, and following the rules of the game, too busy participating to notice anything else. When really, under the surface, the game is much deeper.

In this document, it was noted that we aren’t player characters and non-player characters at all. But instead, we’re what’s called First Person Gamers and Second Person Gamers. Two types of gamer angles designed into the system itself.

First Person Gamers were to only inhabit a single role, a single lifespan. And whether we like it or not, that’s what we are. Termed non-player characters, and regulated to be pieces on the board, with no extra lives, living our lives as one individual, and intended to be used however player characters would like to be used. And player-characters, as designated Second Person Gamers, according to this document, are imbued with all the privileges of the system’s second gamer angle. They are allowed to play on the board as multiple roles, if they so choose. Enter and exit the game with pause screens and such. They do not have a lifespan. That is to say, they can re-spawn without extra lives. Save their games. Start campaigns over. Heck, start campaigns at all. This is their world.

But that’s not the worst. As if that wasn’t enough, the real heat of this document disclosed a third type of gamer, and how this third gamer was secretly present at the fight between the zeroeth players. And instead of one of those two winning, this third gamer rose above them both. The real person responsible for the split. The real winner that day in history. The designer. The creator. The player called the Third Person Gamer. The one. The one off the screen. The behind it all.

The only thing this document and the child’s story agree on, is the final weapon used in the fight that day. What’s called an Upheaval. Only one ever made, according to the papers. And only one ever used. When I looked at the Upheaval’s listed effects, the collateral damage was distinguished as being a crimson wasteland.

I take a deep breath and try to take in everything that has happened in these first few moments of the game being prepared. How much our town has changed. What its been assigned for. What I’ve been assigned for. A wife. Fakely married to some boy I don’t know. Still separated from my family, especially Petey. To play a deadly game against player characters where I can’t even be myself.

And the key is, the player characters know it, and can do whatever they please with it. We can’t. We are supposed to act as though the rules behind this wall of history—gaming mechanisms and design, programming and coding—all of it—doesn’t exist. We are supposed to be oblivious and stick to our dialogue trees. I know it. I can see it coming. The difficulty of having to pretend and act like we are unaware.

But that’s the rub. Some of us aren’t, to different degrees.

I rub my fingers over the spot in my back where I just felt pushed, but keep my eyes pointed upwards, towards the lights, towards something, maybe. I fear, more now than ever, that I’m the only one in the room, maybe the only one in this town, who is starting to see evidence of the infamous Third Person Gamer.