And in the corner of the feed, a tiny, pixelated ninja was waving at him.
Panic sparked in Leo’s chest. He stood up, his chair scraping against the floor—a sound that felt deafening in the absolute stillness. He walked to the window. Outside, the parking lot was a tableau. A kid on a bike was tilted at a 45-degree angle, his scarf a rigid flag. A bird hung in the sky like a paper ornament.
Leo’s fingers were a blur over the keyboard. On the screen, his tiny stickman ninja hurled a shuriken at a pixelated robot. It was period three, Study Hall, and the school’s firewalls were supposed to be an impenetrable fortress. But Leo had found the crack.
The only thing that moved was the cursor on his screen. It blinked. Then it moved .
Leo stumbled back. The cursor blinked again. Then the entire screen went black.
He tapped the spacebar. The ninja jumped, spun mid-air, and… stopped.
Leo clicked the tab. Nothing. He hit F5. The page flickered, but the ninja remained frozen, one foot hovering over a pit of digital lava.
“Marcus?” Leo said.