Page 39 of Death, Interrupted
He moved quickly and snapped to targets so fast I couldn’t follow with my eyes. He was good, which strangely made him more attractive.
He kept talking during all of it, keeping the chat entertained, and when a door blew off in-game with a deep boom, he jerked hard enough that the controller flew out of his hands, hit the desk, and bounced to the floor.
“Controller down,” he announced, deadpan. Then, “We do not panic. We adapt.” He scooped it up, hit the mute switch by accident, unmuted, and said, “That was a stress test and I passed. As always.”
The chat went feral again.
HAHAHAHA
lmao what a loser
ELITE REFLEXES, TERRIBLE GRIP
hands made of soap
He laughed at himself and kept playing. Another round, another win. He tagged a ridiculous headshot and said, “See? I’m a master at this.”
Mid-match, he reached for his mug and moved out of frame to drink, and while he was off-screen, the chat spammed again.
SHOW YOURSELF
will we ever get to see his face?
He’s probably ugly, that’s why he keeps the helmet on
FACE REVEAL WHEN
I bet he’s insanely handsome. Just look at his hands.
I wanted to join the chat and tell them just how handsome he was, but I didn’t want to make myself known. And I didn’t want him to think I was trying to expose him. That’s the last thing I would want. His privacy mattered, and I respected his privacy as much as he respected mine.
Once he was back on the screen, he continued the game and began explaining a few things about his strategy so people who had also played the game could try them on their own. He wasn’t gatekeeping anything. If anything, he was being helpful.
Out of the blue, a stray grenade blew up near his character with a sharp crack through my speakers. It made us both jump, and he actually yelped. The chair pitched back, and the camera snapped ceiling-ward. For a beat, all I could see was a lazy fan blade and one corner of an old poster.
There was silence for a while, then his voice reappeared, wheezing because he was laughing at himself. “Holy shit!” The camera wobbled back down. The helmet came into frame again with a proud little tilt. “And here I was hoping not to make a fool of myself in front of her.”
I bit back a grin, and the chat spammed once again.
CHAIR 1 VISOR 0
HE FELL LMAOOOO
clip that clip that clip that
He adjusted his helmet and kept right on mowing people down, as if the fall had reset his aim. He was relentless when it mattered and ridiculous between moments. It made the whole stream a lot of fun, and I was already planning on watching his next.
Sometime later, while he was still going strong, winning every new round he started, I fell asleep.
I woke up hours later, the TV off and the apartment so quiet it was deafening.
My head felt light and a little dizzy, and the moment I tried to sit up, my heart took off like I had been running even though I hadn’t moved, my mouth went dry, and my hands started tingling. Something was wrong even though nothing in the room had changed. My awareness of my surroundings was strong, yet I felt like a ghost, unable to feel anything. I started to name things around me to help my brain understand that everything was still the same. The couch, the blanket, the coffee table, the remote on the armrest. But listing them didn’t steady anything. My chest tightened anyway, and the air stuck halfway down and refused to move, and a strip of heat ran up my neck that made me feel cornered in my own home.
I stood too fast, and the room slid sideways. I sat back down and waited for the floor to stop tilting, and when I finally managed to stand up, I dragged my feet down the hall to check the door even though I knew I had locked it. I checked the windows, then the stove knobs one by one. I opened the bathroom door and flicked the light on and off because the brightness feltwrong, but none of it helped, because the band around my ribs kept tightening, and my hands went hot and cold at the same time. I told myself that everything would be okay, and it was just a panic attack, and that I had lived through them before. I said it out loud to make it true, and saying it didn’t fix anything, my heart pounded harder, my vision narrowed at the edges until the room felt far away, and I could not tell if my feet were on the ground or if I was floating. I thought I might still be asleep, but I became more aware of my state and decided I was wide awake.
I stood in the kitchen and tried to breathe the way I had taught myself. Breathe in for four, hold for seven, out for eight. I tried, but the first breath snagged and made my throat burn, the second came out like a gasp, and on the third, I started counting too fast and gulping air, which made the tingling shoot up my forearms into my elbows until my fingers felt like they belonged to someone else. I pressed my palms to my sternum like I could manually make the breathing easier, but my hands shook, and the pressure only made things worse. I hated that my body didn’t listen to me when I needed it the most, and I hated that I needed proof I was safe in a place I had chosen, and I hated that I knew exactly why this was happening.
Memories rolled in whether I wanted them or not. The way I learned to walk on the sides of the hallway runner because the floorboards squeaked in themiddle. The way I learned to read the weight of footsteps long before I saw a shadow in a doorway. The way my stomach dropped at the harsh sound of keys being thrown into that little glass tray in the entryway, and how I knew it meant a mood I could not predict. The way I kept a backup plan for dinner in case what I cooked wasn’t good enough. The way I hid bruises with long sleeves in July so I wouldn't be questioned about them. The way I smiled when I felt nothing because not smiling could start a fight, and smiling could start one too, and the rules changed mid-sentence. The way I rarely touched my phone in his presence because it could be mistaken for texting someone else, and jealousy quickly turned into anger. The way my job was “not real work” until money was needed, and then it was my fault there wasn’t enough. The way I learned to apologize for the air I took up, for the noise the chair made when I stood, for the way the faucet dripped in the middle of the night, for the way my voice sounded when I said I was tired. I had trained myself to be small, quiet, and useful. I had trained myself to guess wrong, then guess again, until there was nothing left to guess.