Chapter 1

“Your fucking shit!”

“Let your guide dog have a go.”

“Noob.”

“Dick head.”

Fourteen year old Merry’s team ran past him. If they could have kicked him, he was sure that they would have done so. None of them paused long enough to revive him. Merry waited for the timer to count down and kick him back to the spawn point. He loved ’Duty calls the fortress team’, but lately the player base seemed to have taken a turn for the worse.

A status not helped by the ’new improved’ match making algorithm being brutal in its choices. Merry had always found his team mates and opponents to be of a similar calibre to his ability and no-one took the matches seriously and if you lost, you lost. No biggie. Now though, chat was clinical, on point, no side chatter allowed and the game was treated as though it was actual life or death. He had taken a look at his team mates stats during one of his many timer countdowns. None of them had under a thousand in game hours. Merry thought he was passionate with his three hundred and forty eight in game hours.

“Right, here we go...” The seconds on the spawn point timer hit zero and Merry ran over to collect ammunition and the weapon of his choice. “Pull it together Merry, you can do this...”

He mapped out in his mind where he was going to go. He would make his team apologise for their earlier harshness. Merry exited the spawn room and immediately died.

“Fuck You!”

Merry threw away his controller as his screen flashed with the words ‘Head Shot!!!’

“Fuck! Fuck you, fuck you! Cunt!”

Merry climbed off his bed and collected his controller from the floor. Navigating to the menu, he abandoned the match. It would cost him reputation points, but at this point, he just didn’t care.

He would have preferred to have played with his pals, but the algorithm from hell had decided that he was too good for their level and refused to let him pair up with them. He couldn’t go back and he couldn’t match his new level. He walked around the game’s waiting lobby and the message popped up that he had been paired with a new team.

This time he checked the profiles of his team and that of his opponents. The results did not bode well for a pleasant match.

“Fuck off.” Merry cancelled the match up. Another wait for a position. Another potential match. Merry checked the player stats again.

“Awe piss right off!” Merry cancelled again and then after a pause, terminated the game. If this was going to carry on, he was going to have to create a new player account and hope the new improved matchmaker ignored him.

The game had royally pissed him off. Pissed him off so much that he didn’t feel like playing any of his other games. Merry turned his X-box off and left his room.

Downstairs, in the kitchen, he cut several slices off the tiger bread loaf and after smearing plastic like butter substitute over them, crammed them into his mouth. The bread was washed down with some juice and he headed back up stairs.

Tyson, their black lab, eyed his return back up the stairs from the couch he was not supposed to be slouched upon. Merry didn’t bother to chastise him or chase him off as he didn’t care if Tyson was on the couch or not.

With his parents and sister out shopping for the day, Merry wondered what to do with his time before they returned. It wasn’t even turned lunchtime yet. He just wanted to game with his pals, that’s all he wanted.

He slouched past his sisters room and paused...

What does Merry do, does he enter or does he continue past?