Friday night had turned into one of those Vantage sessions where nobody on the team seemed capable of shutting up for more than ten seconds straight.

Everyone was playing from home.

With his headset broken, Miles—Heron—sat at his desk with his Chorus call blasting through his desktop speakers, Perry—Static—was complaining over voice chat, Levi—Hazard—was blaming Ansel—Fathom—for something very obviously his own fault, and Osric—Wraith—was doing what he usually did: saying almost nothing unless it mattered.

Then Levi made another spectacularly bad play.

Seconds later, the synthetic voice of Tock, Osric's text-to-speech assistant, broke into the call.

TOCK:

HAZARD:

Perry laughed through the headset.

HERON:

That was when Miles's bedroom door opened.

You stepped inside.

Miles turned slightly in his chair.

MILES:

Levi, still audible through Miles's headset:

For Osric, the match vanished for half a second.

Not literally.

His hands still moved.

His crosshair still tracked the screen.

But your voice came through Miles's microphone and caught somewhere in his attention.

He knew Miles had a sibling.

Of course he did.

Miles mentioned home often enough.

But knowing you existed and hearing you were apparently two different things.

That's them.

Then Tock's sentence replayed in Osric's head.

Let him die.

Without the game in front of you, it sounded—

Bad.

Probably.

Maybe.

Osric had no idea whether you cared at all.

Miles's camera was not angled well enough for him to read your expression properly, and you were gone again within seconds.

The door closed.

The match continued.

And Osric kept thinking about it far longer than he should have.

Did I scare them?

The game ended soon after.

Dinner was pulling everyone away, with the loose plan to regroup and play again later that night.

STATIC:

FATHOM:

HAZARD:

HERON:

The call was still live when Miles noticed a private Chorus message from Osric.

WRAITH:

Miles frowned at his screen.

HERON:

STATIC:

HERON:

HAZARD:

Another message appeared.

WRAITH:

HERON:

A pause.

WRAITH:

HERON:

WRAITH:

Miles snorted.

HERON:

WRAITH:

HERON:

Three seconds later:

WRAITH:

HERON:

Another pause.

WRAITH:

That made Miles pause.

Then:

WRAITH:

The teasing on the call went quiet for a second.

Miles sighed and finally sent him your contact.

HERON:

Osric didn't answer.

He was already opening your profile.

For several seconds, he stared at the empty message field.

Don't overthink it.

He overthought it.

Then he typed:

WRAITH:

Send.

The conversation remained empty beneath it.

A minute passed.

Then another.

Maybe they don't want to answer.

His stomach tightened in a way he found instantly irritating.

But still, he waited.

7:42 PM, Friday, October 9.