CHAPTER 1
The screen didn’t just lag. It betrayed him.
Li Bai’s fingers hovered over the mechanical keyboard, muscle memory honed by ten thousand hours of muscle-tearing, eye-bleeding practice. The combo was simple. Shift-strike-dash-cancel. He’d executed it in his sleep. He’d executed it while drunk. He’d executed it while his mother was dying in a hospital bed three states away.
But when his brain sent the signal to his index finger, the signal got lost in the dark.
A 0.5-second gap. Half a second.
In the real world, half a second is the time it takes to blink. In the server, it was an eternity. His character stood frozen, a sitting duck, while the enemy’s crosshairs snapped to his chest.
Bang.
The screen dissolved into the grey wash of the death cam.
Li Bai didn’t breathe. He stared at the grey screen, his heart hammering a frantic, irregular rhythm against his ribs. The arena speakers blasted the victor’s theme, a deafening roar of digital cheers that made his left eye throb with a sudden, vicious spike of pain.
He blinked. A shadow flickered in the periphery of his vision. A jagged line of static, like a cracked television screen, bloomed in the upper left corner of his sight. He rubbed his eye hard, pressing the heel of his palm into the socket until stars exploded behind his eyelids.
When he opened his eyes, the static was gone. But his left hand was trembling.
Not the adrenaline shake of a close match. This was different. It was a fine, high-frequency vibration, like his nerves were misfiring. He looked down at his fingers. His ring finger twitched independently, curling inward toward his palm. He tried to straighten it. It wouldn’t obey.
Choke. Washed. Retirement home.
The chat on the side monitor scrolled in a blur of toxic neon text. Li Bai didn’t need to read it. He knew the rhythm of their cruelty. He’d typed those same words about other players when he was seventeen, arrogant and invincible, sitting on a throne of prize money and sponsorships.
Now, at twenty-two, the throne was crumbling, and he couldn’t even feel his left hand.
He ripped his headset off. The sudden silence of the booth was suffocating, broken only by the muffled, frantic shouting of his coach through the soundproof glass. Li Bai didn’t look at the glass. He shoved his chair back so hard it slammed into the wall, the plastic cracking under the impact.
He stood up. The arena lights were too bright. They felt like physical weight pressing down on his skull, driving a spike of white-hot agony behind his left eye. He tasted copper.
“Li Bai!” The coach burst into the booth, face red, veins popping in his neck. “What the fuck was that? You had the angle! You just froze!”
Li Bai looked at him. He wanted to say it was lag. He wanted to say his mouse slipped. But the words caught in his throat, tangling on his tongue. Aphasia. The medical term floated up from some dark, buried corner of his memory.
“My hand,” Li Bai rasped. His voice sounded thick, like he was speaking through a mouthful of cotton.
“What?”
“My hand.” Li Bai shoved past his coach, ignoring the man’s sputtering outrage. He pushed through the heavy soundproof door into the backstage hallway. The concrete floor felt spongy under his sneakers. The air smelled of stale sweat, ozone, and cheap energy drinks.
He found a bathroom, kicked the door open, and locked it.
Gripping the edges of the porcelain sink, Li Bai stared into the mirror. The face looking back at him was a stranger. His skin was the color of old ash. His left eyelid was drooping, just a millimeter, but enough to make him look half-asleep.
He turned on the cold water and splashed it on his face. The shock of it grounded him for a second. He was Li Bai. The 0.5 Second King. He was twenty-two. He was invincible.
He looked down at his left hand. The trembling had stopped. The ring finger was straight.
“Just caffeine,” he whispered to the empty bathroom. “Just exhaustion. Just stress.”
He turned off the tap. He dried his hands. He walked out of the bathroom, past the staring tournament staff, and out into the cool night air. He didn’t wait for the team van. He walked.
The apartment was dark when he got home.
He liked it that way. Dark meant no reflections. No mirrors. No reminders of the drooping eyelid or the trembling fingers. He dropped his keys on the counter. The sound was too loud in the quiet space.
He didn’t turn on the lights. He navigated by memory to his personal setup in the corner of the living room. He booted up the rig. The RGB lights flared to life, casting a bloody, neon glow across the walls.
Prove it, he thought. Just play one game. Prove it was just a fluke.
He queued for solo rank. The match loaded. He picked his main.
For the first ten minutes, he was a god. His fingers flew. The clicks were a machine-gun staccato. He was back. It was just fatigue. It was nothing.
Then, at minute fourteen, he went for a flash-dodge.
His left pinky didn’t press the key.
His character didn’t dodge. The enemy skill shot hit him square in the chest. He died.
Li Bai stared at the screen. The grey death cam washed over his face again.
He tried to type gg in the chat. His fingers stumbled. He typed g. He tried to type the second g. His hand locked up. The muscles in his forearm seized, a hard, painful knot that shot up to his elbow.
He yanked his hand away from the keyboard. He cradled it against his chest, his breath coming in short, ragged gasps. The pain behind his left eye flared again, a blinding, nauseating throb that made the room tilt.
He stood up, knocking his chair over. He needed water. He needed to wash his face. He needed—
He walked into the kitchen. He stood in front of the counter. He stared at the kettle.
Why was he here?
He looked around. Kitchen. Kettle. Empty cup. Right. Water.
He filled the kettle. He set it on the stove. He turned the burner on. He watched the blue flame lick the metal. He watched the water begin to simmer. He watched it boil.
He stood there. The water boiled away. The kettle began to whistle, a high, shrieking sound that drilled into his skull. The metal glowed red. The plastic handle began to melt, filling the kitchen with the acrid, chemical stench of burning polymer.
Li Bai just watched it. He couldn’t look away. His brain felt like it was wrapped in wet cotton. He had forgotten what he was doing. He had forgotten why he was standing there.
The smoke alarm chirped.
The sound broke the spell. Li Bai gasped, stumbling backward as if he’d been physically struck. He grabbed a towel, threw it over the kettle, and twisted the stove dial off. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely grip the metal.
He backed away from the stove, his chest heaving. He looked at his hands. He looked at the melted kettle.
It’s not stress, a voice whispered in the back of his mind. A cold, clinical voice. You know what it is.
He walked back to his bedroom. He dropped to his knees in front of the bottom drawer of his dresser. He reached behind a stack of folded winter sweaters, his fingers brushing against the cold, stiff cardboard of a manila folder.
He pulled it out.
He didn’t need to open it. He knew what was inside. He knew the heavy, cream-colored paper of the neurologist’s letterhead. He knew the terrifying, multi-syllabic words that had been printed in black and white three days ago.
Cerebral Autosomal Dominant Arteriopathy with Subcortical Infarcts and Leukoencephalopathy.
CADASIL.
He had taken the genetic test because his vision had been blurring for months. Because the migraines were blinding him. Because his hands wouldn’t stop shaking. He thought it was a pinched nerve. He thought it was carpal tunnel.
The neurologist hadn’t looked him in the eye when she gave him the results.
It’s a genetic disorder, Mr. Li. It affects the small blood vessels in your brain. It causes migraines, strokes, cognitive decline, and eventually... severe dementia.
How long? he had asked.
It varies. But it is progressive. And it is fatal.
Li Bai stared at the folder in his hands. The edges were already fraying from how many times he’d gripped it in the dark.
A sudden, violent rage exploded in his chest. It wasn’t just anger; it was a primal, terrified fury. He was twenty-two. He was at the top of his game. He was supposed to be immortal.
He stood up and hurled the folder across the room. It hit the wall with a dull thack and slid to the floor.
He grabbed his keyboard. He lifted it over his head and smashed it down onto the edge of the desk. Keys exploded like shrapnel. The spacebar shot across the room and pinged against the window.
He didn’t stop. He grabbed the mouse, wrapped the cord around his fist, and hurled it at the monitor. The screen spider-webbed, the glass cracking down the center, fracturing his reflection into a dozen jagged, broken pieces.
He stood in the dark, chest heaving, his knuckles split and bleeding. He had won. He had destroyed the things that were destroying him.
But his hand was still shaking.
The lock clicked.
Li Bai froze. He didn’t turn around. He just stared at the shattered monitor.
The door swung open. The hallway light spilled in, cutting across the dark room, illuminating the scattered keys and the bleeding knuckles.
Meiko stood in the doorway.
She didn’t gasp. She didn’t scream. She just stood there, taking in the destruction. She was wearing a thin grey jacket, her dark hair pulled back into a messy clip. Her eyes, sharp and dark, swept over the room and landed on him.
“You’re bleeding,” she said. Her voice was flat. Deceptively calm.
“Go away, Meiko.”
She stepped inside. She kicked a broken keycap out of her way. “It’s 4 AM, Li Bai. The coach called me. Said you walked out of the arena and didn’t answer your phone.”
“I said go away.”
She walked past him. She didn’t look at the broken monitor. She went straight to the kitchen. He heard the faucet turn on. He heard her stop.
“Li Bai.” Her voice was sharper now. “Why does the kitchen smell like burning plastic?”
“I forgot the kettle.”
She walked back into the bedroom. She stopped a few feet from him. She looked at his hands. She looked at the blood dripping from his knuckles onto the carpet.
“Sit,” she commanded.
“No.”
“I didn’t ask.” She walked to the bathroom, returned a moment later with the first aid kit. She grabbed his wrist. Her grip was surprisingly strong. She pulled him down onto the edge of the bed.
She poured alcohol on a cotton pad. When she pressed it to his split knuckles, he hissed, trying to pull away. She held him firm.
“You’ve lost matches before,” she said, her eyes focused on his hand. Her voice was quiet, but it carried a dangerous edge. “You’ve broken mice before. You’ve yelled at coaches. But you’ve never melted a kettle. And you’ve never smashed a two-thousand-dollar monitor.”
“It was lagging,” he muttered.
“Don’t lie to me.” She stopped wrapping the gauze. She looked up. Her dark eyes locked onto his. “Look at me.”
He kept his eyes on the floor.
“Li Bai. Look at me.”
He raised his head.
She saw it immediately. She always saw it. Her gaze flicked to his left eye. To the slight, almost imperceptible droop of his eyelid.
Her breath hitched. Just a fraction. But he heard it.
“What is wrong with you?” she whispered. The calm was gone. The fear was bleeding through.
“Nothing.”
“You’ve been having migraines for six months. You’ve been dropping things. You walk into rooms and forget why you’re there.” She stood up, backing away from him. “I thought it was burnout. I thought the pressure was getting to you. But this...” She gestured to the room. “This isn’t burnout.”
“Meiko, stop.”
“Where is it?” she demanded.
“Where is what?”
“The folder.” She looked around the room. Her eyes landed on the manila folder lying face-down near the baseboard.
Li Bai’s stomach dropped. “Meiko, don’t.”
She crossed the room in three strides. She picked it up.
“I said don’t!” Li Bai lunged for it, but his left leg gave out. A sudden, terrifying numbness shot down his thigh. He collapsed onto the carpet, his chin hitting the floor.
Meiko froze. She looked at him on the floor. Then she looked at the folder in her hands.
She opened it.
The silence in the room was absolute. The only sound was the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen and the ragged, shallow sound of Li Bai’s breathing.
He watched her read. He watched the color drain from her face, leaving her skin as pale as the paper in her hands. He watched her eyes dart back and forth across the medical jargon.
When she finally looked up, her eyes were bright with unshed tears. But her voice, when it came, was a shattered whisper.
“CADASIL,” she read.
Li Bai closed his eyes. He pressed his forehead against the cold carpet. “Yeah.”
“Strokes. Dementia. Progressive.” She swallowed hard. “Fatal.”
“Yeah.”
“How long?”
“They don’t know. Could be years. Could be months.”
Meiko dropped the folder. It hit the floor with a soft slap. She covered her mouth with both hands. A small, broken sound escaped her throat.
Li Bai pushed himself up onto his knees. He reached for her. “Meiko, I’m sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought... I thought if I just played through it, if I just ignored it—”
“Shut up,” she choked out. She wouldn’t look at him. She was staring at the floor. At the folder.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, the words tasting like ash. “I’m so sorry.”
Meiko slowly lowered her hands. She looked at him. Her face was a mask of absolute, devastating grief. But then, her eyes drifted down. Down to his stomach. Down to the floor where the folder lay open.
She wasn’t looking at his face anymore. She was looking at the words on the page.
Autosomal Dominant.
Her breath stopped. The blood vanished from her face entirely.
“Li Bai,” she whispered. Her voice was trembling so violently she could barely form the words.
“What?”
She pointed a shaking finger at the paper. “It says here... it says it’s autosomal dominant.”
Li Bai stared at her. The medical terms were a blur to him. “What does that mean?”
Meiko looked up at him. The tears finally spilled over, tracking silently down her pale cheeks. She looked toward the hallway. Toward the nursery. Toward the room where their six-month-old son, Li Fan, was sleeping in his crib.
“It means,” she sobbed, her voice breaking into a thousand jagged pieces, “that there is a fifty percent chance you just passed it to our baby.”
Li Bai stopped breathing.
The room spun. The grey screen of his death cam faded in over his vision. The half-second gap had returned, and this time, it was never going to close.
