Rage woke up the next morning a bear with a sore head. He pulled clothes onto his body like a zombie- black jeans and a red RageGaming™ t shirt, cursing as he fumbled with the zip on the coat shrugged on over his shoulders.
A few students smiled as they passed him in the hallway, 'Hey Josh! How are you?' said one guy, a pimply kid with a makeshift mullet. In reply Rage simply grunted and walked on. He got to his mail like he did every morning. He turned over each envelope and groaned. Bills, bills and more bills. 'Fuck!' he snarled as he headed back up. More people passed him on the stairs with good greetings and smiles. Damn these kids with their chirpy voices and their springy steps. Damn it all to hell.
Wait, what was he doing? Today was a great day! He had just uploaded a mapstrav(aganza) - one of his most popular shows that he did with his best friend, and now he got to read the comments which would make him chuckle no doubt! He headed back to his place and grabbed a piece of toast which he munched on as he flicked through the comments. Vote 3, vote 1, vote 3, vote evanz, vote 4. He skimmed over these and read the comments pertaining to the content. 'Rage seems different today' read one, and 'Rage was kind of a dick to Hollow in this episode'. Rage read through these with increasing confusion and curiosity. 'Look at 34:56 there's a block on the floor, Rage cheated!'
Rage's eyes widened as he got further down the page. 'What is with Rage? Hollow was obviously telling the truth not him!' There were even people threatening to unsubscribe, which would have amused him had he not been so confused. What exactly had he said last night?
Glop. The sound of the incoming Skype call jolted Rage out of his thoughts. Seeing the caller ID was Fluke, without hesitation he selected the green button, the best button (assuming you are not being stalked by the infiltrator of the call).
"Hey man" Flukes voice drifted out of the computer's speakers.
"Hey"
"Are you doing anything?"
Hundreds of scenarios sprinted their way through Rage's mind, each more ridiculous than the next. Panicked and realising he needed to reply,
"Not much...was reading comments, why what's up?"
"Well someone sent me salad simulator on steam and I know you did a review, so would you may be like to stream it with the rest of the crew? It could be fun!"
It could be a disaster, the sarcastic reply wanted to be spoken, but Rage managed to hold it back,
"Sure...why not"
"Cool I'll call the rest of the guys"
"Right now?"
"Is there a problem?"
"No, no, of course not, everything's fine" said Rage, feeling slightly hysterical, "right now is good "
"Okay great!"
"Let me get ready then"
"Of course, see you in 10?"
"Yeah, see you"
The end of call tone was accompanied by a sigh of relief from Rage. Unfortunately for Rage the moment only lasted half-way through the sigh before the panic set in.
Pacing the room in agitation, Rage's thoughts were in total disarray. He contemplated excuse after excuse, trying to dig himself out of the hole he had made. As always, he came up with none, and so proceeded instead to keep digging. Hopefully he would come out the other side. What was the worst that could happen?
That thought was promptly followed by a rather discouraging one, "you could die". "SHUT UP HOLLOW!"
The usual stream music filtered through the room, though it was wasted on Rage, who barely noticed it. He and Fluke were making (vague) plans for the stream, while they waited for the stream to fill up with people. 'Wow, 160 so far, that's a decent turnout' remarked Fluke. 'Yeah… great' said Rage half-heartedly, palms sweaty and on the brink of a nervous breakdown.
"Are you okay, you look a little peaky?"
"… Couldn't be better"
"You still sound a bit off"
Glop. The exchange was interrupted by an incoming call from Hollow.
"Hi Will, when's the stream starting?"
"A couple minutes, we start by playing my salad simulator, then we'll probably end on a hungergames."
"Sounds good"
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME"
There was an awkward silence while Hollow and Fluke processed this. Hollow was the first to recover, and ventured to tentatively placate.
"Er...what's up Josh?"
"Don't act like you don't know."
"I really don't, enlighten me."
"Whatever man, let's just do the stream"
Had the moment not been so awkward, and had Rage not been so genuinely enraged at that moment, the event that followed would have been comical. Rage was shaking his fists at his computer, snarling cuss words menacingly under his breath as Fluke welcomed the viewers.
