Page 1 of Our Final Game

Chapter 1

Rohan

The crowd thunders as we enter Riverside Stadium. We’ve made it to the semi-finals, and this match will determine if we’re moving forward or if this is where our reign ends. The camera pans to me, and the corners of my mouth upturn into a small smile. I feel on top of the world; my performance has been spotless this season, and I don’t plan on coming down anytime soon. I’m going to take us all the way to the end.

“Welcome to the Seeker World Championship Semi-Finals! Where only the most talented players have made their way through for a shot at $100k in prize money. Here’s some of our best coming down right now, Team Espy!”

“Rohan Chandra! How you feeling tonight? You and your team have been on quite the streak,” the interviewer asks, pointing the mic towards me.

“I feel great, ready to play.” I smile.

“I’m sure you are. Lemme get out of you guys’ way!” He beams.

I look over to Zayne, the captain of our team, and give him a small nod before we head down to our seats. The other team is interviewed briefly. They’re extremely talented, obviously, to get as far as they have, but not talented enough. I settle into the seat and adjust the headset around my ears.

“Ready?” Milo grins. He’s always chipper. I think other players underestimate him because of that. They used to think he was a weak link, and we’ve used that to our advantage in the past.

“More than,” I say through the headset.

The other team is settled, and the crowd cheers as the lights dim and the match starts. The game we play, Seeker, is a team-based shooter. I’ve been playing since I was fourteen and was one of the first players to start competing later, when the game had finally gotten popular enough to be an e-sport.

My adrenaline surges as I snipe down my first player. They pretty much know by now to stay away from me, but my teammates are almost just as good, so there really isn’t anywhere for them to run. Zayne’s character jumps down next to me, taking down another player who I can hear cursing into his mic.

“Nice,” I mutter through a smile.

By the end of the game, we’ve pretty much won by a landslide. They’re either having the worst game of their life or we’re just that good, but whatever it is, I want to keep it going for as long as we can. Right before the clock strikes out, Lucas gets the final kill.

“Well, that was easy!” Milo laughs.

“Chill, Milo,” Zayne warns.

“I’m just saying, I wasn’t expecting them to suck so bad.” He laughs.

I shake my head, taking off the headset and heading to the center stage. We shake hands with the other team and stand off to the side for our ending comments. The interviewer walks over to me again, “I guess the streak continues, Rohan!”

“I guess it does.” I chuckle.

“So I’m assuming you’re ready for Tyson Moon and Team Eclipse?” He asks, and I try not to cringe at the question.

“Of course I’m ready for Tyson. He hasn’t even been able to beat me in practice for a while now,” I say, biting back a scoff.

“In practice,” the interviewer echoes. And I feel like he’s fucking with me a bit. I get that Tyson is a fan favorite, but so was I before he even started playing this fucking game.

“Yeah, and it’ll be the same in our upcoming match.” I sneer.

“What Ro means is we’re ready to take on anyone, we’ve been working hard to reclaim our title. No matter who the opponent is. Thank you all for cheering us on,” Zayne says into the mic next to me. I guess he could tell I was getting a little annoyed, flustered. Why the fuck do we even have to do these stupid interviews anyway? He asks the same questions every fucking time.

“Well, good luck to you guys. I’m sure your fans are waiting for your championship return.” The interviewer chuckles.

I feel the skin on my neck burn a little as I look up and catch a tall figure dressed in all black, hair perfectly coiffed on his stupid head as usual. A figure I could never miss, pulling his stupid, toxic cigarettes from his back pocket.

Tyson.

His piercing eyes look bored as ever as he stands from his seat and moves through the crowd before we can even make eye contact.

Not that I wanted to.

But what was he even doing here?