1:41 A.M.
Queue found.
Match accepted.
No system messages.
Just this:
"MATCH TYPE: RANKED"
"MAP: SLOPE.EXE"
"STATUS: ACTIVE"
"9 OTHER PLAYERS DETECTED"
⸻
Everything seemed… normal.
Ping was stable.
HUD was back.
Buy menu opened clean.
Blanco didn't buy.
He walked to spawn window.
Peered toward mid.
Paused.
Then tilted his head.
⸻
Every other player…
was him.
⸻
Same jacket.
Same gloves.
Same movement.
Same walk cycles.
Same silence.
Ten players.
Nine of them Blanco clones.
And every one of them played like he would.
⸻
[SYSTEM MODE: GHOST LOBBY]
"We trained them on your full match history"
"You now fight your legacy, not your memory"
"There is no enemy.
There is only you,
nine times over."
⸻
ROUND 1 – Instinct Jam
Blanco went mid fast.
He knew the pattern he would pick.
So did they.
Four peeks crossfired instantly.
All aimed head height.
All pre-aimed at his muscle memory.
He dropped instantly.
0–1.
⸻
The lobby doesn't guess.
It mirrors.
⸻
ROUND 2 – Coded Hesitation
Blanco fake-walked B.
Jiggle baited.
Paused at double stack.
Usually, that would stall the average player.
These weren't average players.
Clone #7 wide-swung mid
with exact frame-perfect burst
Blanco himself would've done.
Dead again.
⸻
No rage.
No chat.
No bullets wasted.
⸻
He realized:
they weren't reacting to him.
They were reacting to what he would do if he were them.
Because they were.
⸻
ROUND 3 – The Loop Break
This time?
He crouched spawn.
Waited 30 seconds.
No peeks.
Clone #3 tossed a silent flash over smoke
exactly when Blanco would've.
No angle.
Then: footsteps behind him.
Clone #6 flanked.
Sprayed.
Blanco ducked under,
counter-peeked reverse recoil
with an off-timing burst.
First kill.
Killfeed glitched:
[Blanco] killed [Blanco]
⸻
[SYSTEM TRAIT TRIGGERED: GHOST REFLECTION]
"Your instincts are being read faster than they're formed"
"To win, stop being yourself."
⸻
ROUND 4 – Control Inversion
He bought shotgun.
Unbinded crouch.
Held D only.
No ADS.
Pushed wide.
Clone #2 pre-aimed stairs.
Didn't expect the strut angle.
Blanco fired at the floor.
Recoil popped upward —
pellets hit face.
Kill.
⸻
ROUND 5 – Silent Humiliation
He disconnected crosshair.
Mapped fire to side mouse.
Walked backward into site.
Clone #5 hesitated.
Aim jittered.
Blanco didn't fire.
Just walked through them.
Let the ghost waste ammo.
Then flicked behind
and shot once.
Kill.
⸻
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
"Ghosts don't win fights with bullets."
"They win by changing gravity."
⸻
ROUND 6–7–8 – Pattern Collapse
Every round, he played wrong on purpose.
• Sprayed with knife equipped
• Fake dropped gun mid-fight
• Held trigger before seeing the angle
The clones couldn't replicate what made no sense.
They were him, not his errors.
They didn't know how to process chaos that was on purpose.
⸻
Clones started clashing.
Killing each other.
Misreading each other's predictions.
Ghost vs ghost
became glitch vs glitch.
⸻
ROUND 9 – The Real Blanco
Only two players left.
One across site.
One in corner.
He couldn't tell which was real.
So he shot neither.
He walked into open.
Dropped weapon.
Both pointed at him.
Then:
Only one clone lowered their gun.
The other hesitated.
Too long.
That was the fake.
Blanco flicked.
Kill.
⸻
[MATCH WINNER: UNREGISTERED]
"Ghost Lobby Closed"
"No data retained"
"No players logged"
⸻
Replay?
Broken.
Demo?
Missing.
Leaderboard?
Never updated.
But across Ciscord…
a leak appeared.
Just a screen recording.
"Match with 10 Blancos.
Only one survived.
No one knows which."