The moon had long since risen and Tristram was still at it. One look at him and anyone could tell he was not an eighteen-year-old young man on the verge of great things. Not in this world, at least. His eyes were glazed and blood-shot from staring at his computer monitor for hours on end. The pixels mesmerized him, specifically the ones in the lower bottom right corner. These made up the head and upper half of a young woman with cartoonishly large eyes and aquamarine hair held back by ribbons that sprayed sparkles whenever she moved her head. A platinum tiara inset with lapis lazuli gemstones sat snugly on her head.

Her name was Sayaka, and she was a virtual YouTuber. Currently, she was playing Minecraft.

Tristram had final exams in both Stats and English tomorrow. But what did that matter when Saya, his favourite magical girl princess, was nearing completion of her Minecraft castle? She had been working on it for months. Tristram had watched it all. What used to be a chunk of grass and dirt blocks was now a monolith of virtual royalty, truly befitting the princess who had built it with her bare virtual hands.

All that was left was the throne.

Nothing less than diamond would do. Imagine Tristram’s anxiety when, pickaxe in hand, Princess Saya began digging straight down. Thick beads of sweat formed on his forehead. His heart began to palpitate. Every block she broke cost him a year of his life. Lava, a precipitous fall into an underground gorge, death by any sudden and gruesome means was just one block away.

He had to warn her.

After wiping his dorito-dusted fingers on his sweater vest, he put his paws on the keyboard, the letters ‘S’, ‘Y’, ‘A’ worn away by frequent use.

“Saya,” he typed. “Don’t dig straight down.”

He hit ENTER and waited.

“Guys, you’ll never guess what my cat did yesterday.”

Tristram’s swallowed hard. She was going to a tell a story. A story meant she wouldn’t be paying attention to the chat. He put his fingers to the keyboard once more, with greater urgency. For a second, he hesitated, his pinkie hovering over the caps lock key. He shut his eyes and grimaced and let his pinkie fall. Ka-chunk.

“SAYA! YOU’RE IN DANGER! DON’T DIG STRAIGHT DOWN!”

He hit ENTER and waited.

Saya’s voice continued in his headphones. “I went out with a couple girlfriends to try out this new boba tea place, right? The tea was pretty mid but whatever. Anyway, I get home and – Attila, the little rascal – you know what he did?”

Tristram clapped his hands to his head. He felt sick. Something awful was going to happen and there was nothing he could do.

“He, well, I guess I should preface this by saying he’s a Libra. You’d think he’d be a Leo, being a cat and all. But, no, I guess it doesn’t work like that. Anyway, he–”

With a pop, the stone block she was standing on broke under the swings of her pickaxe and she plummeted into an underground lava pit. Tristram jumped to his feet, yanking his headphones out of the jack, silencing Saya’s screams and making him aware that he, too, was screaming.

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Behind him, the door to his bedroom burst open. Tristram twisted around and gasped at the sight of his father, face lit by the neon light emitted by his monitor. The two stared at one another in the half-light, still as a still-life painting.

Finally, Tristram’s father broke the silence. “What the hell is the matter with you, screaming like that? It’s past midnight.”

Tristram took off his headphones and scratched his head. “Uh, sorry.” He risked a peek behind him at the monitor to see how Saya was faring. She appeared to be writhing in silent agony, despite the smile of euphoria on her face and the sparkles that sprayed from her ribbons. “Look, there’s something I have to get back to now. So, if you don’t mind.” He turned back around to look at his father. “Night, Dad.”

“You know I have an early day,” said his father, pinching the bags under his eyes. “Or maybe you don’t. It’s hard to tell what, if anything, gets through to you.”

Tristram sighed. He had half-hoped he could end this conversation quickly. He should’ve known better. Nothing was ever easy. “I said I was sorry.”

In the wispy light, his father’s face softened. “What’re you doing up, anyway?”

“Studying.”

His father scoffed. “Like hell you are.” He peeked past Tristram’s shoulder and squinted at what was on the monitor behind him. A wriggling, candy-coloured cartoon girl playing what appeared to be a Lego-knockoff game for children. “What the fuck is that thing?”

Tristram’s eyebrows rose and his lips tightened into a line. “That thing is Sayaka.”

“Say-What-A?”

“Sayaka. She’s a virtual youtuber.”

“A youtuber?” His father wore confusion on his face like a Halloween mask. “You’re telling me that thing is a person?”

“Yes.”

“And, what, she plays videogames?”

“Yes.”

“And people watch crap like that?”

“She’s very talented,” said Tristram, his voice clipped.

Oh, yeah?” His father tilted his head back. “How’s that?”

“She’s entertaining.”

His father flicked his eyes back to the monitor and squinted like he were trying to pass an optometrist’s exam.

“She can sing beautifully,” said Tristram. “And she can draw, too.”

“Whoop dee do,” said his father. “Can she change a tire? Does she know how to find a stud before she hangs up a picture? Does she know the difference between a Robert’s and Phillip’s screwdriver?” He snickered and crossed his arms. “I bet she couldn’t tell a table saw from her own arsehol–”

Tristram snatched an empty can of Mountain Dew from his desk and whipped it at his father. Fortunately, he never played much baseball as a kid, so his aim was way-off. The can hit the light switch and the ceiling light came on and blinded them both. Amid their groaning and eye-rubbing, they hurled insults and abuse at one another and by the time their eyes had adjusted to the light, they were both red in the face and stood silently huffing.

Again, his father was the one to break the silence. “What happened to you, son?”

Tristram didn’t respond.

“How could the apple fall so far from the tree?”

Tristram raised his head and looked his father in the face. “I’m going to spend tonight at Mom’s.” Without waiting for a response, he twirled around and grabbed his pocketknife. From a key-chain dangling from its handle was a miniature, big-headed rendition of Sayaka that he had bought online. He stuffed the knife in his pocket and pushed passed his father and stomped off down the hall toward the front door. There he paused, his hand on the doorknob, and stood, trying to think of something witty and cutting to say. “You’ll be sorry,” was all he could come up with.

Watching him leave, his father nodded and said, “I already am.”

Tristram opened the door, stepped outside and slammed the door behind him. Without looking both ways, he stepped out into the road. He didn’t hear the ambulance racing down the residential road because it didn’t have its siren blaring. The operators were considerate to a fault and did not want to wake or disturb the neighbourhood. Tristram paid no attention to the red and blue strobe light that lit up the road like carnival-themed flashes of lightening. He was already seeing red and was so deep in running simulations of the argument he had just had with his father that he wouldn’t have noticed a gorilla even if it had come up and shaken his hand. It wasn’t until the sound of screeching rubber hit the high notes of impending doom that he came back down to earth just in time to see the paramedics’ terrified faces, pale and glossy as seen through the windshield, rushing straight toward him. 

Last thing that went through his head was the front license plate of the ambulance.

“1SE KA1.”