THE GAME THEY PLAYED

CHAPTER 1

Present Day

            Every morning, before the lectures began, and the campus buzzed to life, Nick and Jackson sat on the same wooden bench in front of the university’s main building. It had the best view of the courtyard, of the entrance, and of every passing student.

         To outsiders, they looked like early risers. In truth, they were watchers.

         “Target acquired,” Jackson said, sipping cheap coffee from a vending machine cup.

         Nick didn’t respond. His eyes were already fixed across the street. Heather Holmes, his neighbor and, in his words, “the main character of his life,” walked toward the building with her usual grace. With backpack slung over one shoulder, and long hair catching the sun, she looked, neither rushed nor posed, just... natural.

         Jackson waved a hand in front of Nick’s face. “Snap out of it, Romeo. You’re staring like a stalker.”

         “I’m not staring,” Nick said.

         “You are. And if I had a taser, I’d use it on you, perv. Just go talk to her.”

         “What would I even say?”

         Jackson shrugged. “Start with something normal. ‘Hi, I’m Nick. I live next door and I’ve memorized your Spotify playlists through the wall.’”

         Nick groaned.

         “I’m kidding,” Jackson said. “Mostly.”

         Just then, Heather glanced in their direction.  Jackson, never one to miss an opportunity, waved. “Hey, Heather!”

         She paused, surprised. Then, smiled and started walking over. Nick stood up, frozen.

         “Hi,” she said, eyes curious. “You’re... my neighbor, right?”

         Nick nodded too quickly. “Yes. I’m Nick. I live next door.”

         Jackson grinned. “And I’m Jackson. We were just talking about you.”

         Heather raised an eyebrow, amused. “Talking about me? That sounds suspicious.”

         “He was talking. I was panicking,” Nick confessed. “I’ve been meaning to say hi properly. I see you around the building.”

         “I’ve seen you, too. You always seem like you’re in a rush.”

         “That’s because he’s avoiding eye contact, so you don’t catch him watching you,” Jackson added, then elbowed Nick in the ribs. “Say what you told me.”

         Nick blurted, “I’m designing a video game, and I wanted to base a character on you.”

         There was a pause. Then Heather laughed. “That’s... kind of flattering. Maybe a little weird, but mostly flattering.”

         “You’re…uh…interesting,” Nick said, cheeks coloring. “Your look, your energy. It’s inspiring.”

         “Well, thank you,” she said. “I study literature, not gaming, but I’d love to see how I translate into pixels.”

         Before Nick could reply, Heather checked the time. “I have class, but… maybe we can talk more later?”

         Nick nodded again, stupidly. She smiled and walked off. Jackson waited two seconds, then started clapping.

         “I didn’t crash and burn,” Nick said, stunned.

         “Nope. You were only moderately creepy.”

         They sat back down. “She said we could talk later,” Nick murmured.

         “She totally did,” Jackson replied. “And I hope you do it on your own this time.”

            “Shut up, Jackson. Let’s go to class.”

            “All right, all right...We’re going. I am so glad you finally found your manhood today, macho man.”

            “Screw you, Jackson!

         Despite finding humor in making fun of Nick, Jackson was careful not to cross the line and hurt the feelings of his best friend. They walked into the building and headed straight to Professor Keeler’s Genetic Algorithms class. The only thing Nick had on his mind was Heather and her sentence “We can talk later”. He rehearsed tons of conversations in his head, even researched philosopher quotes, to make sure he had something smart to say. In an attempt to compensate for sounding like a wimp earlier in the morning, he was determined to impress her this time. During lunch break, Nick made a thorough search for her in the cafeteria, but his efforts to find her were unsuccessful. During their entire afternoon break, Jackson and Nick waited patiently on their bench, eagerly expecting her emergence from the building, but their anticipation proved futile, as she was nowhere in sight.

            Disappointed, Nick arrived home in the evening, convinced that she had deliberately changed her mind and avoided him. While exiting his bathroom, Nick's ears picked up the unmistakable sound of Heather's apartment door opening. Nick moved toward the front door, to look through the peephole, but misjudged the distance in his rush. His forehead slammed into the wooden frame with a dull, solid thud. Pain bloomed instantly, but before he could swear out loud, the doorbell rang. 

         He opened it, blinking through the daze. Heather stood there, clutching her laptop. The loud banging sound of Nick's head hitting the door frightened her.

         She paused, startled. “Are you okay?”

         Nick touched his head, wincing. “Fine. I just whacked my head.”

         Her eyes dropped to the red swelling forming instantly above his eyebrow. Then she laughed. “You’re such a mess.”

         He stepped aside, embarrassed. “Come in. Sorry for the mess… of me, I mean.”

         Amused by his honesty, Heather entered, set the laptop on the table, and made herself useful grabbing ice from the freezer, wrapping it in a rag that was hanging in the kitchen, and handing it to him.

         “Sit,” she commanded, and he obeyed.

         The apartment was small; one open space for the kitchen and living area, and a short hallway leading to the bedroom and bath. She seemed to navigate it instinctively, as if she’d been here many times before.

            “Put the rag on the bump, otherwise you will have two heads tomorrow, if that thing continues to swell,” she ordered.

            Nick didn’t want to embarrass himself any further, so he listened to Heather without uttering a word. He settled on the small sofa, pressing the ice pack on his forehead as she sat by his side.

            “I wanted to ask you a favor, but now I’m not so sure you’re fit to do it.” she joked.

            “Anything you need.”

            His long-awaited dream came true, but he turned it into a circus performance, and his head injury made him a freak show attraction. After only fantasizing about this encounter, she was finally in his apartment. There was no way in hell he would miss this chance.

            ”What’s going on with the laptop? Do you need any help with it?”

            “You mentioned today that you guys are studying programming or something like that, Right?”

            “That’s right.” Nick confirmed.

            “So, something strange is happening to my laptop. It keeps freezing, lagging and restarting on its own. I have some files stored on this drive, but the laptop shows that the drive is completely full, which is weird. My assignment is due next week, and I can’t get any work done on this machine. I’d much rather be at home than struggling in that library. Could you please take a look and see what’s wrong with it?”

            “Of course I can.” 

            Nick jumped up from the sofa, but he felt dizzy and had to sit down again.

            “I can tell that you are in no shape to do anything now. Take care of yourself tonight and check it out tomorrow. If it's not a concussion, the swelling should be gone by then, leaving a nasty bruise, but hey, at least you'll be thinking clearly again. You should get some rest now, but if you experience a string headache or start vomiting, call me. I’ll go to the ER with you.”

         “ER? I don’t think I will need to go to ER…”

            Heather got up, then stopped. She went to the table in the dining room where Nick's phone was. She grabbed the cell and typed in her number.

            “Don’t be a tough guy, Goofy. I am serious. If you feel anything out of the ordinary, call me. You have my number now.”

            She winked at him and walked out of the apartment. Nick immediately took his phone to confirm it and there it was-her number in his contact list. He dialed Jackson and told him what had happened.

            “Bro, that is definitely the most original way to get a girl’s number I’ve ever heard of, but you could’ve just asked for it. You didn’t need to kill yourself.”

            “I am so clumsy, man. She will tell all of her friends tomorrow what an idiot I was.”

            “Right! She has nothing smarter to do than embarrasings herself by telling stories about you. She was right, you know? If you don’t feel well, call her and let her take you to see a doctor.”

            “I feel okay.”

            “Okay, drama queen. Call me if you need me.”

            After hanging up the phone, Nick laid the rag with ice on the coffee table, slowly got up, and took Heather’s laptop from the dining room table. He returned to the sofa and turned it on. An unusually long time to boot the system meant that there was indeed something wrong with the computer. Nick thought Heather might have downloaded too many things on her hard drive, so he opened her folders, one after another, to sift through and remove whatever unnecessary junk she might have stored there. He found the folder with her photographs and scrolled down, opening them one by one. She was magnificent, and he was in awe just by looking at the photos. Suddenly, he felt ashamed. Heather asked him for help, and he was taking advantage of her. He shouldn’t have gone through her personal files. If she found out what he was doing, she would be furious and stop talking to him.

            Nick’s headache started getting worse. The letters and icons began the dance across the screen. He realized Heather was right and he should get some rest. Upon leaving the laptop on the table and grabbing the rag with ice, he leaned back. It didn’t take him long to fall asleep. 

         Nick woke in a puddle of melted ice water.  He groaned, sat up slowly, and looked around the quiet apartment. His body ached. His head felt like it had been used for target practice.

            Having showered, Nick left the bathroom and was about to enter his living-dining room but remained in the hallway. Something strange drew his attention. The laptop was closed but the camera light was on! It wouldn’t be such a strange occurrence, but he made sure he turned off all background processes the night before, trying to find the cause of such a long boot time. If the camera was on, that could mean only two things; either he didn’t do what he was supposed to do correctly, or... 

           Or Heather’s laptop had been hacked! 

         Nick stood without thinking and grabbed a strip of duct tape from his desk. He lifted the lid just enough to cover the lens and pressed the tape down hard. Then, slowly, he opened the laptop.  After pressing the ENTER button on the keyboard, the screen came up. He realized that the laptop had entered sleep mode after he dozed off. If any program application had used the camera, it would have woken the computer up from the sleep mode. All except a hacked camera. 

         Nick sent Jackson a message instantly and explained the issue. Already inside their university building, Jackson didn't think twice about ditching his classes to help his friend solve the mystery of Heather's computer.

            During the wait for his friend's arrival, Nick decided to contact Heather and update her on his discovery. He went over to her apartment and knocked on her door, but there was no answer. It dawned on Nick that she could be at the university, attending lectures, so he made his way back to his apartment. Nick sent her a text: “Hey. Found something weird. Come by when you get home.”

         Message: sent. Message: not delivered. He waited a few minutes, refreshed the app, and checked again. Still undelivered. He called. It rang twice — then went to voicemail.

         “Some teachers ban phones to keep class focused, so maybe she turned it off. It was a valid reason for not getting his message,” Nick tried to come up with a reasonable explanation. 

            Shortly after, Jackson arrived. The moment Jackson laid eyes on Nick’s face, he started unleashing a rafale fire.

            “Jesus Christ!!! What happened to you, Cerberus? How many heads have you grown overnight?”

            “All right, let me hear it all, so we can start the work.” Nick replied, uninterested in Jackson’s comments.

            “Why so serious, dude?”

            “I am really not in the mood for your jokes. Something's up, and we need to figure out what. That’s why I called you, not to hear crap from you.”

            “Okay, okay... take it easy, brother. Calm down and tell me what’s going on.”

             Nick explained what he had discovered on Heather’s machine while Jackson listened carefully.

         “Camera light?” Jackson asked.

         Nick nodded.

         Jackson leaned over the device and whistled. “That’s bad. If it activated while in sleep mode, it’s not some basic malware. It’s advanced. Did you check for hidden folders?” Jackson asked, already launching his tools. “Usually, a spy software buries itself under system-level protection. Regular file explorers won’t see it. We need to run a decryption tool.”

         Nick opened his mouth, hesitating. “I don’t have a decryption tool.”

         “I do.”

         Jackson plugged in his USB and began typing. While the software ran, silence filled the apartment.

            Two friends worked tirelessly for hours. Nervously, Nick kept looking at his phone every five minutes, yet the delivery status of his message to Heather showed only one check symbol. “The classes ended a long time ago. She should have been home by now...” Nick thought. 

         He went over to her apartment and knocked on her door multiple times, but there was no answer. He even went out, stood in front of the building, checking out the windows of her apartment, all in vain. There was no light inside, and there was no sign of Heather anywhere. He tried calling her, too, but he kept getting the same message: “the mobile subscriber you are trying to reach is not available at the moment”.  

            “Should we call the police? - Nick asked Jackson.  

            “We can’t!”

            “Why not? Sometimes the police react immediately after the report”

            “First, the police only react if the person is missing for over 48 hours, which in this case is not true. What you refer to is an Amber Alert, but it is triggered only when a child is reported missing. Heather is not a child, so there is no valid reason to issue an Amber Alert. Second, even if we called the police and reported her disappearance, what would you say in the report? She didn’t come home from university? She could be in a million different places, with her friends, maybe even a new boyfriend…”

“It is not the time to make jokes, man. This could be serious.” 

            A few minutes later, a new folder appeared on the desktop. It had no name — just a string of characters. Jackson opened it. They stared at the contents. Dozens of video clips, each one time-stamped.

         He clicked on one. Heather appeared, seated at her desk, reading. Then changing her clothes. Then brushing her hair in front of the mirror. All completely unaware. Another file showed her asleep. A third showed her removing her shirt. Jackson closed the window.

         Nick swallowed hard. “How long…?”

         Jackson hovered over the folder. “The earliest file is from two months ago. This has been going on for a while.”

         Nick stared at the screen, cold now. “Someone’s been watching her… this whole time.”

            “This is some shady business, bro!” Jackson said. 

            “Now, we have to go to the police.”

            “We will, but we have to wait one more day to do so.”

            “She might be dead by then!” Nick yelled.    

            “I didn’t come up with those rules, man.”

            “What if she is in danger?”

            “She IS in danger! No one normal does this. Let’s wait and go to the police after 48 hours have passed. So far, it has just been 24 since you last saw her.”

            “You are right.... Sorry. I am just desperate. Something might happen to her during that time.”

            “We can’t be sure of that.”

            “Yeah, I know, but I’m still worried sick about her. Thanks for all your help!”

            “All good, bro. If she shows up, let me know. Keep checking her door and hope she gets that message. I gotta go home now. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            “All right. See you tomorrow.”

            All alone in the quiet apartment, Nick finally understood how serious his situation was. Many girls disappear every day, but not many of them are found. No matter what it took, he promised himself that he would track down Heather even if he had to dig through heaven and hell. Finding her would be his one and only priority. 

         Nick took one final walk to her door, hoping for a different outcome, and pressed his ear to the wood. Nothing but the silence of the hallway. Something was wrong. He knew it in his bones. Heather wasn’t a vanisher. If she wasn’t answering, it wasn’t by choice. The peephole was dark. Not covered, just…dark. He took a step back as an unsettling thought went through his mind.

CHAPTER 2

Forty-Eight Hours Earlier

"Life is worth so little, yet it can bring a lot of money—if you know how to take it right." Inpu said. "Most people waste it, clinging to illusions of meaning, chasing comfort. But me? I see the truth. Life is a currency, and when you stop pretending it’s sacred, you learn how to spend it. Efficiently, quietly and profitably. The world doesn’t reward sentiment—it rewards precision. And I’m very precise."

            A crimson trail snaked across the corridor, glistening under the overhead lights. Where most would turn away, Inpu and Alastor watched as guards hauled a young woman toward the pit. She couldn’t have been more than twenty. Bruised, twisted, a line of blood marked her passage. Her head lolled, unconscious.

         “She didn’t last long,” Inpu muttered. “The players are getting sloppy. They have no sense of control.”

         “They want violence, not finesse,” Alastor replied.

           Carefully avoiding the blood smears, Inpu and Alastor walked over to the guards, who were holding the girl close to the rail fixed above a pit enclosed with plywood walls. The faces of the guards were concealed, as well, by masks of simple black leather. Below, five rottweilers paced restlessly, teeth bared, driven wild by the scent of blood.

         Inpu looked up at the camera placed on the wall, making sure everything was being recorded. The red light blinked,  always watching. Alastor knelt beside the girl, touching her throat. “Still alive. But barely.”

         “Wake her up!” Inpu ordered.

         He crushed the smelling salts ampule and placed it close to the girl's nostrils. She regained consciousness, and after realizing where she was, gasped and tried to free herself. Her eyes, wide and shining, flicked between the masked men and the dogs below. She screamed, but no one could answer.

            “Listen to her,” Inpu addressed Alastor. “She still thinks someone will come to her rescue.”

          Inpu approached the rail and looked down at the dogs. “Calm down, boys. Your meal is coming.” 

            Alastor leaned close and whispered in the girl’s ear, “This is the end, honey.”                    Inpu nodded, the guards obeyed the signal. The girl was dropped into the pit. A dull thud, then chaos. Growls. Barks. A scream that rose too fast and ended too soon. Again.

         Inpu looked at the camera with a still face under the mask. “The footage had better be worth it,” he said.

         Back in his office, Inpu removed his mask and robe and poured himself a glass of Cheval Blanc. At his desk, the computer screen glowed with an incoming file: GIRL.

         He clicked on it.

         The footage revealed Damballa looming beside the girl, silent and sweat-slicked. His mask, featureless, black, inhuman, absorbed the light.

         Then, the camera zoomed in on the girl’s face full of terror. Her lips trembled while her eyes screamed what her voice couldn’t. A single tear glistened like a shard of glass on her cheek. She was chained, helpless, watching the monster approach.

         A blade appeared. She pleaded while Damballa leaned closer. The image wavered as the girl cried out. Then, she collapsed. Too soon.

         Damballa looked at the camera, as if he was aware of the disappointment.

         Inpu scowled. “Pathetic.”

         He hit pause and reached for his phone. A voice answered instantly. Male. Young.

           “Is this all you could get?”

         “That was the best I could do, boss. But even with shorter clips, there are some killer shots. I sent you the trimmed version. Let me know what you think, and I’ll upload it to the gallery.”

         Inpu’s tone was cold. “She kept passing out. That ruined everything.”

         “I know, I know, but I cut around it. There are some good angles. That player was weak. There wasn't much to work with…”

         “We need new protocols. I don’t want another wasted session. Send the manual to the next group of players. If they ruin the pacing, ban them for a month.”

         “Got it.”

         Inpu hung up. He leaned back, swirling a glass of red wine.

         “Garbage,” he muttered. “Amateurs.”

         He picked up the phone again and dialed the same number. Annoyed, he said, “Check among those girls you're monitoring and get me another one. This time, make sure she lasts.”

         Then he crushed the wine glass in his hand.

CHAPTER 3

Present Day

            Nick hadn’t slept all night. The following morning, Nick, still wearing his pajamas, immediately went to Heather's door. Driven by desperation, he pushed the doorbell again and again, yet the door remained stubbornly shut, offering no response to his increasingly frantic pleas. 

            Shortly afterward, Jackson arrived, and the two of them walked to the university campus, ultimately finding their favorite bench to sit on together. They closely monitored everyone who arrived and departed. During the early morning hours, Nick penned a description of individuals displaying suspicious behavior, while Jackson shadowed them, either inside the main building or following them and recording their license plate numbers in the parking lot. Both of them knew the importance of all the clues they could gather. Without evidence, the police detectives would be skeptical of their claims, and even if they did trust them, they might choose not to pursue the matter. Jackson tried to lift the mood by playfully implying that Heather could have found a new love interest, sparking a whirlwind of excitement and intense moments at the guy's house. Surprisingly, Nick took that joke into consideration. Ultimately, he acknowledged that such a scenario was not realistic. While Nick was thankful for his friend’s aid, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something suspicious was happening as time went on. Heather would never disappear without a trace like that, and Nick refused to accept the fact that she might be dead. In his mind, she was still alive, and he would do his best to find her.

            Two hours later, the only sound in front of the university building was the wind whistling through the empty courtyard. With Heather not present, Nick and Jackson were left with no other options but to head to the Student's Service Center office to inquire about her. As expected, at the SSC, they knew nothing about Heather’s mysterious vanishing. She didn’t inform the Center about her absence, which just fortified Nick’s belief that someone else was responsible for her disappearance. Nick and Jackson could do nothing more at the university, so they headed directly to the police precinct. They walked in and headed straight to the front desk.

            “Good morning, gentlemen,” a female officer greeted them. “How may I be of assistance to you?”

         Unable to answer, Nick frantically looked through his jacket, desperately trying to locate the USB drive he remembered putting there. Recognizing the nervousness exhibited by his concerned friend, Jackson took it upon himself to start a conversation with the law enforcement officer, hoping to ease the situation.

            “Good morning, madam. We would like to file a missing person’s report.”

            “Are you family members of the missing person?”

            “No ma’am, we are colleagues from the university and Nick here is her next-door neighbor.”

            “Very well. How long has it been since you have last seen her?”

            “I saw her the day before yesterday, in the evening. She came over to my apartment to give me her laptop, which had a problem. That was the last time I saw her.” Nick replied.

            “There is a policy we have to follow. A mandatory waiting period of 48 hours must elapse from the time an adult is reported missing before the police are legally allowed to begin the search.”

            “We are aware of the policy, ma’am, but we found something really disturbing on the hard drive of her laptop. That is the reason we rushed over here. We need to talk to a detective.” Nick was persistent.

            “All right. What is the name of the missing person?”

            “Heather.” Nick replied.

            “Heather what? What is her last name?”

            “Oh, sorry. Heather Holmes.”

            “How do you know her last name?” Jackson whispered.

            “It is written on her door and on the interphone button. How else would I know it?” Nick whispered back.

            “Date of birth?” The police officer continued the inquiry.

            “August 26, 2004.” Nick answered.

            “Not yours, dumbass! Heather’s!” Jackson interfered.

            “Oh, I am sorry. I really don’t know the exact date of birth or her age, but she is around twenty years old. We study at the same university, so I assume she’s around our age.” Nick apologized.

            “Look, ma’am. Nick here likes Heather very much. He didn’t have the courage to talk to her until two days ago, at the university. He was just stalking her and checking her out through the peephole of his apartment door.” Jackson tried to explain.

            Jackson's comment and the officer's surprised look made Nick smack Jackson's shoulder.

            “I apologize officer, that didn’t come out right. I mean, Nick is a weirdo, but he is not a rapist or anything,”

            This explanation deserved another jab in the shoulder from Nick.

            “Shut the hell up, man, and let me talk before you get me arrested,” Nick yelled at Jackson.

            “I think it would be much easier if I gave you the form to fill out. That way, we can avoid any misunderstandings,” the policewoman chuckled at the interaction between Nick and Jackson.

            “That would probably be for the best,” Jackson agreed.

            Nick and Jackson filled out the report quickly and returned it to the officer. After reading the contents of the report, she asked them to wait until they were called. She logged in all the data that Nick and Jackson had given her, then notified the department responsible. Shortly thereafter, Detective Julia Morgan descended the staircase to the front desk, where she invited the young men to accompany her to her workspace. As Nick and Jackson approached Detective Morgan's desk, their eyes fell upon a large bulletin board where photographs of missing young girls were displayed, drawing their immediate attention. The board was covered with over twenty photos, each one a small window into someone's past.

            “Please, take a seat, gentlemen,” detective Morgan said. “I‘ve read your report and found something disturbing. You wrote that you noticed that Heather’s camera had been hacked, and you found a folder with video clips.”

            “Yes, ma’am,” Nick confirmed. Finding the camera hacking software was accidental, but we really had to search for that folder. When we opened it, there were many video clips of Heather, some of them explicit. I have the USB drive with the video clips here with me.”

            Nick took the drive out of the pocket and handed it to detective Morgan. She plugged it into her computer and watched a few clips. While Nick observed her facial expressions change, Jackson was checking out the photos of the missing girls. Then he noticed something.

            “There is a photo of a girl named Anna Morgan who looks a lot like you, detective,” Jackson said. “Any relation?”

            “That is my daughter. She went missing two months ago.”

            “I am really sorry to hear that, madam.”

            “All right, boys. I have everything I need from you. If there is nothing else to report, you are free to go. If Heather shows up, or if you come up with another piece of evidence, please let me know. I will do my best to find your friend. Here is my card. You can contact me anytime.”

            “Thank you so much, ma’am!” Nick got up, took the card, and shook detective Morgan’s hand.

         Jackson did the same, and the two of them left the station. As they were walking down the street, Nick spoke, “I feel much better now. The police will find her.”

            “Just like they found all those other missing girls…”

            “Come on, man. Detective Morgan looked very interested in the case.”

            “She couldn’t even find her own daughter. What makes you think she will find Heather?”

            “Because she has to, man....”