CHAPTER 2: THE LATENCY
SCENE 1: THE SERVER MERGE
Majnu-ka-tilla, North Delhi.
Reality was loud. It smelled of momos, open drains, and diesel fumes. It was a sensory assault that no graphics card could render and no headset could filter out.
Rudra stood by the yellow barricade of the bus stand, his hood pulled up despite the sticky afternoon heat. He felt exposed. In the lobby, he was a giant—a berserker who commanded fear. Here, leaning against a rusted pole, he was just a skinny nineteen-year-old with dark circles under his eyes and a backpack that looked like it had survived a war.
He checked his phone. 12:00 PM.
"Rudra?"
The voice was familiar, yet wrong. It lacked the digital compression of Discord. It was too clear, too human.
Rudra looked up.
Standing ten feet away was a boy who looked like he'd walked out of a catalogue. Laksh. He was wearing a pristine windbreaker that probably cost more than Rudra's PC setup. His luggage was hard-shell, sleek, and wheeled. He looked out of place, like an NPC from a high-res city map glitched into a slum level.
And behind him, struggling with a massive rucksack and two duffel bags, was Dhruv.
For a moment, nobody moved. The server merge was complete, but the textures hadn't loaded yet. They just stared, trying to reconcile the voices they knew intimately with the strangers standing in front of them.
"You're shorter than your avatar," Rudra muttered, the words slipping out before he could check them.
Laksh blinked, then a small, awkward smirk touched his lips. "And you look like you haven't slept since the last patch update."
Dhruv dropped his bags with a heavy thud, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He looked between them, a wide, nervous grin splitting his face. He moved to hug them, then stopped, unsure, and awkwardly patted Rudra on the shoulder instead.
"Lag," Dhruv laughed, breathless. "Sorry. Real life input lag. I didn't know if we were doing the handshake or the hug."
"Let's get on the bus," Rudra said, turning away quickly to hide the fact that his hands were shaking again. "Before I disconnect."
SCENE 2: THE LOADING SCREEN
The Volvo bus to Himachal was a steel capsule hurtling through the night.
Inside, the air conditioning hummed—a low, artificial drone that reminded them of their computer fans. They sat in the back row. Laksh had the window, Rudra the aisle, and Dhruv sat in the middle, the buffer zone, just like in the game.
The city lights of Delhi faded, replaced by the encroaching dark of the highway.
"So," Laksh started, his voice low. "How did your dad take it? You leaving?"
Rudra stiffened. He stared at the back of the seat in front of him. "I told him I had a coaching camp. Entrance exams." He picked at a loose thread on his jeans. "He thinks I'm studying."
"I told my mom I'm going to a meditation retreat," Laksh said, staring at his reflection in the dark window. "Technically, it's true. I need to meditate on why I hate everything."
Silence stretched between them. The conversation felt heavy, clumsy. Without callouts, coordinates, or enemy positions to discuss, they were just three broken boys in a metal box.
"Did you guys see the patch notes for the new season?" Dhruv asked suddenly.
Rudra and Laksh relaxed instantly. Shoulders dropped. Tension vanished.
"Nerfed the M4 recoil," Rudra said immediately, his eyes lighting up. "Trash update."
"It balances the meta," Laksh countered smoothly, slipping back into his role. "It forces DMR play. Strategy over spray."
They talked for hours, not about their fears or their failures, but about damage stats and drop rates. It was their safe zone.
Dhruv pulled out his phone to record a vlog. "Day 1, boys. The Trinity is mobile. We are currently rotating to the safe zone..."
He frowned. He tapped the screen.
"What?" Rudra asked.
"Camera won't focus," Dhruv muttered. On the screen, the image of his friends kept blurring, pulsating in and out of sharpness. "It's weird. It's like... interference."
Outside, the road began to wind. The bus groaned as it climbed. The signal bars on their phones dropped from 4G to H+, then to E.
Then, nothing.
NO SERVICE.
SCENE 3: THE DEAD PIXEL
Parvati Valley. The Kheerganga Trek.
The air was thin. Crisp. It tasted of pine and ozone.
They had been hiking for four hours. The physical exertion was a shock to systems used to gaming chairs and sedentary stillness. Dhruv was panting, his "Endurance" stat apparently not transferring to his actual lungs, though he refused to let anyone carry the extra water bottles.
"We should be at the campsite," Laksh said, stopping to check his expensive tactical watch. He frowned. He tapped the glass face.
"What's wrong?" Rudra asked, leaning against a rock, his legs burning.
"Compass," Laksh whispered. The needle wasn't pointing North. It was spinning. Slowly, rhythmically, clockwise. Like it was tracking something moving around them. "Magnetic interference. Heavy."
"Maybe it's the iron in the rocks," Dhruv suggested, though he looked uneasy.
Rudra looked up. The sky was a piercing, impossible blue. He watched a hawk circling above the tree line. It glided smoothly, banking left, then right.
Then, it stuttered.
Rudra blinked. "Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"The bird. It... skipped." Rudra rubbed his eyes. "It rubber-banded. Like a lag spike."
"You've been staring at screens too long, Rudra," Laksh said, though he didn't look convinced. He pocketed the compass. "Come on. The clearing is just ahead."
They pushed through the final belt of rhododendrons and stepped into the meadow.
It was beautiful. Lush green grass, surrounded by snow-capped peaks that looked like jagged teeth biting into the sky. But it was wrong.
There was no wind. The trees were perfectly still.
There were no other hikers. In peak season, this place should have been full of colorful tents and music.
Instead, there was only silence. Absolute, heavy silence.
"Where is everyone?" Dhruv whispered. The sound of his voice seemed to drop dead in the air, swallowed by the ground.
Rudra took a step forward. He felt it in his teeth first. A vibration. Low. Deep. Not a sound, but a frequency.
Hmmmmmmmmmm.
It was coming from beneath their feet.
"Do you feel that?" Laksh asked, his voice tight.
Rudra looked at the horizon. For a split second—just a fraction of a heartbeat—the clouds didn't look like vapor. They looked like a low-resolution texture, pixelated blocks of grey and white, before snapping back into high definition.
"The server isn't empty," Rudra said, his gamer instinct screaming at him to find cover. He gripped the strap of his bag like a rifle.
"It's loading."