One more day until the epic Chapter 10. You better be prepared.

And sorry this is a big short. I didn't want to add in any more serious drama until tomorrow.

Later that night, Mitch texted me, "Ray, you up for some Hunger Games?"

"Sure," I replied.

I logged onto his Fridge server and joined a game. Fortunately for me, he was on the same game.

"Team?" he privately messaged me through the chat.

"Why wouldn't I?"

After the ten seconds of countdown, I rushed mid and grabbed chain boots and an apple. Disappointed, I continued with the game and followed Mitch to a safe spot. Along the way, we found two chests that were not looted. In them lied a stone sword, an iron chest plate, bread, and a wooden axe. Mitch took the sword, so I got stuck with the axe. It wasn't so bad though. Jerome uses axes. He wins… some of the time…

Ignoring that obvious fact, I noticed a familiar player skin out of the corner of my eye. I advanced to abandon Mitch, who was sorting his inventory, and followed the player. He was human, as far as I could tell, and had long dark brown hair, a white shirt, grey pants, green headphones… This was all too familiar.

"Wait a minute," I thought and smirked, "Who would've known? Ty is on."

"Turn around," I typed in the chat. Ty spun and finally set his sights on me. A bit confused, I asked, "How did you figure out I was playing."

"It's a long story. We should not be in this conversation online. We're playing the Hunger Games!" he replied.

"I don't care. We need to talk."

"Come on, not right now! I'm trying to play."

"Fine. After game."

"Okay."

I ran off from him and returned to Mitch.

"I saw your chat with Ty," he messaged me, "What was that about?"

"Nothing. He wanted to say hi," I lied. It happened to be about the kiss earlier that day. I didn't have the nerve to tell Mitch.

We continued playing the game. I ended up with full iron armor and a stone sword. Mitch had full iron armor and an iron sword. We both had the same amount of food and arrows. Our bows had been enchanted with Power I. There was no way that anyone could stop us.

I was sneaking around the arena when someone attacked from behind. Stopping in my path, I turned around to see a random player attempting to take me down. Ty, about thirty blocks away, looked on with no emotion. He did not type anything into the chat. I tried to see what he was doing, just standing there. With little hesitation, I attempted to kill the player, but he was too strong. He had ultimately slain me and taken all my loot.

"Sorry," the player, who's name was too long to read, privately messaged me, "deadlox told me that I had to kill you in order to get a shout-out on his channel. I couldn't do it… but yet… I'm a huge fan of him! How could I say no!"

"It's okay," I replied, "No big deal."

"I'm a big fan of you too. I've seen you play with BajanCanadian. You're cool."

"Well, thanks."

The player had logged off. I shrugged and logged onto Skype to join Mitch. He didn't respond to my Skype call. It seemed as if he was already in one.

This time I tried calling his cell phone. No answer.

"Mitch," I thought, "Pick up your phone. I'm spectating Hunger Games, and you're still in game." A bit irritated, I called his cell phone one more time. He answered, but it didn't seem like he meant it. Confused, I didn't dare hang up.

"Dood," Mitch was in a chat with someone else, "What did I do wrong? We've been friends for… years now. We used to play Minecraft together all the time until… I moved to your school. It was me, you, Jerome, Adam, Jason, Quentin, Ryan… sometimes Preston…."

"But you're dating my crush. Not cool." Ty. What was he doing with Mitch? He continued, "It's part of the bro code. My buddies accepted it. Why didn't you?"

"I don't have any idea what you mean!"

"Mitch, you know what I'm talking about."

"Forget it! I'm calling Jerome. Maybe he knows. Cause I'm freaking lost." A few moments passed. From the lack of conversation, I could tell that Mitch had looked down at his phone and saw his call with me. I gasped.

"Ray…" Mitch whispered, "How long have you been listening?"

I was too afraid to say anything. My head hurt from the stress.

"Please." He started to breathe heavily.

"Two minutes," I quickly replied.

"Only two?"

"I promise."

"Ray's there?" I heard Ty interrupt.

"Uh, no," Mitch lied, "I was about to call her."

"I see… Well, I'll meet you at prom… dood." Ty slyly chuckled and quit his call with Mitch. This was the exact moment that they both died online.

"Ray," Mitch told me, "I have to go. We'll pick you up at seven tomorrow night."

"Yeah." I tried to smile, but couldn't. That whole situation was so strange. Ty wasn't being his normal self. Through the three years that I had known him, he hadn't been… persistent.

An hour later, I laid in bed, a comfy white sheet covering my waist and legs. The room was dark and I could see nothing except for a neon glow-up bracelet. It illuminated the stack of textbooks sitting on my desk. Nothing else was visible. I closed my eyes and embraced the next day.