"Alright, bye, guys."
"Yeah, Dream, see ya."
...
Anyone who was in Florida on December 11th, 2020,
would tell you that it was an unusually warm and humid day.
The sky was light-blue that day.
In the basement, it was chilly and dry.
He lived in an opposite world.
...
It had been two months and two days since his last speedrun stream.
He hadn't thought about that in a while.
He looked at the blue-tinted windows and wondered how long it would be
before the sun went away like it always did.
Clayton could not stop time.
He had only recently realized.
...
But life is still good.
He leaned back in his chair, wearing a light smirk,
thinking about how he had just finished making a new video with those guys.
It would never get old. He loved playing Minecraft with his friends.
The friends who he had known online ever since high school,
the friendship that millions of people now dreamt about.
A year ago, he had been a nobody.
Now, he was rich and famous and happy while doing almost no work at all.
It's gonna be like this forever,
he lied to himself.
Nothing will happen tomorrow,
so why should something happen today?
...
What happened next may have been the first peak of his life.
A peak isn't always because of a great event.
It just means that there aren't any moments better than it
for a very long time.
Every second, his life got better.
Every second, he got closer to the peak.
...
He was staring at the colorless wall when he heard the peak.
It sounded like a ping.
He switched tabs to focus on Discord, and clicked on the purple-toned icon of
Geosquare, that one annoying speedrun moderator.
The mods had always been suspicious, but he knew that there was no proof at all.
They had said something about the odds not looking good,
but he had sent them his fake, innocent world files.
He knew he was safe.
...
Until he saw the peak.
It looked like his Minecraft skin on a black background
with the word VERDICT stamped on top.
He drew in a breath.
Something jumped in his head, like a car shifting into a higher gear.
A glitch. Some kind of loud rush, a roar. It was in his ears.
The video only had 200 views.
It was a perfect copy of his nightmares.
...
He pulled it up on his monitor.
The video started.
The earth spun outside for the next minute or so.
It talked about coin flips,
and then a number came up on his screen.
0.00000000000565.
The video stopped. The world stopped.
He slammed his headphones down.
...
The roar in his ears was louder.
And his breath was uneven, shallow, higher-pitched, faster.
He started pacing from one corner of the basement
to the opposite corner
and back
and again,
faster,
faster.
His throat was so tight again.
And he tried to calm himself down with that italicized voice (shhh, shhh),
but on that warm December day, it just did not work.
Because now his brain woke up for the first time in three months,
and it said I told you.
I told you this would happen,
and you just went and ruined it anyway,
and now everyone will know,
and that's it for you.
And as the breeze shook thin bare trees outside,
one man walked back and forth.
Why me?
...
It was a good run.
I'm getting more subs than I ever did, but this is the end of that.
Why would anyone ever subscribe to a YouTuber who cheats
and lies?
How the hell did I mess this up?
Clayton winced.
He wanted to punch something,
and when his brain reminded him that it was
your fault, your fault,
he wanted to punch himself.
But that wouldn't have helped anybody,
so instead he just flopped onto the couch
and kept letting out one heaving breath
after another heaving breath,
and again.
...
Not a single thought crossed his mind
about how lucky he was to be breathing at all.
How lucky he was to be in this position in the first place.
Luck, luck, luck.
And then,
with his face pressed into the couch cushions,
an idea just popped into his brain out of nowhere.
A desperate idea, a stupid idea.
No, that would never work.
You can't just say
"I got lucky",
not with all this new proof.
It's literally undeniable proof, Clayton, you idiot. Right?
...
Many minutes later,
he was sitting on his chair again.
His breaths were still short.
His throat was still tight.
His eyes were still wide,
like the eyes of somebody who had drunk ten cups of coffee.
He thought he would never sleep again.
He wasn't sure if the earth had restarted its spin yet.
He finished watching the video.
Something was still ringing in his ears, jumping around.
...
The sky outside was still light-blue.
...
He never did reply to Geosquare.
Instead,
he opened the twenty-nine-page document with all that undeniable proof
that the whole internet had just started talking about.
And as streamers reacted to the video
and speedrunners made their opinions clear
and everyone on the internet seemed to pick a side.
Clayton sat on his chair, watching.
...
Why is there a debate? Why are people arguing?
Isn't it obvious
that I should never show my face again?
His throat was still tight.
The warm wind still blew outside.
He was scrolling through the comments on the moderators' Twitter post
when he noticed his only escape.
One comment said
"that's bullshit :("
and another said "bs".
He read another that made him pause.
"I don't think they understand how stats work. Though it is unlikely,it's still possible that he got that luck. Dream definitely didn't cheat. He just had insane luck. They illegitimized his run based off luck not any proof of cheating."
He frowned.
Did these people watch the same video that I did?
...
He clenched his teeth and pressed his eyes shut
and he nodded.
I can trick them.
He stood up.
...
He walked to the bathroom, hands shaking.
He opened the bathroom door
(the tree trunk one),
and stared at the mirror mounted on the aquamarine wall.
In the mirror, he saw the same reflection that he had seen
in a dark kitchen window, three months before.
But this reflection was closer and its wide white eyes darted
from side to side, as if it didn't want to look at him.
And that was fine,
because Clayton did not want to look at his reflection either.
I have no other option, right?
No other option. The alternative is cold, drizzling rain.
Clayton's breathing started to slow down.
He walked back to his chair.
...
What I'm doing right now is bullshit,
he thought.
Bullshit, yeah, bullshit. Wow.
"Total BS!" he typed. "too unlikely to verify...clickbaiting...what kind of investigation..."
Pressed tweet.
Didn't think.
Didn't feel. Yet.
He didn't know what he was going to do if they didn't support him.
...
They supported him.
He smiled. He hated it.
...
He could live with tricking the subscribers.
But when his own best friends started commenting frowny emoticons
and saying things like since when was it a crime to get lucky?
his jaw dropped a little.
He closed the tab. Told himself to forget that absurd fraction.
Forget. The internet will forget.
And that disregarded part of his brain watched it all unfold,
and it just grimaced, saying nothing.
...
Clayton did not know it then,
but from then on, if you were to ask him whether he was at the peak of his life,
the answer would always be "I wish".
From that moment on.