The dice clattered across the board, scattering tiny plastic armies.
"Ukraine falls." Chris swept the green tokens off the map with two fingers. No ceremony. No hesitation. Just clean execution.
Sidney groaned and slumped back in her chair, the wood creaking under her weight. "You're such a vulture. I had a plan for that."
"Your plan was to hold five territories with two armies each. That's not a plan. That's wishful thinking."
"It's called strategy, Chris."
"It's called losing."
Jordan laughed from across the table, propping her sneakers on the armrest of the couch. She'd abandoned her seat twenty minutes ago, preferring to lounge while she waited for her turn. "Sid, just admit he's better at this than you. Save yourself the pain."
"I'll admit nothing." Sidney jabbed a finger at the board. "He's turtling in Asia like a coward. Real players take risks."
Chris didn't look up. He was already calculating his next move, fingers drumming against the edge of the table in a quiet, metronomic rhythm. "Real players win."
Taylor sighed, nudging her stack of cards into a neat pile. She'd been eliminated an hour ago, betrayed by Kenyon in a coordinated strike that still stung, and had spent the rest of the game observing in silence. "You two are going to be at this all night."
"Good." Sidney cracked her knuckles. "I've got nowhere to be."
"Neither do I." Jordan stretched, arms overhead, spine popping. "Which is kind of the problem, isn't it?"
The room stilled.
It wasn't an uncomfortable silence. Not quite. But it sat heavy, like the pause before someone says something they've been holding back for weeks.
Kenyon shifted in his seat, rolling the dice between his palms without throwing them. His gaze drifted to the window, where the streetlight outside cast long shadows across the glass. "She's right."
Chris glanced up.
Kenyon shrugged. "We've been playing this game every Friday for three months. Same pizza. Same table. Same arguments." He set the dice down. "Same everything."
"That's called routine," Taylor said, but her voice lacked conviction.
"That's called boring."
Sidney let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding. "Thank God someone said it. I thought I was going crazy."
"You are crazy," Jordan said, but she was grinning. "But yeah. I get it. Everything feels... flat lately."
Chris leaned back, crossing his arms. He didn't disagree. How could he? The weight of monotony had been pressing on him for weeks now, a slow suffocation disguised as normalcy. Work. Sleep. Repeat. Even this game night with friends had become predictable. Comfortable, sure. But predictable.
"So what do we do about it?" Taylor asked.
Jordan snorted. "I don't know. Rob a bank? Skydive? Join–or maybe create a cult?"
"Too much paperwork for the cult," Kenyon said.
"Too much risk for the bank," Chris added.
Sidney slammed her palm on the table, rattling the board. "See? This is the problem! We've gotten safe. When did we get safe?"
"When we turned thirty," Taylor said.
"Speak for yourself. I'm twenty-nine."
"For another two weeks."
Sidney scowled. "Traitor."
Taylor smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes. "I'm just saying... maybe this is normal. People grow up. Life gets quieter."
"Quieter sucks." Jordan swung her legs off the couch and sat up, hands clasped between her knees. "I used to wake up excited. Now I wake up and think, 'Oh. This again.'"
Kenyon nodded. "Same."
Chris said nothing. He didn't need to. The truth was written across all of their faces.
"So we need something new," Sidney said. She sounded decisive, the way she always did when she'd made up her mind about something. "Something that actually matters."
"Like what?" Taylor asked.
"I don't know. A challenge. A goal. Something that isn't just... this." Sidney gestured vaguely at the room, the board, the half-empty soda cans littering the coffee table. "Something that makes us feel alive again."
Jordan grinned, leaning forward. "I like where this is going."
"Don't get excited yet. I don't actually have a plan."
"Shocking."
Sidney threw a die at her. Jordan caught it without looking.
Chris watched them bicker, the familiar back-and-forth that had defined their friendship for years. It was comforting. Safe. And that was the problem, wasn't it? Safety bred stagnation. Comfort bred apathy.
He glanced down at the board. Plastic armies locked in perpetual war over territories that didn't exist. Strategies that meant nothing outside this table. Victories that would be forgotten by morning.
"We're missing something," he said.
The room quieted again.
Sidney frowned. "What do you mean?"
Chris tapped the board. "This. It's all pretend. Low stakes. No consequences. We play, someone wins, we reset, and we do it again next week. There's no weight to it."
"That's kind of the point of games," Taylor said gently. "They're supposed to be fun."
"Are we having fun?"
No one answered.
Kenyon picked up the dice again, rolling them idly. "He's got a point. When was the last time any of us felt like something we did actually mattered?"
Jordan tilted her head, considering. "My job doesn't matter. I push papers around and smile at people I don't like."
"My students matter," Taylor said, but there was doubt in her voice. "I think. Sometimes. Maybe."
"I fix cars," Kenyon said. "They break again in six months. Repeat forever."
Sidney crossed her arms. "I lift heavy things and put them down. Repeat until old."
All eyes turned to Chris.
He shrugged. "I analyze data no one reads."
Jordan laughed, sharp and bitter. "God, we're pathetic."
"We're bored," Kenyon corrected. "There's a difference."
"Is there?" Taylor asked.
The question hung in the air, unanswered.
Sidney picked up one of the tiny plastic soldiers, turning it over in her fingers. "You know what I miss? Feeling like I'm building something. Like I'm going somewhere." She set the piece down. "This game pretends we are. But we're not. We're just... sitting here."
"We could start something," Jordan said. "A project. A business. I don't know. Something."
"With what money?" Kenyon asked.
"With what time?" Chris added.
"With what energy?" Taylor finished.
Sidney let out a frustrated breath. "So we're just stuck, then. Great. Love that for us."
"I didn't say that."
"Then what are you saying, Chris?"
He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he studied the board, the scattered armies, the torn borders of imaginary nations. He thought about the strategies he'd spent hours perfecting. The moves he could see three turns ahead. The satisfaction of winning a game that would reset by next Friday.
"I'm saying we need something real," he said finally. "Something with stakes. Something that pushes back."
Jordan's eyes lit up. "Like a competition?"
"Like a game that isn't pretend," Sidney said, catching on. "Something where winning actually means something."
"Do those exist?" Taylor asked.
"Not legally," Kenyon said.
Jordan laughed. "I'm listening."
Chris shook his head. "I'm not talking about gambling or anything illegal. I'm talking about... I don't know. A challenge. Something that forces us to be better. Smarter. Stronger."
"Like what?" Sidney asked.
"I don't know."
"Helpful."
"I'm thinking out loud."
"Think faster."
Kenyon leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "What if it's not about finding something? What if it's about creating something? We build our own challenge. Set our own stakes."
"And do what with it?" Taylor asked.
"Compete," Sidney said immediately. "Against each other. Make it interesting."
Jordan grinned. "I'm in."
"You don't even know what it is yet."
"Don't care. I'm in."
Chris felt something stir in his chest. Not quite excitement. Not quite hope. But something close. Something he hadn't felt in months.
"We'd need rules," he said.
"Obviously."
"And a goal. Something clear. Something we can measure."
"World domination," Jordan said, gesturing at the Risk board.
"Too vague."
"Fine. Monopoly domination. First one to bankrupt everyone else wins."
Kenyon shook his head. "That's still just a board game."
"Then what?"
Silence.
Chris drummed his fingers on the table, mind racing. The problem wasn't the idea. The problem was execution. How do you create stakes in a world that had none? How do you make something matter when everything felt hollow?
"We're overthinking this," Sidney said. "The point isn't what we do. The point is that we do something. Together. Something that breaks the routine."
Taylor nodded slowly. "A shared goal. Something to work toward."
"Something that doesn't bore us to death," Jordan added.
"Something that makes us feel like we're living again," Kenyon said.
Chris looked at each of them in turn. His oldest friends. The people who knew him better than anyone. And for the first time in months, he saw the same restlessness in their eyes that he felt in his bones.
"Alright," he said. "Then let's do it."
Sidney grinned. "Do what, exactly?"
"I don't know yet. But we'll figure it out."
Jordan raised her soda can. "To figuring it out."
Kenyon tapped his can against hers. "To not being bored."
Taylor hesitated, then joined in. "To something new."
Sidney slammed her can down, foam spilling over the rim. "To whatever gets us out of this rut."
Chris didn't raise his drink. He just watched them, watched the fire flicker back to life in their expressions, and felt the smallest spark of something dangerous.
Hope.
Or maybe hunger.
The dice sat abandoned on the board. The game forgotten.
None of them noticed the way the room had grown colder. The way the streetlight outside flickered once, twice, and went dark.
None of them saw the shadow at the window.
Not yet.