The high of Ares saying yes lasted for a solid hour. Kairos felt like he was floating. He had a partner! Ares! He could do this! He marched back to his hostel room with a new sense of purpose, ready to conquer the world, or at least, a semester-long coding project.
His first step? Be Prepared. Professor Evans had said the project details would be emailed to the class later that day. Kairos decided to get a head start. He would organize his files, clear off his desk, and be the picture of academic readiness.
He pushed open his door, a new man. And immediately stepped in a puddle.
A cold, wet sensation soaked through his sock. He looked down.
A small but steady stream of water was trickling from under the door to the small sink area in the corner of his room. A sense of profound, familiar dread began to curl in his stomach.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no. Not again."
The pipe under the sink had developed a leak. It wasn't a gusher, but it was a persistent, weeping leak that had been going on for who-knows-how-long, soaking the bottom of his storage cabinet, and his blood ran cold, the cardboard box holding his old laptop he used for testing code.
"MY TESTING SERVER!" he cried, diving to rescue the sopping box. Water dripped from the corners. He grabbed the laptop, water sloshing inside its casing. It was dead. Very, very dead.
He sat back on his heels, clutching the waterlogged brick of a machine. A frantic call to school maintenance ("We'll send someone up… maybe tomorrow afternoon") and thirty minutes of sopping up water with every towel he owned later, Kairos was once again a broken man. His floor was a swamp, and his spare laptop was now a paperweight.
But he still had his main laptop. His precious, his lifeblood. He carefully placed it on his high desk, far from the watery grave that was his floor. He would be extra careful. He would protect it with his life.
Just as he had this thought, his hands started shaking from the adrenaline crash. He needed to decompress, needed to crash out on something. He needed something mindless. He grabbed his phone. CODM would fix this. A few quick matches to shoot something. That always helped.
He logged in. The campus Wi-Fi was notoriously shaky, but it usually held for games. He joined a Ranked Match. This was serious business.
The match loaded. He dropped in, found a good weapon, and started moving. He spotted an enemy across the street. He aimed, fired...
The screen froze.
The dreaded spinning circle of death appeared in the corner. Network Connection Unstable.
"No… come on…" he begged the phone.
The game stuttered back to life. He was dead. Killed in the back by someone while he was lagging.
"UGH! Fine!" he grumbled, respawning.
He found a good vantage point this time. He saw two enemies fighting below. Perfect. He lined up his sniper shot. This was his moment...
Network Connection Unstable.
The circle again. The game froze just as he was about to shoot.
It reconnected. He was dead again. This time, he'd apparently walked off the roof during the lag and fallen to his death.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" he yelled at his phone.
Third time. He respawned. He was angry now. He grabbed a shotgun and ran straight into the fray. He saw an enemy, point blank. He pulled the trigger..
Network Connection Unstable.
The game froze on the enemy's surprised face.
It came back. He was dead. The kill cam showed him standing completely still for five full seconds while the enemy calmly reloaded and shot him in the face.
This happened two more times. Each death was more humiliating than the last. He finished the match with a stunning 0 kills and 12 deaths. He single-handedly lost the game for his team. The post-match chat was filled with "Report this bot!" and "How is this guy in ranked?"
He wasn't just defeated. He was publicly humiliated by his own internet connection.
Kairos stared at his phone. This wasn't just bad luck. This was a curated experience. This was a series of unfortunate events so precise, so creatively devastating, it felt… authored.
He slowly leaned back in his chair, looking around his destroyed room, the wet floor, the dead spare laptop, the glitched game on his phone. A bizarre thought popped into his head.
"Is my life just a story?" he muttered to the ceiling. "Is there some… some writer somewhere, just having a blast right now? Typing away, laughing maniacally, thinking of new ways to ruin my day?"
He looked up, as if he could see through the roof and into the sky. "Are you getting a kick out of this?" he asked the empty air, a dry, hysterical laugh escaping his lips. "I bet the readers are. I bet they're laughing at my misery right now. 'Oh, look at Kairos, he just went 0-12 because of network! How hilarious!'"
He buried his face in his hands. "Well, I hope you're all entertained."
His phone, his last lifeline, lit up with a new notification. It was an email. From Professor Evans. The subject line read: SEMESTER PROJECT: Initial Research & Proposal. Partner Pairings Finalized.
Kairos stared at the email on his tiny, glowing phone screen. He had the project. He had the partner.
And he had just gone 0-12 in ranked and lost his spare laptop in one fell swoop.
He slowly slid out of his chair onto the damp floor, pulled his knees to his chest, and began to laugh. It was a quiet, unhinged, completely hopeless sound.
The universe or the author had won. It had finally, completely, and utterly won.