He moved through Block 17 like a ghost, just like his old username. Each kill was a surgical strike. The counter ticked up: 22 minutes. 31 minutes. 47 minutes.
Leo was back in his chair. The laptop was cool. The rain had stopped. And his knee… his knee didn't hurt. At all. He checked his phone: 3:17 AM. He had been gone for exactly 17 minutes.
Leo tried to laugh. A glitch. A lucid dream. But then the first bullet cracked past his ear, chipping the brick behind him. He returned fire on instinct. The enemy dropped—and Leo felt a warm pulse in his chest, like a shot of espresso. A counter appeared in his peripheral vision:
Instead, his finger hovered over the silver star icon. The matchmaking timer had already started.
No installation wizard popped up. Instead, the screen went black. A single line of green text appeared, like an old mainframe terminal. The laptop fans screamed. The screen glitched, and Leo felt a lurch—not in his stomach, but in his memory .
Tonight, he added the number "17" as a kind of superstitious chant. The 17th try.
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