In the cramped corner of a sixth-floor apartment.
The flickering lights of a high-performance gaming rig were the only illumination in a room otherwise lost to the clutter of obsession and neglect.
The room smelled of microwaved noodles, energy drinks, and something faintly burnt—probably the pile of instant meals dumped beside the overflowing trash bin.
A single oscillating fan wheezed with mechanical fatigue, pushing hot air from one sweaty surface to another.
The desk was a shrine to gaming.
Twin curved monitors cast cold, digital hues across the darkness. A mechanical keyboard glowed like a miniature rave, its RGB lights set to pulse in time with the beat of the music from a Discord voice chat.
A gaming mouse, scarred with use, rested beneath a twitching hand. The mousepad bore a faded anime character, her once-cheerful expression now smeared with years of Mountain Dew stains and crumbs.
The room was chaos made personal: a tangle of wires like techno-vines crawling across the floor, a shelf stacked with unopened collector's editions, and laundry that had transcended mold and begun evolving sentience.
The smell of sweat and artificial cheese was thick, laced with the sourness of sleepless nights.
The man slouched in the gaming chair looked like a ghost possessing a skeleton wrapped in a hoodie.
Unshaven for weeks, with black circles digging under his eyes like bruises, he stared at the screen with a feral intensity. His name was Caleb, but online, he was "DeadRevenger777"—a mid-tier legend in the ranked arenas of BarG, his beloved and rage-inducing battle royale.
He hadn't slept in three days. Coffee had become a suggestion. His blood type was now roughly 70% taurine and crushed hope.
The circle had shrunk to the size of a bathroom rug.
The final two players in the ranked match were Caleb—DeadRevenger777—and some sweatlord with the username [MakutaZ], who apparently mained Vael the Shatter Monk, a meta nightmare.
The arena map Mariner's Wrath was flooding with water as the storm closed in—a perfect cinematic end. Final zone: a tiny rooftop above the old lighthouse, slippery with rain and edged with death.
Caleb's heart pounded.
His own character, Nexis, the Tempest Arrow, was down to 28 HP, with no regen. His passive, Windborne Momentum, had one stack left. Ult on cooldown. One shot in the bow before reload. No more utility.
But he had the higher ground.
"C'mon... you bald, third-partying gremlin..."
MakutaZ was crouch-walking through the mist at ground level, trying to force a high-ground flank. Classic Shatter Monk play: force melee, bait a dodge, then combo with Echo Palm into Stonecrack Slam. One mistake, and you're cooked.
Caleb repositioned silently—one precise strafe jump onto the overhang of the lighthouse, then backpedaled into crouch.
The rooftop groaned under his digital boots. One wrong move, and he'd slide off the wet metal into the storm and die.
BarG punished every misstep.
He slowed his breath, then pre-aimed the corner. Charged his bow. The bar filled slowly—perfect shot. The red glyph pulsed when it reached max.
Then—
FLASH.
MakutaZ blinked upward using Shatter Step, slamming onto the rooftop mid-spin. Caleb was ready.
Click—TWANG—
Arrow flew.
But Makuta had iframe'd the moment with Stoneveil. The arrow clipped the air.
"NO WAY—" Caleb growled.
Makuta lunged.
Caleb back-dodged on frame, using Nexis's double-dash—Zephyr Stride. It canceled Makuta's slam mid-animation. Both players disengaged, sliding along the slick metal, weapons drawn.
"Textbook neutral," Caleb whispered.
He quick-swapped to melee—his dagger glowed with his passive: Stormbite. One more connect would root Makuta.
They circled.
One false click. One missed parry. That's all it would take.
Makuta feinted left. Right. Charged Echo Palm.
"Not today, buddy—"
Caleb faked a forward roll, baiting the slam.
Makuta committed.
The moment the animation locked, Caleb flicked to the side, dashed in, and—
CLICK.
STAB.
A clean connect. Makuta was rooted.
"NOW!" Caleb barked, slamming his bow back out mid-animation—canceling the delay with a movement tech called PivotDraw.
He drew.
Charged.
Headshot lined up.
Just a fraction more—
TWANG—
"Get deleted, you cracked little—"
BZZZZZZZ-K-CHUNK—Darkness.
The screen went black.
No sound. No arrow. No kill feed. No RP earned.
"…No," Caleb whispered. The word didn't even come out angry—just hollow. "No no no no—"
He pressed every button. Nothing.
He stood, hands in the air like a man robbed at gunpoint.
"I HAD HIM. I HAD HIM!"
His headset beeped once, then died. His fan sputtered to a stop. The RGB keyboard went dark.
Victory was one frame away. And now...
Disconnected.
The power went out with the suddenness of a pulled plug to his reality. The monitors went black. The fans died.
The only sound remaining was the whining shut-down of his PC and his own animalistic screech echoing into the abyss.
"NO. NO. RANKED. MATCH!" He shot out of his chair like a man possessed.
"WHO EVEN CUTS POWER AT 3:14 AM?! WHO DOES THAT?!" he barked to no one, stomping around the apartment barefoot, stepping on a rogue flash drive and kicking a bag of stale chips across the room.
He clenched his fists and was about to punch something, but he suddenly stopped in a moment of clarity. His rig was too expensive to smash—he knew that.
It was sacred. So he paced like a storm cloud in a cage, muttering curses, cursing the electric company, and cursing the president for no particular reason.
In his fury, he pivoted too fast—his heel caught a wet spot where condensation from his mini-fridge had formed a tiny puddle on the tile.
His foot flew up.
His arms flailed.
His mouth opened but produced no sound.
Then—
CRACK.
Darkness again. But this time, no PC hum to grumble about. Just a dull throb at the back of his head and silence as oppressive as the blackout itself.
---
Caleb stirred, hours—minutes—days? later. It was hard to tell. His mouth was dry. His limbs were cold. His back hurt like he'd been thrown into the spin cycle of a washing machine.
Then he heard it.
A high-pitched, shrill, mechanical wail.
"EHN EHNN EHNNN... EVACUATION IN PROGRESS.
THIS IS NOT A DRILL. PLEASE PROCEED TO THE NEAREST EXIT.
FLOOD WARNING. LEVEL 4. EHNN—"
He opened his eyes slowly. The first thing he noticed was the flashing red light from the emergency alarm casting the apartment in an eerie strobe. The second thing—more alarming—was that he was half-submerged in water.
He blinked.
"...what the hell?"
His apartment was flooded. His couch bobbed slightly in what looked like ankle-deep—and rising—water.
The bottom shelves were underwater. A floating pizza box drifted past him like a sad little boat. His collector's editions had become sodden bricks. His mouse had gone aquatic.
The air was thick with the smell of ozone, wet plastic, and something metallic. It was warm, humid, and claustrophobically damp.
His PC tower was sparking slightly, lights dead, its RGB glory drowned in its LED grave.
Caleb groaned, tried to sit up, and slipped again with a splash. This time he caught himself before his skull met floor again.
"EHN EHNN EHNN—LEVEL 4 FLOOD—"
"What kind of flood happens on the sixth-floor?" he mumbled, then immediately coughed. His lungs felt like he'd inhaled a cup of expired cola and a dust bunny.
Outside his window, the world was… different.
It was dark, lit only by emergency lights.
In the distance, he could hear helicopters—or drones? And that alarm wasn't just from his building. It echoed across the city like a funeral march for modern infrastructure.
A faint red glow shimmered beyond the horizon, like something burning, or... pulsing?
Caleb crawled toward the window, pushing aside floating ramen cups and the bloated remains of his dignity.
What he saw out there made him forget his ranked match entirely.
It seems like he wasn't just disconnected from the game.
He was disconnected from the world.
---
End of Chapter 1