A click here, a double tap of a control group there, and frantic eyes glance all over the screen as their focus rises in intensity.

A spider-like creature with a humanoid upper half sprays green pheromones on a flesh-like structure before the view switches once again.

Keys are constantly tapped and actions are ordered off in a symphony of clicks and clacks as various roars heed their orders. An army is born as many worm-like creatures curl up and balloon into cocoons, all gestating into their new forms. 

Suddenly as the focus on screen had shifted to what seems to be a floating, flesh blimp, a cry resounds and a flash of red appears on the minimap. Frantic clicking and a cursing gasp resounds as two gigantic ships hover over their targets.

Eyes could only watch as hot plasma rained down onto their base and as many of their poor, defenseless workers writhe in pain as they were transformed into charred corpses. The same spider-like creature gnashes in fury as it fires sharp spines upwards against these merciless, metal gods. A loud whirring of a powerful engine, permeates the air before a piercing blast of nuclear energy, puts the pitiful cries of the insect to rest.

With fists clenched, Commander "Fish" sends a single message of defeat only to receive 2 letters in response from the other commander, "|||||||||||". 

"EZ." 

That's what his eyes read as his poor workers are silenced and a defeat screen comes into view.

___________________________________________________________________

"Goddammit!" 

Items spring into the air as two fists strike the table.

"Fucking barcodes and their lame ass cheese strats." A couple of rage infused breaths later," I can't believe I fell for some stupid BC rush tactics, god that's infuriating!"

After a couple seconds of silence, a sigh of disappointment fills the empty room. The young man pushes himself away from his desk, as he rolls in front of a mirror. 

Black hair, black eyes, and a natural tan of an islander, this is commander "Fish". A broke college student who spends all his time playing RTS games, mainly the game "Starcraft 2". 

Leaning back into his ratty chair, the "Fish" lays there trying to process the bad game he just had. He looks around his room trying to shift his focus, eyes drifting to a zergling plushie and its baneling partner. He grabs the two of them and lays them in his lap.

'Man, these were the last gift I got from my parents'

A family photo lays on the stand next to him.

'Wonder how long it's been seen I've seen them'

He looks around his empty apartment and on his desk is a phone with no notifications. A quick scroll through messages show that the last message he received was a ping from the family group chat , and that was 9 months ago.

"Nagisa" was your practical loner. Barely any friends, barely any goals, nothing to do other than college assignments and games. It was…just life.

Nagisa turns around to his computer, he's done enough moping over a loss.

"You know what? Fuck ladder, I'll just hop into one of the custom versus maps and practice a bit. Maybe I can tighten up my build orders."

He swivels his chair back to the desk trying to numb himself with an escape through the game. Nagisa scrolls through the map pools, the amount of maps makes his head ache.

'It's just the same old games…huh? What's this'

He chooses a random ladder map. The seconds tick by as Nagisa scrolls on his phone as the map loads. As he puts his phone down to focus on the screen, he notices something odd. This isn't the map he remembers choosing but the map preview doesn't look like any map he has seen so far. 

'Did I choose a different map by accident? Not only that but why is the A.I Portrait a person, I thought I set it to A.I. How'd a player get in here?"

Nagisa tries to alt-tab so he can snip a screenshot, failing a few tries but the screen doesnt switch.

'I can't alt-tab…damn old laptop. Agh nevermind the game is starting, I don't really want to think right now'

As Nagisa loads up his Zerg base, his headache starts to pound.

'Man, I wish I could command the Zerg in real life, god that would be more fun. Being part of a hivemind, surrounded by fellow members of the swarm'

As the seconds tick by, the drones fill the mineral line, Nagisa's wish gets stronger.

More and more thoughts begin flowing and as Nagisa finishes building his spawning pool and starts queuing up his Queen, everything goes black and he feels...

Nothing

An absence of all stimulus

Only for that to also end, as a weird awareness begins to form.

An awareness of small dots moving about, with a majority of them all flowing in some direction as if being led somewhere. One by one, the "dots" slowly float before coming to a short stop as if moving through something thick in consistency only to suddenly pop through as if the barrier wasn't there.

Some of these dots pass through fine while some lose their place in the flow and start veering off out of the range of awareness. 

A large chunk of the dots end up veering off until only a small group of them are left. They continue moving until one of the dots suddenly stops, and then it begins to change.

An imperceptible change happens to the group that has stopped and it begins to attract the dots that are left.

As the last dot begins to merge together, a new sensation forms. 

A blurry light begins to shine behind the orb and grows in intensity, growing in an escalating crescendo until...

________________________________

"Hey, It's time to wake up! It's almost afternoon and you shouldn't be sleeping this long"

Two eyes pop open revealing two pale, yellow eyes.

"Shit…" mumbles the familiar figure.