Ugh, back me up here, can't you see the map at all?!
My fingers flew across my mechanical keyboard, the usual clack-clack-clack sounding hollow and empty today. My eyes were glued to the computer screen, yet I wasn't really seeing anything happening there. My mind was blank, drifting off nowhere in particular, while my MOBA character moved along following commands I didn't even realize I was giving.
Watching the chaotic brawl unfolding before me, that old familiar question drifted through my mind again: Why does life feel so endlessly empty?
Ugh, this team is absolutely useless!
The grumbling voice blaring through my earpieces made me furrow my brow. This guy had been nonstop noise the whole time—microphone wide open, barking nonsense orders, blaming everyone else when he was always the first one to die. Truth be told, this was simple enough: just push objectives, smash turrets, and… yeah, good teamwork wouldn't hurt if we actually wanted to win. But here? Everyone was playing for themselves.
DEFEAT
Big, bold red letters blared across the center of my screen, swallowing my whole field of view. My eyes stayed blank as I stared at yet another loss—and yet strangely, that heavy, hollow emptiness weighing on me for hours suddenly faded away for a moment. It was as if this defeat filled some tiny little space inside me, even if it wasn't anything to feel happy about. At the very least… I felt something.
I stood up slowly from my gaming chair, shuffled out of my dim room that still reeked of old vape smoke. A hot drink might calm my nerves, I thought. Yeah… tea is honestly the best drink I've ever had. I brewed myself a steaming mug in the kitchen, letting the rising steam wash over my tired, dry face.
Stirring it slowly round and round, my eyes fell on my smartphone lying tossed aside on the dining table. I reached out, picked it up, and lazily swiped through my feed, half-heartedly browsing for something new to pass the time.
Then my thumb stopped dead.
Right near the bottom of the recommendation list, one game icon caught my eye. It showed a gleaming silver thread wrapped neatly around a golden needle, set against the backdrop of a grand, towering academy. The title was written in elegant, old-fashioned lettering:
THE LOOM
Open World • Magic • Academy
It looked so striking, so different from everything I usually saw. To be honest, my entire gaming life had basically been nothing but MOBAs and shooters. Maybe that was exactly why I'd grown so burnt out and bored of playing the same things for years on end.
I took another sip of my tea, only to realize it had absolutely no sugar left in it at all. Oh well. I stood up to head back to my room, but halfway to the door I paused.
I glanced over toward the window. Outside stretched a bright, beautiful blue sky, fluffy white clouds drifting slowly along on the breeze. My mug was still warm in my hands. This quiet feeling… it was so peaceful, so far removed from all the shouting and chaos of the match I'd just lost. I pressed a palm to my forehead and shook my head a little. Geez, I sound like some old man being all sentimental—and I'm only 21 years old.
I went back inside, flopped back into my gaming chair, and rocked it side to side a little. That thought popped into my head out of nowhere, and suddenly my heart gave a little excited throb—curiosity, the kind I hadn't felt in ages: What if I actually tried playing that game I just saw on my phone?
That feeling was rare. I wasn't about to let it slip away.
I woke my computer back up, clicked the mouse furiously, and started typing the game's name straight into the search bar.
The Loom
Hit Enter.
Wait… why is there nothing here?
My brows drew tight together. Thousands of results popped up—but not a single one mentioned the game I'd just seen on my phone. No official website. No reviews. No gameplay videos. Nothing at all.
Is this some kind of bug? Maybe I should refresh and search again, I wondered. I closed the tab, opened it fresh, typed the exact same name again. Checked the spelling. Twice. Three times. Same result every single time: absolutely nothing. This game didn't exist anywhere on the entire internet.
I shook my head, grabbed my phone from the edge of my desk, and reopened the app store page. And—there it still was. The exact same game. The same silver-thread-and-golden-needle icon. The same title: The Loom. And that green download button was still sitting there, bright and waiting.
But why not on my computer? Did I forget to update something? Or was there something else I was completely missing?
I started swiping frantically through every result, trying to find any way to download it for PC. Why? Why? Why? The question looped over and over in my head, faster and louder. But it was all the same: zero information. It was like this game existed nowhere else in this whole world—only on this tiny little phone screen.
Heh…
I sighed a long, heavy breath and stared up at my blank ceiling. This was getting weird. I glanced back down at the page—where it usually showed how many people were playing, there was only one single number:
0 Players
Haha. I must've misread it anyway. Or maybe it's just some brand-new game that hasn't even fully launched yet. If that's the case, whatever—I'll just play it on my phone. Even if the screen's tiny, who cares? Let's give it a shot. It'll kill the boredom at least.
I set my now-cold mug down on the desk edge. Then I held my phone with both hands, zoomed in just enough so that green download button sat clear and bright before me.
My right finger hovered slowly closer, inches from the glass surface, before it began to lower down toward that glowing green button.
Just as my fingertip was about to touch the screen—
Wait a second…