Neon
runlights drew me through the crowd of flashing screens and glassy-eyed
prisoners. A synthetic siren song cried out across the darkness,
tugging my heart through the beaded curtain at the rear. All those years
have passed and still no force on Earth had managed to destroy the
thing. All I had left was a prayer and a dream.
All I had left was a quarter.
Golden pillars flanked the cabinet seated like a throne at the far end of a dark red carpet. A full moon crossed with a human face beamed at me from the baby blue sides, wreathed in the chirping birds and spitting octopi that composed the game's enemies. It's charming artwork mocked the building panic in my heart as I watched the looping demo video.
A small ship swept into the sky, weaving through a maze of asteroids and fireballs while shooting down the cutesey fleet.
It would pick up powers, blasting lasers and shotgun pellets, and the automatic hero would fight its way nearly to the end of the level, where the boss's barest edge would manifest itself before a stray bullet doomed my avatar with a grating, digitized laugh that shattered on my brain like a glass full of razor wire. Every forty-five seconds that little hero would swoop out again, only to meet their doom.
My son had loved this game so much. I couldn't count the times I'd lost him in the mall and tracked him here, transmuting his entire week's allowance into a cosmic adventure. And never once had it seemed strange to me that only one lone game stood in this sequestered room. I could see no other outlets, no tracks on the floor where other cabinets might have stood...
It was not until the burial that I came to see this place as It's Lair. This was where It hungered. This was where It fed.
This was where I found him heaped up and leaking out onto the carpet while the moon with a man's face watched and laughed.
I fled from myself after that. I left home and crumbled in the alleys of the night, waiting for an answer I thought would fall from the heavens. But every year since, on the anniversary of his last day, I come back here to try again.
The quarter was my key. I took a deep breath, placed my key in the lock, and opened the door.
And in the brief fanfare the creature buzzed as the token slid through its mechanism, I swore I heard his voice...
All I had left was a quarter.
Golden pillars flanked the cabinet seated like a throne at the far end of a dark red carpet. A full moon crossed with a human face beamed at me from the baby blue sides, wreathed in the chirping birds and spitting octopi that composed the game's enemies. It's charming artwork mocked the building panic in my heart as I watched the looping demo video.
A small ship swept into the sky, weaving through a maze of asteroids and fireballs while shooting down the cutesey fleet.
It would pick up powers, blasting lasers and shotgun pellets, and the automatic hero would fight its way nearly to the end of the level, where the boss's barest edge would manifest itself before a stray bullet doomed my avatar with a grating, digitized laugh that shattered on my brain like a glass full of razor wire. Every forty-five seconds that little hero would swoop out again, only to meet their doom.
My son had loved this game so much. I couldn't count the times I'd lost him in the mall and tracked him here, transmuting his entire week's allowance into a cosmic adventure. And never once had it seemed strange to me that only one lone game stood in this sequestered room. I could see no other outlets, no tracks on the floor where other cabinets might have stood...
It was not until the burial that I came to see this place as It's Lair. This was where It hungered. This was where It fed.
This was where I found him heaped up and leaking out onto the carpet while the moon with a man's face watched and laughed.
I fled from myself after that. I left home and crumbled in the alleys of the night, waiting for an answer I thought would fall from the heavens. But every year since, on the anniversary of his last day, I come back here to try again.
The quarter was my key. I took a deep breath, placed my key in the lock, and opened the door.
And in the brief fanfare the creature buzzed as the token slid through its mechanism, I swore I heard his voice...
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