GiantSlayer11

It was down to three.  Of the hundred who had begun the battle royale, there now only remained two opponents remaining on the island for GiantSlayer11 to defeat.  Sam attuned all of his senses, listening for footsteps, scanning the increasingly small eye of the storm for his opponents to reveal themselves.  It was so rare for him to get this far in Fortnite and he had to steady his hands on the controller as he nervously cycled through his weapons, being sure each was fully loaded.  He dared to wipe the sweat off his right hand, transfixed by the screen.  POP POP POP, rifle fire to his right! He swiveled his avatar towards the sound, instinctively dropping into a crouch and staring down the barrel of his legendary level rifle.  His two remaining enemies had begun firing… on each other!  He released a breath that he didn’t realize he was holding.  Once one defeated the other he would open fire, assured of victory, he must not reveal his position too soon.

The screen flickered.

And went black.

Sam stared for a moment, before becoming aware of the room around him.  Surprise gave way to indignation when he spotted his mother holding the TVs power cord, “SA AA AA AM!” She enunciated as though his name contained four long, anger filled syllables.  “Can you hear me now!?!!?”

This happened to Sam.  Before the virus came and the stay at home order closed with it, it had usually been his teacher who all the sudden seemed so frustrated.  Sam understood that the teacher, or in this case the parent, must have been trying to get his attention for a while.  He was realizing that often when he was engrossed in a book or video game the rest of the world couldn’t get through to him.  He let out a long sigh, an exhalation of mourning for the victory that had seemed so assured, being snatched from his grasp. 

His mom continued, “I’ve been telling you Sam, you’ve got to get outside...you can’t just stay in here doing nothing this whole time, have you completed the school work your teacher sent?... Jared’s mom posted this whole schedule each day and I just don’t have time to do all of that with you, but I know this just isn’t okay, so much screen time!” Sam’s mom had begun pacing, gesturing with her phone in exasperation.  Same probably got his ability to get lost in the other worlds of video games and books from his mom who could get so far down a trail of worry that it seemed she couldn’t find her way back to what had started the whole thing, let alone some semblance of calm.  Sam’s dad had known what to do when Sam or his mom were upset, but he was gone now.

It was amazing how quickly Sam’s frustration about his interrupted game combined with guilt for upsetting his mom then merged with the sadness of missing his dad.  Each feeling fed the others until it was as though Sam was facing a strange hybrid monster.  Sam imagined that the monster’s horns jutted out angrily, that it shot up to a huge height driven upwards by shame, and that it had a blue heart at its core that wept acid tears. 

“Are you even listening?” Sam’s mom asked, her voice now low and pleading through normal, non-acid human tears of her own.  

Sam’s monster loomed over his mom, ready to attack both of them.  There is no escape.  Sam knew how this would go, screaming, crying, stomping, and name-calling.  His body seemed primed for it.  The battle might be unwinnable but he would fight to the last. Or perhaps...

Outside, she had said at the beginning he needed to go outside, he thought.  The solution seemed clear now, he could get away from all this upset and that's what she had wanted, right?

Sam dashed out the backdoor, fleeing the monster, slamming the door to trap it inside.  Momentarily blinded by the bright afternoon sun he glanced around to see if he had managed to escape.  Once he adjusted to being outside he noticed that the monster had managed to escape the house and was with him still.

Maybe it was an illusion, but somehow outside under the big, bright sun the creature seemed to have shrunk a bit.  No time to wonder though, the danger was still here, Sam dashed over to his favorite tree, let’s see if this beast can climb!  It felt good to feel the bark on his hands and to feel himself moving higher, it took all his focus to avoid a fall and the further up he went the smaller the monster looked down below.  

Sam hauled himself up onto a nice sturdy branch and sat to catch his breath.  The air felt fresher up here.  He breathed in deeply, noticing that the Spring air was filled with the scents of a thousand flowers in bloom.  The monster, it turned out, had followed him into the tree, but was now much smaller, about Sam-sized, which seemed altogether more manageable.  Sam continued breathing from his belly even after he’d caught his breath and noticed that with each exhale he blew away a little bit of the anger-horns that had seemed so scary before.  

Once the last horn was gone, Sam took a minute to really study his pursuer.  When he looked at it, really looked, it wasn’t trying to hurt him, not with those big pleading eyes! What did it want then? Sam wondered.

Somehow Sam knew then what it needed.  It wanted to be really seen and sat with and hugged close.  Sam, careful to keep his balance, put his arms around the little-guy, pulling him close so his arms wrapped around himself and squeezed.

Poof!

The monster was gone, sort of.  Sam recognized the warm feeling inside and knew the monster was still with him, it lived there, in his rib cage and that was a good thing.

When Sam was ready he climbed down the tree and ran back inside to hug his mom and her monster.