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"Arrrghh!"
No no no—
Gameplay flashes on the screen, and the mere sight of it rises bile in my throat, stirs my stomach with a sickness I've never known, so turbulent I don't register how stiff Hayden's grown behind me, or the hands that wrap around my biceps, holding me upright from faintness. I blink, my breaths puffing out choppy as I fight to stay lucid.
"Play as Mak, Coral Island's newest human inhabitant," that cursed voice booms, as an exact carbon copy of my mobile game with altered graphics blasts across the screen, earning oooo's and ahhhh's from the crowd, their eyes shimmering with delight.
Strong hands give me a shake.
"Juliana?" a man calls.
The voice sounds vaguely familiar, but far off. I hardly hear him. Not because of the speakers, but the blood pounding in my ears that drops my ankles in quicksand and submerges my head under rough waters—like the sea thrashing against the hull of the pirate ships sailing toward a cute, animated island positioned in the center of the screen.
Right where my farm would be.
And the boats... they populate around the perimeter, with the same frequency as my aliens.
"Protect your friends from notorious crab-nappers..."
Mak traces around the island's perimeter, this way and that, weaving between crabs and poking pirates who reach the shoreline with his spear.
Another shake, rougher this time.
"Juliana?!" a scream echoes through the water, swallowed up by the crashing waves.
"Level up, gain new skills, and blast those pesky pirates off the shore with gadgets like the seashell barrage cannon..."
No, no, no...
I watch the revamped animation, a bundle of seashells exploding from the barrel of a turret cannon, except the mechanics are identical to my paw-some plasma cannon. An idea that took months to conceive and weeks to program.
"Or slow their movements the instant their feet touch the sand with the crab claw sand trap."
NONONONO—
This can't be happening. I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming. WAKE UP ALREADY. Strip me of this nightmare—because that is what's happening. This isn't real life. How could it be? How else could something like this happen? How—
A face flings into my field of vision, an inch from my nose. A man...? Blond. Attractive. Blue eyes that blow wide with urgency. His lips are moving, sputtering fast, uttering words drowning in despair and deafened by adrenaline, until they burst through the surface, breathing life into a man I know better than anyone.
A man I thought I trusted.
"YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE ME. I DIDN'T—"
Every venomous word that slithers from his tongue plunges back below the surface, spiraling like torpedoes straight to my heart, reflecting to the sharpened precipice of my mind that only sees one thing...
Hayden handing me that flash drive.
I bolt from his vicinity. From that wretched screen. From EVERYTHING, and book it through backstage, heaving for breath as my chest contracts and tears well in my eyes. But I swallow them down, too proud to let them show, when he's calling my name behind me, hot on my tail while I weave between startled workers, running aimlessly, until I spot the exit.
How could I be so stupid? Hayden played me for a fool—fucked with my head, then fucked me, then fucked my entire career. No one's going to believe me, a little indie dev, against a mega-corporation. With what money could I face them in court? Contend with their army of lawyers? They'd swallow this up, bribe the media to spin it in their direction—that I stole the game from them.
It doesn't matter if I'm ranking on the charts or that PixiePlays livestreamed my game, Hayden and his dad—who he's probably been conspiring with since barging back into my life—they know this and did it, anyway. Hayden even gave me the flash drive on the exact same day I went viral, which was surely loaded with hidden malware, all rigged to dupe Cosmic Kitty Defense's programming without my knowledge before it got handed off to that tech department guy.
"Juliana, wait!"
Fuck! I nearly trip over a wire, bursting through the door on a scream. "LEAVE ME ALONE!"
A tear finally skates down my cheek. I swipe it away, whipping my head to find the security lady holding Hayden at the door, presumably to protect me. He argues with her, watching as I burst through a wall of attendees, letting the crowd swallow me whole. I weave between them and knock into shoulders, while my adrenaline spikes too high to bother with apologies.
