Fake Game (The System #3)

Chapter Twenty-Six

TWENTY-SIX

JACKSON

“ I know you’re there,” the creepy voice echoes.

I pause at the door I was just about to open and instead opt to look through the peephole. Everything is a little distorted, kind of like looking through a fish-eye lens, but it’s enough for me to determine whether the culprit is actually outside the room or just fucking with me.

When I confirm that there’s nothing out there except the flickering wall sconces making the decrepit hotel hallway look even shittier than it is, I say, “Fuck it.”

I open the door and step outside, looking both ways.

Left or right?

Left or right…

“All right, chat, left or right?”

I probably should’ve asked them this before exiting the room so I’m not standing here like a sitting duck in a haunted hotel where any number of fucked up creatures could come out and kill me at any moment, but we can’t win them all.

The chat seems pretty split, but I feel like I see more people opting for left.

“Left it is,” I confirm into the mic.

I make my way down the hallway, scanning every inch of it.

I come across a dumbwaiter in the wall about two-thirds of the way down. There’s a fifty percent chance I open this thing and some headless creature comes rushing at me, and a fifty percent chance nothing happens.

I steel myself and click on it.

“Come and play with me,” a childlike voice echoes as the dumbwaiter creaks open.

“Mm. Nope. Not fucking with that.”

I promptly shut the dumbwaiter and turn around, only to see what looks like a giant spider with legs made of human limbs crawling toward me.

“Shit,” I yell, my heart lurching. I spin and run. “What is that? Bro, I can’t even tell what that is.”

There’s no way for me to check how far behind me it is without losing speed. I’m just going to have to ride it out.

I come across another door and run through it. There’s writing on the wall, but I don’t have a chance to read it before I spin back around and lock the door behind me. I wait a beat until I’m sure the creature won’t follow me.

My chat is blowing up with a bunch of skull emojis and RIPs.

Dread settles in my gut as I turn around and look at what is written on the wall.

Don’t lock the door.

Of course.

And of course, it’s written in blood.

And of course, a bunch of bloody handprints start appearing all over the wall, a squelching noise accompanying each one.

And of course, when I turn around, the door won’t let me reopen it.

A pair of bloody handprints squish onto my screen and I think that’s the end until a bloody, peeling face jumps into the frame.

“Jesus fucking—” I grit out with a sigh as my screen goes dark.

I run my hand down my face.

“All right. That’s got to be my fifth death in the last hour. I’m calling it a night.” I click out of the game and switch my stream to just my camera. “Thanks for watching me suffer. I’ll see you guys next week. And if you’re coming to Ani-Con this weekend, say hey. I don’t bite.” I smirk at the screen before hitting the END STREAM button.

Immediately, a notification pops up in the corner.

NIGHTBLADE32: we’re playing FL join

SHIELD3D: you stalking me

NIGHTBLADE32: always bbygrl

I snort, clicking on my Discord and scanning my friends list. Seems like everyone’s on and playing FrozeLine .

My eyes catch on Deer’s pink avatar, a little green circle showing she’s also online. She’s not playing with the rest of the crew though—she’s playing one of her cozy games, Moonstone Valley .

Curiosity gets the better of me, and I pull up her stream.

Her laughter rings through my headset and my monitor fills up with her 2D pixel cloud streaming design, her screen capture center stage and her little video in the top left corner.

She makes idle talk with her viewers as her character interacts with a bunch of pixelated pigs, cows, and what look to be two ostriches.

The chat moves quickly, thousands of people trying to get her to see their messages all at once—each of them clamoring for her attention. Some of them send little virtual gifts and coins, causing their names to pop up in the middle of the screen. Deer takes the time to thank as many of them as she can while still pursuing her gameplay.

One sub donates a thousand dollars, telling her that she is gorgeous.

“Aw, thank you, DMan1989. I actually tried out a new blusher today.” She frames her right hand under her jaw all cutely. “I think I’m going to keep it because the color turned out really nice.”

I’ve dipped into her streams before, but I’ve never really paid too close attention to her chat or anything. Now that I am, there are more subs than I realized who comment on her looks and praise her for her general beauty. Deer refers to her fanbase as fawns, and that moniker couldn’t be more accurate with the way they fawn over her.

Another sub donates five hundred dollars; this time it’s accompanied by a shower of hearts that rain down the screen.

She giggles, thanking them.

My jaw ticks.

“Oh! Look at that—a Void egg! Sweet. It’s taken forever. I was beginning to think the witch wouldn’t drop one and that I’d have to spend five thousand gold. My patience was seriously running thin.” She starts humming along to the game’s background music as she harvests eggs from inside the chicken coop before placing the Void egg into an incubator. “Once we get a Void chicken, I can start getting more Void eggs and continue my seduction of Sebastian.”

She continues to hum all cutely, and I find myself smiling as I watch her.

“Ugh. Why are you all obsessed with me seducing Marie instead? I married her daughter in my last run-through; I want Seb this time. He looks yummy.”

The chat fills with a litany of comments, but I don’t miss the ones that filter in saying that Deer can seduce them any day. More and more tiny donations filter in, little emotes popping up in the corners. It’s not abnormal—the guys and I get the same thing happening to us all the time. But something about all of it is pissing me off slightly tonight.

My fingers twitch over the chat bar.

Even if I were to type something, the odds of her seeing it among all the comments spamming in are slim.

But maybe…

I hit the donation button and submit it.

SHIELD3D has donated $100,000

Little sparkles spray out from the text notification on the center of the screen. Deer pauses, her face going through ten stages of confusion. Those crystal doe eyes blink wide as she looks directly at the camera.

“What?”

The chat begins to fill with her subs freaking out over the fact that I’m among them.

“Sorry, fawns. One second.” She twists in her chair, seemingly checking something on her other monitor. Her jaw drops in disbelief, and she shoves off her headset and mutes the stream before bringing her phone to her ear.

My phone begins to buzz.

“Yes?”

“What is wrong with you?” she hisses out under her breath.

“What?”

“A hundred thousand dollars, Jackson?”

“You’re welcome.”

“Are you nuts? Everyone’s going to be talking about this.”

“Good. I had to show those fanboys of yours that their money isn’t worth shit compared to me. I’m the one who knows what you taste like, not them.”

I watch the way my words set her even further off balance.

“I, I don’t…” she stammers.

“You should really be paying attention to your stream, Sparkles, but don’t stop thinking of me. Bye.” I grin before hanging up and clicking out of her stream, pulling up FrozeLine instead.

The second it loads, a party request comes in from Aleks and I hit accept, shifting my headset back on.

“I’m shoving a number two pencil in your dick hole,” Aleks barks.

“Is that foreplay?” Parker taunts.

“Am I interrupting your date?” I muse.

“Hey, mate. Nah, Aleks is just bitching ‘cause I got more kills than him.”

“Only because you fucking stole half my kills.”

“Testy.”

I snort. “All right, boys, let’s do this.”