"They Called It Map07"
I died.
It's not like it was a huge surprise, I lived and breathed the life of a video gamer. Weighing in at over 300 pounds, my heart gave out when I was 32. Heart disease, my doctor warned. But who thinks they will die at 30? What a huge mistake. I believed that I could be the best at a video game, but I ended up being a low elo scrub who couldn't even gank my lanes, or shoot people without twitching my aim 90 degrees to the side. But I had a fun time doing it.
But now, I'm dead. I appear to be in a room of some sort, in a line. No big deal, I've always wanted to see the other side. I try to ask the person in front of me what's going on, but he doesn't answer. It's as though everyone is in some kind of trance. I look to the person behind me, but nothing is there.
The wait is eternally long, and I am not using that term lightly, considering the circumstances. But now, the wait is over, and I finally get to learn what happens.
I talk with a man in a white suit, who is not wearing any shoes.
"Hello. It's time for your judgement," he said.
"O-ok," I answer, scared and nervous.
"You have lived a life of nothing worth noting. You have two options. One, you may choose to do penance, cleansing yourself of your sins and earning an eternal trip to paradise," he said, unfaltering.
"A-a-and the other choice?" I managed to stammer out.
"You may go directly to hell, living there for a 1000 years of life and torment, or until a time can be determined that a re-judgement may be issued."
"What's the penance going to be like?" after considering for a while.
"It will be a short, but intensely unpleasant experience to give you clarity. It will be of an activity you already know, but from a new perspective."
"I'll take it," saying it with as much courage as I could muster.
"Are you sure? It will be extremely frustrating."
"Yes."
I then woke up in a room with a single computer, and a chair. There was no note, no obvious sign telling me what to do, so I just did what comes naturally. I turned on the computer, and immediately, I was bombarded with a chat box. It appeared to be IRC. While highly obsolete, I decided to roll with the punches and check it out. Suddenly, I was being asked by a person named "Smakken" to practice with a team. Sighing with relief, I said yes, and joined the server.
This is where everything went horribly wrong.
Hitting the accept button brought me to an odd game, the likes of which I hadn't seen in a long time. My team joined the red side. It was a game of Capture the Flag! I knew this game! I told myself it would be no problem, and I started setting positions for the team. I told Smakken to play defense, and my other teammate named "ZdeZoom" to play middle, while I ran to capture their flags. Seemed simple enough.
However, after grabbing an armor pickup, and running to the middle, I was gunned down by two people. I shot at them, but my shot appeared to actually go through them. Whenever I hit them from the same distance, I only saw one pellet hit from my shotgun.
That's ok, I thought. Better luck next life! So I ran to the middle again, and actually made it in their base. I quickly and expertly ran through a player's bodyblock and put a good number of walls between us, but it wasn't enough. I tasted the bitterness of defeat again, but I gritted my teeth, and kept at it.
But it just went on. Shot at once and immediately killed from a distance that seemed infeasible for a sawn-off shotgun.
And on. Ran straight into someone in the only choke that accesses the enemy base, and died with the armor pickup.
And on.
For eternity.
But then, eternity ended.
Or, so it seemed. What actually ended up happening was a teamchat after the game, where Smakken said "Good job team, they didn't score any!"
I told him that we didn't score any either, but he just shrugged it off with a simple "Better luck next time!"
Then, suddenly, a new game started, and I was delegated to play the same position. Again, the same issues plagued the team. But the length of the game got longer.
And the next game got longer.
I finally learned what I had really chosen.
I had chosen the true torture, the penultimate torment.
Because hell eventually would have ended.
This didn't
god save me
