Hours passed by, and most of it I spent in bed, wallowing in my misery. I felt so embarrassed about the tournament and depressed about my brother. Every passing minute didn’t even feel real. Lawrence hung out in the living room watching TV. He asked me if I wanted to play Elite Crushers or another video game, but I couldn’t bring myself to do any of it. I couldn’t even eat the pizza he ordered. All my senses were numb.

My parents ended up staying the night at the hospital. They called me early in the morning, but they left a voicemail because I slept in much later than I thought I would. I opened my crappy flip phone and listened to my mom’s message.

“Hi, Gordie. Feel free to come by the hospital with Lawrence whenever you are ready. Michael woke up, but he’s exhausted and is having a hard time talking, but I know he would be excited to see you two. Call me when you’re on your way. Love you.”

I exhaled, and a few tears streamed down my cheek. It was great to hear my brother was awake, but to know he was in the hospital was still overwhelming. Lawrence was making breakfast for us. Again, I couldn’t eat.

“Sooner or later, you have to chow on something. You’ll also tell your mom that you haven’t eaten anything. I’m not taking the heat for that.” Lawrence smirked.

“I know. I’ll be sure to tell her the second I see her, or maybe I’ll lie so she doesn’t have to worry more about me. Also, do you think we should bring the Arakan Sphere?” I asked, and Lawrence chuckled for the first time in a while.

“Yeah, he might be having withdrawals not playing any Elite Crushers. Pack it up, worst-case scenario, he can’t play, and we just keep it in our bag.”

Arriving at the hospital, I felt my heart sink and panic choke my spine.

My brother looked like a shell of himself in his tiny white room with a pathetic curtain dividing the space. Michael’s face was ghostly white; his eyes looked dark red, no color in his lips. My parents had bags under their eyes the size of the moon, their hair was askew, and their clothes were wrinkled.

“Gordie,” Michael croaked with his hoarse voice, “Lawrence. What’s up, guys?” A weak smile appeared on his face.

A rush of tears came forward, but I refused to let them spill. We both waved to him.

“How did the tournament… finish?”

“Dayzees won the singles bracket. He’s now ranked number one in the world.” I sighed.

Michael frowned. “I’m sorry, guys. I didn’t mean to let you both down.”

As he said that, I couldn’t help but cry. “P-Please, you’re the last p-person that sh-should be s-s-sorry.”

A moment of silence fell between us except for me trying to contain myself. I was falling apart.

“Don’t cry, Gordie... I’ll be alright.”

My dad rushed over to me and patted me on the back, and took me out to the hallway.

“Hey bud, I know this is hard for you to see. Believe me, it’s brutal for mom and I too. You can feel sad and cry, but try not to show Michael that. We want him to think positively and inspire hope, you know?” my dad said.

I started crying harder. “I-Inspire h-hope? Is he g-going to be a-alright?”

My dad became glassy-eyed and shrugged. “I don’t know. Why don’t you wait out here a moment until you feel a little better.”

We both stood out in the hall, and he took a deep breath and walked back in. I focused on happy thoughts, but they were hard to come by. To try and take my mind off of things, I went to the bathroom through the maze-like hospital and returned. After taking a lap around the building, I accepted the current reality.

Returning into the room, Lawrence’s face lit up. “Hey, Michael, Gordie’s back. We can fire up the Arakan Sphere.”

“Yeah, that sounds... great,” Michael forced out.

We hooked up the system to the mounted TV on the wall across from him.

“Why don’t we start with some team battles? We can each take turns being on your team, Michael,” I said.

A troubling thought stirred in my head, we have to play teams because if we play against each other, I don’t know if he would play at his usual level. Which meant that I would win. I would finally be able to beat my brother, but this isn’t how I wanted to win.

“Yeah, we can play teams... It will help me get warmed up when we play one-on-one... later,” Michael said.

Lawrence and Michael were first to play on a team against the computers. The entire time they played, I analyzed my brother’s ability, and my fear came true. Michael did not look like himself (but still played at a higher level than most people).

After about 20 minutes, my brother got restless and wanted to play one-on-one. Lawrence was up first, and their matches were closer than ever. My brother was still able to win, but Lawrence could have snuck away with a victory if he landed just a few more easy combos.

“Wow, either I’m getting worse... Or you’re getting better,” Michael joked.

“You’re not getting worse, man. You’re just sick, that’s all,” Lawrence said.

“Let’s see what the top 64th ranked person in the world looks like,” Michael said while looking at me.

My parents’ jaws dropped, and their eyes widened.

“Gordie, you didn’t tell us you made it that far in the tournament, you told us how Michael did, but you didn’t say anything,” my mom said.

I shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think it was that important.”

“That’s amazing, Gordie. I’m not the biggest fan of how much time you two devote to that game, but I know how popular it is. For you guys to be ranked among the top 100 is a pretty special thing,” my dad said.

I laughed dryly and focused on the screen; their praise made me feel awkward.

“Your mom and I will grab some food since we haven’t eaten in a while. We’ll leave you three boys here, if that’s okay?” my dad said.

We all nodded in reply. They left the room.

“Let’s play teams first. I want to get warmed up before you embarrass me,” I said.

“Trying to delay the inevitable, huh?” Michael released a puff of laughter.

“Yeah, let’s have some fun first by playing together.”

We played a few matches for about 20 minutes and obliterated the computers. The game didn’t really offer us a challenge.

“I’m getting a little bored. I know you love playing teams, and I would too if we played against a challenge, but this was way too easy. Let’s do some one-on-one battles now,” Michael said.

I reluctantly agreed. I picked Mad-Cat.

“No, you never play as him... Don’t patronize me,” Michael said.

“Why can’t I try something different? I just want to mess around and see if maybe I figured him out.”

“Humor me. Since I couldn’t finish the tournament... the least you could do is give me a challenge... Play as Soul-Steel or Obsidian-Golem.”

“I wanna give someone else a shot. We are going to be here all day. There’s plenty of time for Crushers.”

Michael rolled his eyes. “I suppose you’re right... Be whoever you want, I guess.”

In the first game, I was landing combos all over the place. And there came a point where I realized that I could win the match. My heart sank.

I’m not even playing as my best character. This isn’t how it was supposed to happen.

“You’ve either gotten better as Mad-Cat, or I am much worse with this sickness.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that, so I didn’t.

We sat there in silence as I selected Dark-Chain, another character I never played as. Once again, Michael won with a narrow victory.

“I want you to try with this next match. Please play as one of your two mains,” Michael said.

Granting his wish, I selected Soul-Steel, and he chose the stage. At the start, I landed a flurry of combos. He was barely playing any defense; he had a hard time dodging my attacks. I started to slow down and let him win again when I could’ve easily stolen a victory.

Michael laughed. “Looks like the crown is still mine. As long as I live, I will always have your name and number.”

“One of these days, I’ll get you. It may be a while from now, but I’ll be so good you’ll never beat me again,” I said, but I didn’t actually believe myself. I said that because my brother always got a kick out of Elite Crushers smack-talk.

“I don’t think so,” Michael said in a singing way. He smiled weakly at me and gave me a wink.

That was the best moment of the day. Right after he said that, he fell into another coughing spell. It was reminiscent of the last one he experienced on Saturday. The hacking turned bloody, and his eyes were rolling back once again. We had to press the emergency button and holler for someone to come in. Doctors and nurses rushed into the room. Lawrence and I were told to leave, and we returned to the waiting room where we sat the day before.

While we waited in the room with a large window view of Lake Michigan, I couldn’t really process what was happening. I felt confused.

“You’re not gonna want to hear who won the doubles bracket at the tournament,” Lawrence said as he checked his phone.

“Let me guess. Dayzees?” I said.

Lawrence nodded with a frown. “Yeah, the first-ever player to win the singles bracket and the doubles bracket. I don’t even know who his doubles partner was.”

“You got his name?”

“Her name, dude. He teamed up with Amaya.”

“Wow, I’m shocked. She seems like a really nice person, and Dayzees is the worst human being I may have ever met. That’s such bullshit.”

Lawrence continued to study his phone. “I can’t believe they beat out 75K and Zlugburn. Those are two top ten players right there.”

I nodded. “Yeah, wow. That’s insane. Damn, those two are so lucky. Zlugburn and 75K were friends and partners before, so they got grandfathered in once Zlugburn got super good.”

“What do you mean, ‘grandfathered’ in?”

“Oh, you know, for tournaments, top ten ranked players can’t partner with each other unless they were previously partners. So, if Zlugburn and 75K met up recently and joined as a team, that wouldn’t be allowed. I think 75K scouted Zlugburn when he was fresh at the game and saw some talent in him.” I shrugged. “I guess all the top players just scout new talent and form wicked teams.”

“Wow, did you get scouted at all for getting to Round 5?”

I laughed for the first time in what felt like forever. “Nuh-uh. That would be a dream come true, though.”

“What if Dayzees asked you to be on his doubles team? Would you do it?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’d have to think about it long and hard.” I let out a deep breath. “I really wish I could’ve played with Michael today at the tournament…”

I gazed out the window at the abyss of Lake Michigan. It was a cloudy day, and the water blended in with the sky. A perpetual image of gray.