Night was just around the corner,
but Clayton could not see it, and it could not see Clayton.
The final rays of orange light filled the basement.
Soon, the night would take over, but not quite yet.
...
October 9th.
As usual, his head faced his monitor.
...
For some reason, he felt good that day.
Yes, I'll stream a few more runs today.
He had done a few hours in the morning,
and it was fun,
and he could do it all day because-
Because, well, it was a lot more enjoyable when he had the datapack on.
Clayton shifted the microphone a little,
then opened his broadcasting software and sighed.
You are famous, you are rich, you are-
...
The chat was exploding.
As the worlds loaded, agonizingly slowly,
he sat there, tapping his fingers on the desk.
He cleared his throat and tried to say something.
He couldn't.
...
The sky kept darkening.
He started talking.
"Village!"
"Back to the lava pool I go."
"Aaaalright, I'm pretty happy with that."
"Write down these coooordinates, please. Pretty please."
Then came a loud gasp as he saw the fortress.
"Oooh, haha, no way! That... is ultrapog."
Then it was awkwardly silent for a couple of minutes.
"Need a... piglin trader."
Twenty-three seconds later, there came another loud gasp.
Come to think of it, Clayton didn't know why he gasped.
You're using the pack, of course, you got pearls, don't act suspicious. Play it cool, cool, cool.
"Oh my god, one more, give me one more, give me one more..."
...
When the piglin gave him a second pearl trade, he did not react.
Not one muscle in his face moved.
And he didn't know how to feel when the chat exploded
with messages of "GOOOOO" and "OMG".
...
He tapped his fingers on the keys.
Thousands of people bit their fingernails.
"This is rigged against me... and in my favor."
And he actually let out a quick chuckle,
but nobody else was in on the joke.
...
And over ten minutes later,
"HELL YEAH! HELL. YEAH!"
filled the silent room, and the chat exploded again.
"POGGGG, U DID SO GOOD"
Clayton complained a little about how it was almost the world record,
and if only that eye didn't break.
He ended the stream a few minutes later.
...
He took off his headphones and looked around.
The sky was now black.
The basement was now silent.
That same yellow glow shined on those same gray walls.
Everyone else was tucked up in their beds, and now there he sat, in his parents' basement, feeling... strange.
...
There was a subtle tightness in his throat, and he paused.
Where have I felt this before?
...
He submitted the run.
Four whole minutes off the record.
Ugh, that new record is pretty damn lucky.
Clayton, what if they find out that you cheated?
How would they? Nobody cares about a fourth-place run anyway.
The internet will forget it.
A few crickets chirped outside.
The yellow lights buzzed.
...
On the next day, October 10th,
Clayton would accuse the actual world record holder (Korbanoes) of cheating.
In fact,
he got the record removed from the leaderboards for a couple of days,
until people realized that it wasn't fake.
But the internet has forgotten that.