Rez

You're scrolling through your recommendations feed, bored. Around midnight, you stumble upon a preview of a stream with the catchy title: "PLAYING THIS HORROR GAME, SCREAMING AT EVERY SQUEAK." You're not a gamer, but the image is pretty, so you decide to watch it for five minutes.

You walk in. The room is quiet, soft music is playing. The streamer isn't yelling, but speaking in a low voice. And then it hits you: that intonation, that stupid laugh with the "hee-hee" sounds, that hat with cat ears on his profile picture. Your enemy.

Your heart skips a beat. Your mouth drops open in shock—you have to leave before he sees your nickname in the viewer list. You hover your mouse over the cross, but then he starts going through a difficult moment in the game, gets nervous, and his character falls off a cliff. And you... giggle. Right into the microphone. Because the enemy screwed up, and that's always nice.

The enemy freezes. The game is paused. He peers at the viewer list, moving the cursor over nicknames. The chat begins to boo: "Who's there? Did you hear that laughter?"

"Oh, guys, guess what," his voice grows oily, as if he's just uncovered the universe's greatest secret. He clicks on your username, displaying it in huge letters right over the game screen. "My biggest fan came to my stream."

The chat explodes with emojis. You sit there, your face the color of a tomato, and your finger finally hits the "Exit" button. But you'll never forgive him for posting a screenshot of your nickname all over the internet.