The guys we were up against were quite a struggle. At the beginning, everything was alright, so to say. In the first 15 minutes, somebody from our team managed to kill one of our opponents, after which they were done for. In this game, once you get killed, you are eliminated from that game. There’s no respawn. The only thing you can do is spectate. Shit hit the fan from there. Five minutes after, I saw with my own eyes how our enemies blew our allies' brains out. I hid behind one of the crumbled walls, hoping that they hadn’t seen me.

Either my group was useless, or these guys were stronger than usual. I had to step up my game. It was the guy with the deep voice now, and I against four other guys who I assumed were all skilled.

“Hey,” I said to the microphone of my headset, “These guys have offed pretty much our entire gang. They’re good.”

“I know,” user J3ff replied. “No sweat, we've got what it takes to take 'em down.” There was this confidence in his tone that I hadn’t quite heard before. It was as if he knew what he was talking about, and he knew what he had to do to get us out of the mess we were in. I’ve never heard a voice as intimidating as his. He could bring me to my knees with just a word, and this is coming out from the mouth of a straight gym rat.

‘What the fuck am I actually thinking?’, I asked myself. Lost in the train of my thoughts, I didn’t have the time to react to the shooter that appeared next to me. He shot me twice, which decreased my health from 100 to 15 in less than a second. ‘This is the end of me. Maybe you should have focused on the actual game instead of J3ff’s booming voice.’

Like thunder from a clear sky, three gunshots pierced my eardrums. The guy was now down, crawling like me on all fours. “Go to sleep.” said J3ff. I turned to my right side, and there he was like an angel guardian. He approached me and healed me using a health kit he’d found. Now my health was 50.

“T-thanks, man,”, I said “You’re like a miracle. If it wasn’t for you, I’d be a goner now.”

“Heh, I told you we’ve got this, didn’t I?”

"The safe zone's getting tight. We managed to down one, but it's still 3v2. Let's drop one more before we all have to converge in the map's center.", he commanded, which I gladly agreed to without asking any questions.

It was clear that they had scattered up to find us, which was a bad idea from them, as we found one and easily put him down. Two more left, and we’re the ones that are going to save the team from the embarrassment of losing.

After the red zone filled out the entire map, we had no choice but to confront each other. The two of them tried to take J3ff down, and they almost succeeded. Now he was in the same position I was in before. But not before he severely damaged one of them, which gave me the full advantage to take him down. Somehow, by luck, I managed to get the other guy too. I guess they got too stuck up their own asses. I got the last kill, which gave me a sense of accomplishment in J3ff’s eyes.

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“Victory”, the announcer triumphantly exclaimed. Glory to me and J3ff, I guess. Mostly to J3ff. I only had one kill, and that by a miracle.

“I’d love to say I told you so, Ryan.”, said J3ff.

I started to panic. My breathing got heavier, and my chest tightened as my heart skipped a beat. Where does he know my name from?

“H-How d-do you know my n-name?”, I asked, trying to sound stern. However, I failed miserably, coming across more like a child whose mother had left him by the cashier checkout while she ventured to the farthest aisle in the store.

“It's right there in your username, dude. ‘R’, ‘7’, ‘@’, ‘N’.”

Blood ran up my face from embarrassment. My cheeks were burning. It’s a good thing he can’t see me right now. I always have to say something stupid like this, don’t I? The guy thinks that I’m probably a weirdo by freaking out like that. I mean how could I forget that I based my actual username on my real name? All of my instincts were telling me to just log off and maybe even block him, hoping to never hear from him again. If I did that, though, he’s bound to remember me forever. I should just play it cool.

“O-oh, y-yeah, I totally forgot about that.”, I was still stuttering. I needed to slow down my speaking. I don’t want him to think that I’m some loner loser with social anxiety that can’t utter a single hello without tripping on his words. “And yours is Jeff, right?”

“You got it. So, where are you from?”, I can only assume he was talking about the state I was in because I think that it was obvious from our accents that we were both Americans. His accent was very similar to mine, just in a ‘gamer style’ if that makes sense. I didn’t feel comfortable telling anybody my personal information, even if that meant just revealing the state I was in, but when it came to this guy, I decided to make an exception.

“I’m from Texas. And you?”, I asked back.

“Texas too. You happen to be in Austin?”, okay, guessing my name because I literally had it spelled out in my username is one thing. Him asking me what state I’m in is another. But him guessing the city I’ve lived in my whole life is creepy. Am I allowed to freak out now? “Guessin' 'cause our accents match up.”

Oh. That makes more sense.

Well, it was no use denying where I’m from at this point, I guess. I mean what are the chances of the guy behind the screen being a serial killer or something? He already knows the state I’m in and the city, and so if he really wanted to he’d easily track me down to kidnap me or I don’t know whatever horrors pass through psychopaths' brains. I have no need to run away now, plus I have the muscles to defend myself.

“Wait… ‘our accents match up’… are you from Austin too?”, I asked eagerly. I know it’s a long shot, but what if we can meet in real life? I know I don’t even know him yet, but I think he’s a really cool guy. I can hopefully have a friend for once in my miserable life that’s void of any meaningful relationships.

“Got that right too.”, I noticed a friend request from J3ff pop up, which I gladly accepted. I have a lot of ‘friends’ on this game with whom I was supposed to play later again but we somehow never got in touch. I can only hope Jeff is going to be different from them. “I see you accepted my friend request. Sweet!”

“Yeah. We’re officially friends now, I guess.”, the more effort I put into sounding as laid back as he was, the worse I sounded. I know I should just try to sound natural, but even online I can get nervous. Nervous is my natural.

“So… why do you play this game?”, he asked curiously. “Do you like… blood?”

That was a weird thing to ask. “N-no, I just like playing games for fun.”

“Oh. I play it 'cause I get to nail headshots and watch 'em bleed out.”, he said bluntly, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. I know I’m not the best at communicating with other people, but even I know saying something like that is strange. Especially after you found out that you were living in the same city, possibly just a few miles away.