Nessa Hughes never signed up to be the next "fan favorite" of BASERUSH, a league set on the world stage of esports. She just wanted to pay off her student loans.
After unseriously attending try-outs for Season XIII, Nessa is catapulted into a world...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
"Do they feel any pain?" My 9-year-old eyes were wide.
It was the first match I had ever witnessed, and I couldn't make sense of what I was seeing.
Sitting crisscross on the floor of my brother's room, my fingertips were covered in bright red powder as I downed a second bag of spicy chips. My brother, Lucas, and his buddies were perched on the edge of his bed like a group of hooligans in a stadium, engrossed in every second of play. They yelled at the players as if they could somehow be heard through the shitty setup, punctuating each wrong move with a round of howls.
"You fucking ding-dong! Are you blind?" Avery, his best friend since birth, had crumpled and aimlessly thrown an empty can of FlashFuel™ — official sponsor of the games, unofficial soap-colored, energy piss of teenage boys.
It wasn't even close to the monitors. Or the overflowing waste basket.
It was exciting. It was loud. My sights were glued to the dual monitors. It just so happened to be the last match of the season, the National Championship of Season V, a livestream of the infamous Pacifica versus Aurelia match, now classic rivals.
Pacifica, reigning champs, had it all — star players, sharp snipers, a seasoned captain, rabid fans. They were dominating with two flag captures in the first ten minutes, leaving Aurelia seemingly at their mercy.
But what really caught my attention was the level of detail displayed on the players' haptic suits, tracking their physical stats in real time. Hit points, heart rate changes, and even skin temperature fluctuations were all being monitored and displayed on screen in glowing teal words and letters like public information to be picked apart later on a post-game show or somewhere on the internet. I couldn't help but ask my brother what BPM stood for, and why one player's was already soaring above everyone else's.
"Does that mean he has extra points? His is 174, but his friend's is 130."
"That's how fast their heart is going, measured in beats per minute," he explained as he pulled out a third can of FlashFuel™ from under his bed. "And it means he should have done more cardio."
The thought quickly crossed my prepubescent mind: "Is he going to die?"
"No, but it looks like it, doesn't it though? Fucking cow of a healer." Lucas laughed, but his friends didn't. They didn't care for my questions, having been shushed more than once. "Keep watching."
I turned back to the screen, fresh out of chips.
Although Pacifica boasted the strongest individual players that year, Aurelia had an unexpected strategy that led to one of the most unforgettable upsets in esports history.
Pacifica were the defending champions and were heavily favored to win again. Bets were placed, articles were written and printed ahead of time, and I'm sure some gaming outlets had already scheduled posts declaring "Pacifica: REIGNING CHAMPS" across social media. It was supposed to be an easy match. No surprises, easy money. Maybe borderline boring because of the predictability.
