The next morning began the way most of Eli's mornings did — with the faint static of his alarm cutting through a room that hadn't seen daylight in days. He blinked hard at the glow of his monitor, still faintly pulsing from where he'd left Eternal Nexus open overnight. The client was frozen on the post-match screen from last night's ranked game — another loss, another hollow number sliding down the ladder.
He hadn't meant to fall asleep in his chair again. His neck hurt. His back hurt. The half-empty energy drink can on the desk had gone flat, and his phone was buried somewhere under a stack of takeout containers. For a moment, he just sat there, breathing in the stale air of his one-room apartment and watching the cursor blink on his screen.
Prometheus_9 — Bronze II (39 LP)
The numbers sat there like a verdict.
He stared until the letters stopped meaning anything. Then, slowly, he opened the Nexus subreddit. A dozen threads filled the front page — patch notes, highlight clips, pro scrim leaks, and one post titled "The Rook Effect: How one streamer broke the ladder."
He clicked it.
The post wasn't long — mostly speculation. Rook had apparently climbed from Gold to Master in a week on a public account. People were debating whether it was skill, luck, or just a smurfing stunt to promote his upcoming stream series. But what caught Eli's attention was one comment buried halfway down:
"Anyone else notice how his plays don't match the current meta? It's like he's seeing the game differently. Like… he's predicting patches before they happen."
Eli felt a tiny pulse of curiosity. He'd watched Rook's streams before. The guy was calm, precise — never tilted, never desperate. Even when losing, he seemed in control. Like he was playing a version of Eternal Nexus that was one layer deeper than everyone else's.
He clicked on Rook's profile. The next stream was scheduled for tonight.
For the first time in days, Eli made breakfast — instant oats, half a banana. He opened his window to let some air in, listening to the street below: cars, a barking dog, the faint hum of a world that didn't know Eternal Nexus even existed.
But he did. He felt it calling him back.
By afternoon, he'd logged nearly five hours in solo queue. His rank hadn't budged, but his focus had. He was starting to see things he'd never noticed before — small rhythm shifts in lane rotations, timing patterns in jungle clears, the way most players reacted to fog-of-war pressure. He began to imagine the game like a living machine, all moving parts and predictable triggers.
Each match became a quiet laboratory for him to test ideas. He muted teammates, ignored pings, and instead listened — to footsteps, to ability sounds, to silence. The silence mattered most. It was where mistakes were born.
At one point, his champion — Kira, the Blade Warden — dodged a perfect gank purely off timing. No vision, no ward. Just a gut feeling. It startled him.
He leaned back in his chair.
That was the first time he'd felt like a real competitor again.
When evening came, he tuned into Rook's stream.
The chat was exploding — thousands of messages a minute. The camera showed Rook's calm, unreadable face framed by dim blue light. He looked half-asleep but deadly focused. His voice, when he spoke, was low and patient.
"Alright," Rook said to his viewers. "Let's climb."
The game loaded in. Rook played Seris, one of the hardest mid-lane champions in Nexus — high mechanics, low forgiveness. Within minutes, he was dancing between projectiles, reading enemy cooldowns like sheet music. His minimap awareness was uncanny. Every time an enemy rotated, he was already there.
Eli watched, entranced. He started jotting down notes — Rook's item timings, ward placements, positioning angles. None of it felt random. Everything had intent.
And then, halfway through the match, Rook's champion stopped moving.
The chat exploded.
"Lag???""No way he DC'd again lol.""ROOK???"
For nearly ten seconds, the camera showed him just staring at the screen. Then he leaned forward slightly.
"Prometheus," he said.
Eli froze.
"You're in chat, right?"
For a split second, Eli thought he'd misheard. But the streamer's eyes — cool, steady, unblinking — seemed fixed on something beyond the camera.
The chat went wild. People spammed "WHO'S PROMETHEUS" and "scripted???" but Rook didn't smile. Didn't blink.
"Keep playing," Rook murmured. "You're closer than you think."
Then he unpaused, resumed the match, and the moment was gone.
Eli stared at his monitor, his heart pounding. How could Rook know that name? Prometheus_9 wasn't connected to any of his social accounts. It wasn't even public outside the game client.
He rewound the stream, checking the captions. It was there — clear as day. Rook saying his in-game name like it was an everyday thing.
He opened his Nexus account page, checking for leaks, linked profiles — nothing. No email, no Discord tag, no Twitch link. There was no way Rook should know him.
That night, Eli couldn't focus. He tried queuing again but his hands trembled too much. Every match felt like static. His mind replayed that clip over and over — Rook's voice, low and certain: "You're closer than you think."
By midnight, he gave up and turned off his monitor. The apartment fell silent except for the faint buzz of the streetlight outside.
He was halfway through brushing his teeth when his phone buzzed.
Unknown Number(1 new message)
He wiped his hands, unlocked the screen.
ROOK: You learn fast.
Eli's breath caught.
He stared at the message until the screen dimmed, then brightened again.
Another message.
ROOK: Tomorrow. 9 PM. Watch the ladder.
And then — nothing. No profile picture. No reply option. Just two messages hanging there like bait in dark water.
Outside, a car passed by, its headlights sliding across the blinds. The air felt suddenly colder.
He set the phone down, but his pulse didn't slow.
Tomorrow. 9 PM.
Eli sat in the dark, the glow of the screen fading out beside him — unsure if this was the start of a dream, or the point where it began to swallow him whole.