Within ten seconds, I count five flying arms and a trulyexcessiveamount of blood and gore. I’m as horrified as I am fascinated by it. “Wow. That’swaymore graphic than I was expecting.”
Elias pauses the game. “I’ll turn it off.”
I point at the frozen screen. “What happens if you pick up the glowing purple bottle? Can you blow someone up with it, or is it like medicine? Your health got low when you got too close to the last grenade.”
Elias glances at me as I’m wondering if you can climb up those stairs to get outside or to the next level. Out of the corner of my eye, Hunter drops into the seat beside me.
“The purple pot is for health,” Elias explains, unpausing the game. “You pick it up like this.”
I bounce my gaze between the screen and his controller, then glance at mine so I remember which buttons I need to press when it’s my turn.
“You ready to have a go?” Elias asks.
Heart pounding, I lick my lips. “What if I die?”
He snorts. “No worries. You get three lives.”
When he puts it like that, it seems stupid to worry. “Okay.”
He takes his time running through how the controller works, patiently answering all my questions and telling me exactly what I need to do: kill every zombie before they kill me. It makes perfect sense, and even the controller feels less strange in my hand the longer I hold it.
“Ready?” Elias asks.
“I’m ready.” I take a deep breath and release it along with the nerves in my belly.
Two seconds later, I’m dead.
A zombie ran at me. My thoughts scattered, and I started panic-pounding buttons, running in a mad half-circle before the zombies killed me.
It feels a lot like my real-life response to stressors. When something scares me, I freeze or run like a crazy person until I force myself to stop and think. I havegotto stop doing that.
“Well, that went worse than expected,” I say as the screen turns black. “Three lives, you said?” I sit up, rolling my neck and determined to do better next time.
Elias grins at me. “Three lives.”
I scoot forward in my seat, my ass hanging off the edge of the couch as I shut out the world for the next ten minutes. It’s just me, the controller clasped in my sweaty mitts, and the zombies on the screen that I need to kill.
Hunter’s voice is warm with amusement as he whispers in my ear, “Are you mashing the buttons and hoping for the best?”
Between mashing said buttons, I shoot Hunter a rapid glance to find him grinning at me. “I need a strategy that won’t immediately kill me, and this one is working,” I hiss, hoping Elias doesn’t mind me abusing his controller like this.A giant, lumbering zombie charges at me faster than a dead thing should ever move.
I wrench my gaze back to the screen, hammering the buttons as I scream. “Die already!DIE!” I pound the controls and screech in frustration, flopping back onto the couch when it kills me. I couldn’t understand why Elias would want to fling his controller across the room.
NowI get it.
Now I absolutely get it.
“He just wouldn’t die,” I wail. “I kept hitting him and hitting him, and he just wouldn’t die.”
“That’s the motherfucker that got me before,” Elias explains with a sympathy that makes me want to hug him. “What you've gotta do is run at him and hit him hard and fast. Don’t wait for him to get to you. You might need your ax instead of your guns for this.”
I sit up, narrowing my eyes at Elias. “Ax? How big is it, and can I take his head off with it?”
Five minutes later, I’ve killed the zombie and moved onto the next level. When I turn to hand the controller to Elias, the room is fuller than when I entered it.
Hunter is grinning on my left, Knox is back from his run, though he’s still sweaty in his shorts and black tank top, and even Wyatt is leaning against the wall just inside the room with his arms crossed.
“That was really fun.” I kiss Elias on the cheek. “I’m going up to bed now, but can I play again with you tomorrow?”
