On the screen, the Green Knight turned to face the camera. Its visor was empty, a void where a face should be. Behind the knight, the Great Gate of the castle began to creak open. It wasn't an animation—it was a sound coming from the hallway outside his bedroom. Creeeeeak.

Leo pulled his hand back from the keyboard. He hadn't entered his name anywhere. He reached for the power button on his PC, but as his finger brushed the plastic, a spark jumped, stinging him.

He looked at the zip file on his desktop one last time. The name had changed. OPEN_GATE – CASTLE_CRASHERS.MOV

There was no main menu. The game started immediately in a level he didn’t recognize. His Green Knight stood before a colossal, crumbling fortress that seemed to be constructed from the geometry of his own file directory. Windows folders served as bricks; deleted photos hung like tapestries from the battlements.