Git Gud

Dear so called "best-friend",

In all our years knowing each other, all those years of hardship we have endured and all the good things we have celebrated together. I can say one thing with absolute, concrete certainty.... You are s**t at video games.

Each week we come together to enjoy each others company whilst we shoot people, play football with cars or pretend to be pirates. And each week, I find myself pulling all the weight to secure your ugly butt some victories.

I remember the first time we played together around nine years ago now. Linking up in a Rocket League trading forum. Your funny American accent a contrast against my thick Northern English. And yet, we decided to play a few matches and we actually got on really well.

So we played some more, and more and more. The years went by and age (or the typical American diet-you blob), starting to takes it's toll. Your reflexes became slower, your accuracy resembled that of a mole trying to snipe someone with a nerf gun and your inability to comprehend that we lost because we were just out skilled, has been mind blowing. As in your words, "The enemy team is clearly cheating or they are clearly a smurf and should be banned."

Where do we go from here? Do I go to the doctors to discuss spinal surgery to repair my back from carrying you each game? Do I need to look into get an exo-skeleton to provide me with more support so that gaming with you does not take as much of a toll?

Maybe we can try some different games. Ones that are less competitive and are easier for your dulling mind to comprehend. Something like Animal Crossing which will be a nice relaxing experience for you. We could even push the boundaries a little bit and try PalWorld to see if you can relearn how to use a controller properly.

The pain in my back from carrying you has become too much of a burden. I feel like Quasimodo after every gaming session and I cannot take it anymore.

So, take this as my official resignation of being the better gamer. It is your turn to watch Youtube videos for strategies and maybe even learn how to shoot once in a while whilst I take a back seat and enjoy the game.

Git gud

Yours truly,

Your lifetime thorn

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This won't place in the competition as for some bizarre reason, Vocal expect you to write an 800 word resignation.... 800 words.... As a resignation which is normally 200 words at best. That isn't a resignation, it is an essay. I still wanted to write this though as I thought it would be funny to send to my friend and it is the only decent challenge going at the moment.

Below are some blurbs from another story just so I can hit the word count required by Vocal.

He served in the Boer War, First World War, and Second World War. He was shot in the face, head, stomach, ankle, leg, hip, and ear. He was also blinded in his left eye, survived two plane crashes, tunnelled out of a prisoner-of-war camp, and tore off his own severely injured fingers when a doctor declined to amputate them. Describing his experiences in the First World War, he wrote, "Frankly, I had enjoyed the war."

-

Her name is Hel, though her original name has long since vanished beneath layers of rot and decay. She emerged from the Wood a century ago, or a thousand, time is flexible here and she has not aged since. She is not human anymore, or maybe she never was.

Hel does not walk. She is carried by a web of sinew and reanimated nerve tissue that have twisted around her feet and act like spider’s legs. Her face is wrapped in a veil made of preserved eyelids, stitched edge-to-edge which creates a fluttering effect at the edges of her face. Her ribcage is open, displaying a heart that does not beat, but pulsates with the trees around her.

-

It began with bodies. Dozens, then hundreds of volunteers. Mainly the terminally ill and those who just wanted to donate their moment of death in the name of science and the beyond. With sensors surrounding their neural cortex, their passing became a map. Lynsey built software to follow what happened next: a cascade of resonance, a signal falling out of time and space.

A path.

She called it 'The Corridor'. A tunnel not through time and space, but one that was kind of through sensation, one built from electromagnetic pulses and harmonic cognition. It appeared the same for everyone. A bright light at the end filled with warmth, peace and familiar voices calling.

And then always... pain.

The readings were undeniable. Each time a soul entered the light, Lynsey's system (CIRCE*), registered a violent blip. A frequency that matched that given off from when animals and humans have been recorded burning alive. The light did not soothe, it destroyed.