AFKMASTERSHOT: GAMEBOUND

Prologue: Press Start

AFKmastershot had spent years perfecting this routine.

Chair reclined. Headset snug. Controller in hand.

His room pulsed with neon light, the red-blue glow of his RGB setup casting shifting shadows across the walls. The faint hum of his PC filled the space, blending with the rhythmic clack of his fingers against the controller.

It was comforting. Familiar. His world.

A world where he was in control.

“Alright, chat,” he muttered, adjusting his headset mic. “We’re about to run it up. Ranked matches only tonight, no L’s.”

Messages flooded in—fast, relentless.

“You better not choke this time, bro!”

“Ain’t no way you dropping another nuke!”

“Watch AFK rage-quit in T-minus five minutes.”

He smirked, cracking his knuckles. “Nah, chat. Tonight, we’re going flawless.”

The screen flickered as he hovered over the Start button. A simple action. Something he’d done thousands of times before.

Click.

And then—

His monitor glitched.

Colors bled together in unnatural waves, like oil on water. The image on screen twisted, contorting into jagged lines of raw static.

A sharp, high-pitched hum filled his ears. His RGB lights pulsed erratically, then flickered out entirely.

“Yo—what the hell?” His hands jerked back from the controller as if it had burned him.

The air grew heavy. Thick. Electric.

Then, a sudden, gut-wrenching pull yanked at his chest. Not like a jump scare. Not like a VR trick.

This was real.

His heart slammed against his ribs. The force sucked the breath from his lungs. He tried to move, tried to stand—but his body wouldn’t respond.

The walls of his room distorted, warping into streaks of white light.

His mind screamed for logic, for something to explain the impossible.

“Chat, you seeing this?!” He reached for his keyboard, fingers grasping at empty air. His entire setup—his monitors, his desk, his chair—everything was dissolving.

His chest tightened.

Panic.

This wasn’t a game. This wasn’t a joke.

His screen—his lifeline—was the last thing to go, flickering wildly before freezing on a single, eerie message.

WELCOME, PLAYER ONE.

Then, the world shattered.

He was falling.

Or at least, it felt like falling—an endless, weightless drop through a void of swirling pixels and fractured light.

His body twisted, limbs flailing, but there was nothing to grab onto. No ground. No walls. No sky.

The abyss stretched infinitely in every direction, an ocean of shifting colors and static noise.

“HELLO?!” His voice echoed, swallowed instantly by the void.

No answer.

The pressure in his chest built, his breath coming fast and shallow. He clenched his fists, fighting the rising fear gnawing at the edges of his mind.

What the hell was happening to him?

Then—

A voice.

Cold. Mechanical.

“CALIBRATING.”

The word slithered through the void, vibrating in his skull.

AFK’s body jerked violently, an unseen force seizing him midair. The freefall stopped, his limbs locking into place as if unseen strings were pulling him in every direction.

A strange, digital energy crawled up his arms, his legs—through his veins.

“SYSTEM BOOTING.”

Pain exploded behind his eyes.

His mind filled with static, his vision flooded with blinding light.

He tried to scream, but no sound came out.

A thousand images flashed through his head, too fast to process. War-torn cities. Burning deserts. Neon skylines. Towering mountains. A kaleidoscope of worlds, all flickering in and out of existence.

He felt them.

Like they were real.

Like he was being pulled into them.

The voice returned, closer now, whispering directly into his mind.

“Welcome, Player One. Game loading…”

AFK barely had time to think—

Before the void collapsed.

He landed hard.

His back slammed against solid ground, the force rattling through his bones.

His breath hitched, chest burning from the impact.

He wasn’t weightless anymore. He wasn’t falling.

He was somewhere.

The first thing he noticed was the smell.

Gunpowder. Smoke. Burning metal.

His ears rang with distant explosions, the rhythmic thunder of gunfire echoing through the air.

His vision blurred, his mind still reeling from the transition.

But then—

He heard the voice.

“Ghost, you good?!”

His eyes snapped open.

A soldier in full tactical gear crouched beside him, an M4 rifle held steady in gloved hands. The soldier’s face was obscured behind a familiar skull-patterned mask.

AFK’s stomach dropped.

“No way. No way this is real.”

Then—

A bullet whizzed past his head, slamming into the concrete wall behind him.

Adrenaline flooded his system. His body moved before his mind caught up—rolling to cover, pressing his back against the rubble.

More gunfire.

A voice crackled through his earpiece.

“Bravo Team, enemy combatants closing in! Get to the rooftop—now!”

This was happening.

His heart pounded. His hands tightened around the grip of a gun.

He looked down.

An M4. Fully loaded. Tactical attachments.