Chapter 1
“The Gamer”
The blue glow of the monitor cut through the darkness, casting sharp shadows across Alex's face as he connected to the minimal care ward's feed. Empty energy drink cans littered the small desk—testament to another sleepless night in a pod that felt too big, too empty with just him. The stale air hung thick with mingled odors—unwashed bodies, processed food seeping through thin walls, and the metallic tang of overtaxed recycling systems. His pod was a double-wide unit he'd managed to keep only because the world valued rare microchips and circuitry from his old gaming equipment more than living space. Functioning electronics fetched higher prices than water rations; his years of accumulated gear had bought them precious square footage that most families could only dream of. Six by six feet of space that Lily had somehow kept pristine, even as the world crumbled around them.
"Small but cozy," she'd always say, straightening the few photos they had of their parents, her voice nearly lost in the cacophony of humanity pressing in from all sides.
Now dirty clothes spilled from the storage compartment, and bare mounting brackets lined the walls where his tournament-grade monitors and custom PC builds had once sat—all stripped down and sold off, piece by piece, their components repurposed for medical equipment and vital infrastructure. Each empty space was a reminder of hope running dry, dwindling away with each sacrifice. His prized streaming setup, the one that had broadcast his victories to millions, had been reduced to its bones—just a single monitor and the minimum components needed to connect to the ward's feed. He'd sold everything else, keeping only what he needed to talk to Lily. The basic system could barely run diagnostic programs now, let alone games. Not that he'd touched a game since she fell ill; the thought of playing while she fought for every breath made him sick to his stomach.
Her face flickered to life on the display—gaunt now, skin pale as printer paper against the grimy pillowcase in one of the city's last operating minimal care wards. The ward itself was a miracle of sorts, kept running by black market deals and desperate bargains. Alex had traded every valuable component he could salvage from his gaming equipment to keep her there, each precious microchip and circuit board buying a few more days of basic care. The money from his sold equipment was nearly gone—barely enough for another week of minimal care. Looking at her now, sunken cheeks and collarbones jutting like knives against her paper-thin skin, he knew he was running out of time. She needed real treatment, not the diluted medications and bare-minimum care his dwindling funds could buy.
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"Alex?" Her voice crackled through his earbuds, weak but managing a small smile. "You look terrible. Have you been sleeping at all?"
"I'm fine," he lied, leaning closer to the screen. "How are you feeling today?"
She tried to laugh, but it shifted into a wheezing cough. "About as good as I look." Each word seemed to cost her, her chest rising and falling in shallow, irregular gasps. Dark circles beneath her eyes resembled bruises against skin that had taken on a sickly yellow tinge. An angry red rash crept up her neck—a side effect of the cheap, diluted medications they used in minimal care.
"Listen," she continued, her expression shifting to that same worried look he'd grown to hate over the past month. "I know what you're going to say. I know we've been over this every night, but please—just listen one more time. You promised me yesterday, and the day before, but I can see it in your face. You're still planning to do it, aren't you?"
"Lily..." he started, the same tired defense ready on his lips.
"Don't. Don't lie to me again." Tears welled in her sunken eyes. "The game... they designed it so no one wins. Everyone knows exactly what it is. What they're really doing." Her voice cracked with desperation. "Please, Alex. Just stay alive. That's all I need you to—"
The screen went black as the nightly electrical curfew swept through the Tower District. His own reflection stared back at him from the darkened monitor, ghostly in the faint glow of propaganda billboards seeping through gaps in the shutters. Emergency power never failed for the messages of salvation. But in the pods and cubes where humanity actually lived, darkness was just another ration. Another reminder that even light had become a luxury they could no longer afford.
Her final words hung in the sudden silence, cut off mid-plea. He pressed his fingertips to his lips, then touched them to the dark screen where her face had been moments before. The gesture echoed his parents' final goodbye before the riots that claimed them. "I'm sorry, Lily," he whispered into the darkness. "But you're wrong. There are worse things than dying."
He stood in the darkness, careful not to bang his head on the pod's low ceiling, bones cracking painfully after sitting too long. His fingers found the jacket hanging by the door, the fabric worn soft from years of use. Lily had given it to him after his first major tournament win, his gamertag 'RolandOGilead' embroidered across the back in faded gold thread. Based off a character from *The Dark Tower* books they had found in a half-flooded library three years ago, the stories had become their escape during endless nights of rationed power. The jacket's familiar weight settled across his shoulders, giving him a sense of protection.
The entrance pass to the game facility sat on his cramped desk space, its holographic surface catching the dim light from outside, transforming the serial number into dancing specters.
He snatched it up and headed for the door, not letting himself look back at where her face had been moments before. He didn’t even bother to close the door as he stepped into the narrow corridor, where the stacked housing units stretched up into darkness, forming a vertical city of the damned. Through the thin corridor walls, fragments of conversation drifted in different languages—Mandarin, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish—all carrying the same weight of desperation. The hallway air hit him with the force of a wall—hot, thick with the stench of too many bodies, too much despair.
One last game to play. One final boss to beat.
And this time, losing wasn't an option.