She played late into the night and then later still, ignorant of the shadows pressing in on all sides, uncaring of the heaviness of her limbs or the life set to resume in a few hours.
For her, there was only the quest, only the character on the screen, only the voices of her guildmates, intense in her ears.
The shadows crowded closer as her eyelids drooped, their inky hands reaching for the keyboard.
When her head hung and a snore rose up in her throat, they gently nudged her aside and finished the raid.
‘Yes!’ a player crowed in her ear. ‘You’re always so much better when you stay up!’
She snored in response, masking the contented purr of the shadows as they collected her loot.
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A midnight microfiction, because why not? Image by RPF70 from Pixabay , used under Pixabay License. (Yeah, I know it’s Fortnite. There’s only so much I can do with free stock images!)