OverRealmed

When I imagined fighting for the world title of best e-sports team, I always imagined I’d be a nervous wreck. It came down to the wire: the final round, game point, winner takes it all. We had just lost the previous round, and now our opponents were on the same level as us. I needed to tell my friends something—something that would get them fired up but focused at the same time. I didn’t need anyone getting nervous on us.

I looked around. What a sight to see. This was something I’d be lucky to even dream of. In front of me was my monitor and my entire setup. To my left were eleven of my friends, teammates I was lucky to have. There were thirteen of us in the group, myself included. Unfortunately, one of us had to sit out, he was probably watching us somewhere in the crowd. Peeking around my monitor, I gazed upon thousands-no, tens of thousands—of people watching us play. And that was just the crowd in person; who knows how many more were watching us on a livestream in their own house.

There was no time to soak it all in though. We had a world championship to win. Wiping the sweat off my hands on my shirt I adjusted my mic and started getting my friends organized.

“Alright everyone, this is it. One more round and we take it!” I began. The chat went quiet. “One more round and we get to party and rest. We did not get this far just to lose. I want us to run our usual plan, but I want Dean with me. Sebastian, you’re going to take Other George with you.”

“I was thinking the same thing. I need more of a support rather than a flex,” Sebastian responded.

“I see how it is—you just don’t want me,” Other George said with a fake sniffle. “Just kidding, man. Let’s do this!” Sebastian gave a short chuckle as a response.

A timer started at ten and began counting down. The audience counted along with it.

“Alright everyone! We know what we have to do and what it takes to win. Let’s get this win and take that prize money!” I yelled.

“Right!” everyone responded.

The game started, and we all spawned into the same building. My team already knew what to do, sprinting toward their designated zones. Getting to the zones first is crucial—you gain control of your lines of sight and can properly set up a defenses. Typically most teams send all or majority of their teammates to one zone to guarantee a capture, then from there they spread to the other zones.

Aspen, Dean, and I made our way to Zone A. Aspen plays an aggressive style, constantly applying pressure to her opponents until they crack. Dean, on the other hand, plays more of a support role, watching flanks and only pushing when another teammate does, which works perfectly for me. Out of the entire group, I play the most due to my condition. I also stream on Twitch and run a small podcast when I play my games. Doing those daily has made me the most skilled player in the group, and everyone knows it.

We finally reached the zone. It was an unfinished building under construction. We rushed up worn wooden stairs and spotted the flag ahead, planted in the middle of a half-built room. Concrete walls surrounded us, with exposed rebar jutting out everywhere. All we had to do was stay in the room to begin capturing it, as long as no opponents entered.

“Aspen, you go up and start taking zone A. Dean and I will watch over you,” I said.

“On it! This is weird, there’s no one here,” Aspen said.

She wasn’t wrong. That almost never happens in high-level play. Giving up a zone early is something you never want to do. Attacking a zone is far harder than defending one.

Aspen stepped into the room, and the flag in Zone A began to glow light blue as it slowly flipped to our control.

“Didn’t expect the last round to be this easy,” Aspen said cockily.

Right as she finished the sentence, I heard a faint shuffle behind Dean and me.

“Hey, I hea—”

The crack of a sniper rifle cut me off. Aspen’s character snapped backward, her head jerking before her body collapsed to the floor. I heard her curse through the mic as she waited for the respawn timer.

“Dean, get into the room and prone against the rightmost wall, the sniper can’t hit you from there!” I assured.

Dean followed instantly, sliding into position while keeping his sights trained on an exposed section of wall. As I turned to check behind us, a flashbang clattered onto the floor. The screen exploded into white.

I was blinded.

Luckily, I knew this map well enough to run it with my eyes closed. I bolted left, away from the stairs, just in time. Bullets tore through the air behind me, whizzing past as I stumbled blindly into cover. Unfortunately for my opponent, sound alone told me exactly where he was.

I heard boots pound up the stairs. My vision slowly began to come back in, blurry shapes sharpening into form. I caught sight of the barrel of his weapon as it came into view. I steadied myself, ready.

Another flashbang bounced around the corner.

Sh*t.

Blinded again.

My opponent stepped around the corner. The only thing I could do was blind-fire and hope. Gunfire thundered around me, echoing off the concrete. When my vision finally returned, I was still standing—and my opponent however, wasn’t.

“I got him for you! Now help me finish taking this zone!” Dean shouted.

I moved to his side, and Zone A flipped completely into our control. At the top of my screen, I saw we had captured Zone C as well. Zone B, however, was contested—which didn’t make sense. I had sent most of my team there.

“Guys, what’s happening over at B?” I asked into the mic.

“They beat us here,” Sebastian replied. “They’ve got the whole place rigged with traps. We’re waiting on Luis and Maria to respawn so we can push together.”

My mind started racing. Under these rules, both teams of twelve only have one minute to capture these three zones freely. Once that minute is up, respawning from the original spawn point is disabled. You can only respawn at zones your team controls. If a zone is contested, spawning there takes twice as long. And if one team captures all the zones, the other team can’t respawn at all unless they retake a zone—though by then, the match is practically over. There was ways to claim a quick victory, one of which is to wipe all the opposing team’s players quickly. If they are all waiting to respawn that team loses immediately.

Ideally, you send your whole team to one zone early to guarantee at least one capture, preventing a total wipe. Since most teams do that, spreading your players wisely can sometimes give you a zone completely unattended, just waiting to be taken.

This is exactly what our enemy did.

The enemy wiped everyone we had at Zone B and captured it. Moments later, the first minute expired—of course, right after they secured B. Now, both teams could only respawn at zones they owned.

Zone B was the most important objective on the map. A massive ten-story structure sitting dead center, it was packed with choke points and windows overlooking every angle of the battlefield. A modern-day fortress. Sneaking inside without being spotted was nearly impossible.

I needed a plan—one that let us launch a siege on B without losing control of the zones we already had. My thoughts spiraled through every option until suddenly, it clicked.

“Cameron, Jeremy, do you have anyone holding your zone right now?” I asked.

“We had no one there. C was easy pickings,” Jeremy replied.

“Perfect. I need you both to help us push B. We have to move fast, before they trap every staircase and elevator,” I explained.

“What about guarding C? If we leave, they’ll just take it back,” Jeremy countered.

“Leave Robin,” I said. “Robin, I need you to play the best defense of your entire life.”

Robin usually ran healer whenever he could, never one to enjoy direct combat. “If you see anyone, don’t go for kills—just stall until we get back,” I added. “Luis, Isabel, Maria—respawn at A and link up with us, fast.”

With B in the center, we could attack from multiple angles at once. As long as we kept pressure on them, we could chip away until the zone finally cracked.

My teammates spawned in beside me.

“Careful—we’ve got a sniper watching us. Stay away from the windows,” I warned.

“If there’s a sniper watching us, how are we supposed to leave without getting picked off?” Luis asked.

“You’ve got smokes on you, right?” I said.

“Of course, but we don’t have enough to cover the entire route,” Luis replied, assuming where I was going.

“It’s not for the route,” I said, reloading my weapon. “We need to deal with that sniper first. If we use smokes just to get to B, one of us still goes down—and we’ll keep getting sniped every time we respawn.”

When Aspen was taken out earlier, I had pinpointed the sniper’s general position. It had only been about thirty seconds. They couldn’t have moved far.

Luis let out a long, drawn-out “Ohhh. Alright then, let’s go hunt us a sniper.”

“Sebastian, have your group pressure B,” I ordered. “Keep them from playing aggressive. We need that sniper gone before we join the assault.”

“I’m already on it,” Sebastian shot back. “They killed me, and now I’m pissed. I want revenge.”

“Love the energy,” I said. “Just don’t get carried away. First place gets two million to split.”

Dean and I had already done the math—about a hundred grand each after taxes, split evenly between the twelve of us. Life-changing money for all of us.

“That money’s already ours,” Sebastian replied. “We’ve got two zones, we’re way too far ahead. They’ll have to kill me in real life to stop me from getting paid.”

Sebastian was easily the second most skilled player on the team. He lived for the action, thrived in it. Sometimes that passion made him overly critical of others, but if you wanted to be the best e-sports team in the world, you needed that fire.

“Alright, Dean, you stay here and guard zone A while the rest of us hunt down that sniper.” I let out a deep breath. “This plan needed to be executed flawlessly. “Luis, I pinged where to toss those smokes on your map. Throw them, and we blitz.”

Luis sprinted to a window and lobbed the smoke grenades toward the sniper’s last known position. The area was a sprawling parking lot cluttered with unusable tanks and massive cargo trucks, flanked by two wooden watchtowers with camo netting stretched across their windows. A fence wrapped around the lot, torn open in several places. If I had to guess, the sniper was either long gone or hiding in one of those towers. Either way, our objective was simple: kill the sniper or make sure they were gone; this way we can push without being picked off.

Thick clouds of smoke billowed upward, swallowing the fence line and cutting off any clear sightlines. Luis, Isabel, Maria, and I pushed forward, moving as one toward the parking lot. My mind raced again, stacking backup plans on top of backup plans.

“Up there! Right tower—I see movement!” Isabel called out from a few feet behind us.

“Perfect,” I said. “Everyone focus on the right tower. Luis, take the long way around in case they try to escape.”

Luis broke off and circled wide around the fence. He was a well-rounded player, but he truly shined when playing stealthy—waiting patiently for the perfect moment to strike. Normally, he’d be cracking jokes every minute he could get, but the pressure had flipped a switch in him. He was locked in. He and Isabel had gotten engaged four months ago after dating for five years they are even planning on using their winnings for their wedding. They balanced each other perfectly. Isabel was calm, observant, and precise—a woman of wise words, but never timid. She was the voice of reason behind Luis’s constant tomfoolery.

We slipped through a gap in the fence as the smoke began to thin. The tower stood only a few yards away now. The only way inside was a wooden ladder—an open invitation to get shredded by gunfire. I pulled the pin and tossed a grenade into the tower. The sniper had two options: die to the explosion or die to our rifles. Checkmate.

A small box-shaped object suddenly flew off the tower. The sniper leapt out of the tower to their doom, not holding a weapon, but a remote.

“IT’S A BOMB!” Isabel screamed.

I opened fire on the C4 tumbling toward us. The sniper was trying to take us down with them. Isabel managed to shoot it—but it was too late. The moment her bullet hit the bomb an explosion tore through us, killing Maria and I instantly. The sniper fell to their doom as well, just as my grenade detonated inside the tower, sending rubble and debris flying in every direction.

My screen bled red, then faded into a respawn countdown. Seven seconds. Even that felt like an eternity. The rest of the team immediately began moving toward Zone B to reinforce the assault. My thoughts raced again—now that I was down, I could spawn at either Zone A or Zone C. I made my choice, and the screen loaded.

I spawned into Zone C, where Jeremy and Cam were already waiting.

“They got both of you?” I asked, stunned.

Cam and Jeremy were brothers, nearly identical in playstyle. They worked like a tag team—Cam drawing attention while Jeremy flanked or struck from the side. Their synergy made them brutally difficult to take down, even when outnumbered. Usually, they only went down if one of them was caught off guard or eliminated before they could react.

“Yeah,” Jeremy said. “Cam hit a claymore, then they got me from those open ledges on the third floor, I think.”

“Yeah, those f*ckers are playing cheap,” Cam grumbled.

“All we need to do is keep Zone B contested,” I said as we moved out. “Their spawn timers will be doubled as long that zone is contested by us. We cannot let up the pressure.”

Zone C was a dug-out crater about twenty feet wide, housing an unusable artillery piece. A shredded camo tarp drifted loosely above it, barely offering cover.

“Abraham,” Jeremy called, “stick with us. We’re ziplining to the roof while the rest push from inside.”

“I’m ready. No time to waste, send us up!” This was it. Our momentum was peaking. The ziplines was a huge risk but a necessary maneuver to win this. “Guys, when you get a kill, start counting!”

Cam and Jeremy climbed onto stacked crates, launched their ziplines, and soared toward the rooftop of the building that housed zone B. I latched onto the line and followed close behind.

Jeremy was already scanning the third floor like a hawk. Someone barely peeked their head out of a window, and in less than half a second, Jeremy dropped them.

“That’s one!” he called out.

Fourteen seconds. That’s all we had before respawns kicked in.

The stars must’ve finally aligned for us. These same players had given us hell in previous rounds, but now—just a minute and a half into match point—we were all contesting Zone B, with the enemy completely bottled inside the building.

“Two,” Aspen chuckled.

Gunfire and explosions echoed through every floor. The enemy team was throwing everything they had at stopping us—we couldn’t afford to slow down. This was our window.

Cam and Jeremy hit the rooftop and opened fire immediately dropping two bodies.

“Three. Four,” they said in unison.

Ten seconds left.

“Five,” Sebastian added.

My heart pounded so hard it felt like it might burst. I reached the roof and took in the chaos. Sandbags lined the edges, massive AC units and construction equipment provided cover, and two stairwell entrances sat on opposite sides of the rooftop.

No hesitation. I pushed forward with Cam and Jeremy. We moved like predators, relentless and fast. Four enemies appeared—and vanished just as quickly.

“My turn,” I said. “Six. Seven. Eight. Nine.”

Three more. Five seconds left.

“Ten. Eleven,” Luis and Isabel called out.

Three seconds. Just one more.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl. The last enemy had to be on the roof—otherwise, the zone wouldn’t still be contested. We had pushed from the right side, clearing everything in our path. Aspen and the others had already stormed the left stairwell. There was nowhere left to hide.

Unless—

I spun around.

I raised my rifle and fired. They must’ve tried hiding, then bolting once we passed them. I hit them center mass—but they didn’t drop.

Dammit. I couldn’t finish him off.

One second left.

Gunfire went off in the distance.

Then my screen flashed blue.

VICTORY. All Enemies eliminated. My screen displayed, I was frozen in disbelief.

“Twelve,” Sebastian finished.

I couldn’t believe it. It felt unreal—like a dream I’d wake up from any second. My team jumped to their feet, hugging, shouting, laughing. The crowd exploded with cheers, whistles, and chants.

Dean and Other George rushed over, lifting me out of my wheelchair before I could even process what had happened. They hoisted me out of my wheelchair, and pulled me into a massive group hug. It felt strange having everyone so close—most of my hugs were usually awkward and clumsy, this felt natural. I looked past the monitors at the crowd, their faces lit with awe.

“We f*cking did it!” Jeremy yelled.

“Yes, we f*cking did it!” Aspen shouted back.

An announcer’s voice boomed through the speakers. “Introducing this year’s global champions—Twisted Zombies!”

Confetti cannons erupted around us as the crowd roared once more.

I wasn’t even sure how Sebastian got that last kill. Maybe he rushed in from another angle to catch up with us. My mind had been running nonstop for so long that I didn’t want to dissect it. Not now.

For now, I just wanted to live in this moment.

All those years grinding together had finally paid off.

We were winners.