"Whyyy? You're impossible! Damn!" Michael yelled into Mason's gaming headset making Mason who was deep asleep, jerk up.
"What's going on" Mason asked slowly coming out of his drowsy state, but he realized his brother was on his gaming desk with his headset on when he got no response.
He checked his phone and it was 6:30am. He mumbled a cuss word to himself before going back to sleep.
"Not again! Are you trying to mess with me? Come on man, my brother designed this freaking game!" Michael yelled again into the headset. "Yeah? and you're living in your mother's fucking basement because you don't have fucking a life, punk!" He was livid.
Picking up a small ball, Mason launched it straight at his brother who jerked and spun the gaming chair to meet his angry gaze.
"I'm sorry man, was I too loud?" He asked, taking the headset off and setting it down.
"You think? I thought someone was trying to murder you or something" Mason yawned and scratched his head. He was tired.
"Yeah, I was murdered alright. Five freaking times! That loser wouldn't let me make it past the train station. It's like he's waiting there just to make my life difficult" Michael complained. "I wish you could ban him or something"
Mason chuckled and shook his head, "Ban him? What are you talking about? He has done nothing wrong. Besides, gamers like him make the game interesting. Come on, I'll show you how to get him back." He stood up and walked towards Michael.
"You don't think I've exhausted every move on this clown?" Michael let out in frustration.
"You must've tried every move but I made the bloody game, step aside robin let Batman take it from here. " Mason replied cockily and collected the headset and control pad from him. He dramatically cracked his knuckles and whispered to himself, "Alright, it's showtime!"
A female gaming automated voice said "Welcome back Beast, are you ready for the ride into the deadly city of no return? Out here, It's kill or be killed baby". " Choose mode", she continued, to which Mason choose "continue"
In the game, Mason appeared with his brother's game character in a train filled with crackheads, zombies, undeads, a couple of different types of monsters. He started killing the monsters coming to him and started running to the back of the train, killing more undead along the way. After the train stopped for more monsters to come in and go out, his character was at the back door of the train. He opened it and jumped out of the train but instead of moving away from the train, he climbed the train and started moving on his belly on the top of train. After moving to the head of the train away from the entrance door of the train, he jumped from the train and snuck up on another player called "bootahgod" who was laying siege waiting for him to come out of the train.
"That's the punk!" Michael yelled pointing at his sworn game enemy.
Drawing out a sledgehammer, Mason struck unsuspecting "bootahgod" in one blow.
A loud "Noooooooo" could be heard from the headphone as the other character dies in the game. Michael jumped in victory and let out a satisfactory "Take that!"
"Thanks man, I got it from here" he continued collecting the control pad and headset from Mason who had paused the game.
"Sure, here you go." Mason stood up from the chair and moved towards his bed leaving Michael to continue playing the game.
Mason picked up his phone from his bed side table as he sunk into his bed. There were over 150 messages on his WhatsApp but 50 of it was from Jessica, his girlfriend. Jessica and Mason had been in an on-and-off relationship that Mason concluded was more of a situationship. She seemed so vain to him. She was a very beautiful brunette with a body that Mason thought about each time they broke up, which is why he never could completely get rid of her.
They had been introduced to each other when he was a freshman in college at a mutual friend's party. He was now about to be in his second year and they had been on and off for more than seven times. He loved her but he felt like being with her was more for her social media content than companionship. Everytime they took a break, it's Jessica who calls it quits and over the silliest things but she's also the sweetest person when they're not fighting. She was a social media influencer with over a million followers on Instagram and she'd rather they looked perfect in pictures—where only his body parts like his hands or feet or shoulders were visible but that's because he told her he wasn't ready to be caught up in her media crazed followers and their unrealistic relationship expectations—than in real life when he wants to have a real conversation with her. Lately, whenever they were not doing any activity that had to make them be in their birthday suits, they'd go on boring dates just for her to get "romantic" contents for her followers. They never spoke while she filmed the dates, and after the process, they'd eat in silence as she tries to edit her contents. Initially, he thought it was interesting watching her work so dedicatedly but when she stopped paying attention to their relationship, he found other things to focus on, such as his favorite hobby and business which turned him into a multi-millionaire; programming games.
This hobby started when he was 10. He loved to play games and eventually got interested in learning how to make it. He spoke to his mother who has a soft spot for her favorite lookalike son and would do anything for him. She introduced him to some of her tech friends behind his father's back at first because "joining the family's billion dollars businesses" meant more to his father than designing what he called "silly games". His mum did not share that shallow mindset so she went on to pay for professional classes for him, and by the time he was 12, he designed his first game. By 15, he had developed a couple of games and had six gaming companies offering him contracts of over one to five billion dollars to buy off his games but he rejected them all. To him, the contracts were not worth his games. At 18, his games were doing so well and he had made three times what those companies offered him and his game was worth more with a huge fanbase across the world but nobody knew the face of who made the games they loved. When he was done with highschool, his father decided that it was time for him to go to college and join one of the Scott family businesses; Oil and gas, Winery or Automobiles. He loved and respected his father even though his father never really acted like he cared for him as he hoped.
Mason Scott grew up in a family of six. He had three elder brothers who cared about him; Matt, Mark, and Michael. He was closest to Michael because they were 3 years apart and they basically grew up doing everything together. Nobody knew he was part of the Scott dynasty largely because he was a private person and also because he looked different from his older brothers. He was 6"2, the shortest of all his brothers with brown hair like his mother. His brother all had black hair like their father. Mason had green eyes like his mother while his brothers all had brown eyes. He had his mother's nose, ears and lips. He looked nothing like his father besides the height. He was gentle in nature but he was very confident, eloquent, reserved and always eluded finesse in his mannerism. With the beards he suddenly started keeping, he looked devilishly handsome. He was built in a sexy way with toned stomach muscles and broad chest. His brothers were equally hot and handsome but Mason had a gentle godlike aura.
His father decided that he would be part of the automobile company and he didn't decline because he knew that as long as he didn't disagree, his father wouldn't be transfer aggression to his mother who loved his father and was willing to remain with him till death do them part, and he wouldn't interfere in his "hobby".
He was now 21, going for his third year in college studying as an automobile engineer in Brasswell College, New York.
He scrolled through the messages from Jessica. She was upset because he didn't text her the previous day and didn't come for the impromptu brunch she had organized in Beverly hills with some of her friends. He was indifferent by the texts. He didn't care, he knew she was upset but he was just too bored to care.
The day before, he had been working on one of his game that developed a bug and that took him hours to find and deal with. He worked on it till 4am today, throughout this time, he kept his phone on Do Not Disturb—as usual.
In the text, she said he had embarrassed her by not showing up and she knew he was busy with his games—she knew he loved games but didn't know he programmed them professionally. She also said she'd always known zombies and vampires meant more to him than her.
He just rolled his eyes, shook his head, shrugged and murmured, "Well, they're not on their phone all day asking their fans stuff like 'isn't this like totally fabulous?' like you fucking do."
When he got to the part of the texts where she called off their relationship again, he didn't feel anything. It was like he didn't mind. Instead, he was relieved that it'll be another two weeks of him being completely free before she comes back crying and telling him how she can't do without him. He knew he had a few days till the circle will continues.
He noticed she had blocked him on WhatsApp. So he checked if she did the same thing on other social media and she did. Scoffing, he said "Do something different. You're too predictable and it's boring. Ugh! I need someone exciting!"
Just as he was about to check up on another text from another girl he had been texting, a text message from his friend, Dylan came in, "Sup man"
"You know how it is. What's going on with you?"
"I saw an IG story update from Jess, another breakup?"
"Yk it"
"So, what caused it this time? Another ghosting?"
"I didn't attend her impromptu brunch date with her friends. I was working on F4 update. She got pissed and we're done."
"Do you wanna keep this up?"
He didn't respond immediately. He already knew what it'll be.
"Not sure I wanna do this anymore. Her ass is not worth it anymore. I'm just really bored, Man. Besides, I'm texting this girl from Toby's party. She's pretty entertaining."
Then he put his phone down and just walked out of his room to go get a glass of water.
Dylan and Mason have been friends since childhood. They live in the same neighborhood in Brentwood, California. They have been inseparable since they first met each other when they were two years old at one of Dylan's mother's quarterly community parties. This party was exclusive to some of Brentwood's residence and it is still strictly on invite. They go to the same college and even lived in same apartment at college. They always play all of Mason's games before he releases them to the public. They understand each other's mood even when they're apart from each other. They were also business partners.