We present an extract from A Game of Life or Death, the debut YA novel by Triona Campbell.
When sixteen-year-old Asha Kennedy discovers her older sister Maya's dead body in their home, her world falls apart. Desperate for answers, and to stay out of the hands of the social services she grew up in, Asha turns to her hacker friends for help. Her search leads her to Zu Tech, the hit games studio where Maya was a lead coder, and as Asha begins to unravel the riddle of her death, she realises that the only way to uncover the truth is from the inside. Asha ghosts her old life and infiltrates a Zu Tech eSport tournament as they launch 'SHACKLE', the revolutionary Virtual Reality video game Maya was working on - and which hides a monstrous secret... You don't play the game; it plays you.
I know it's bad when I realize the nurse is leading me towards a room and not one of the cubicles.
Her pace is unhurried. The frantic Saturday night chaos is all around us, but she doesn’t want to reach this destination any more than I do. The police officer who gave me a lift to the hospital shuffles alongside us. Plainclothes, white, middle-aged, middle everything, with the overconfidence to think that the too-small leather jacket he wears is retro-cool. The nurse ignores him, eyes multitasking. I watch them darting into the cubicles we pass, each with its own slice of drama inside. It’s like I can see the numbers moving up as she mentally tallies the patients, the trolleys, the staff. Every time we fail to stop at one of those beds, my fear worsens.
The air is heavy with a mix of alcohol and disinfectant: hushed voices, monitors, occasional groans, perforated by loud, drunk talk. My palms are sweaty now, so I wipe them on my jeans as we move along. My head feels dizzy as we pass underneath the flickering strip lights. The hum of air purifiers signals we are in the "clean" area.
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The door she stops outside has one chair beside it along with a strategically placed small box of tissues, hand sanitizer, and a prominent display of organ donation leaflets. "The doctor will be right with you." A sympathetic, efficient nod. A final repeat of her last question: "You sure there is no one you want us to call?"
I shake my head again. It’s always been Maya and me.
No one else.
The nurse leaves. The police officer sits down in the chair while I lean against the opposite wall. I stare at the ground, numbing out, counting the square pattern on the linoleum floor. If I let the feelings in, will I drown? I keep seeing her blue lips as I pushed against her chest over and over again, trying to get her heart to restart. I block out the image. I create a fantasy in my head while we wait. When the door is pushed open, Maya will be sitting upright in a hospital bed, an embarrassed look in her eyes. Some doctor beside her, talking about not overworking herself so much. Stressing the need for fluids, the importance of self-care…
This can’t be happening. Not the hospital, not me arriving home late from work. Not the weird smell in our apartment when I got there. That sharp aroma of burnt food from a pot left too long on the cooker.
"Maya?" I had dumped my bag and jacket by the door and trudged to the kitchen, the boredom of eight hours working in Sam’s local fast-food outlet and the smell of fish and chips pooling off me. I hadn’t wanted to work at Sam’s – Maya had called it character building; I called it a lot of other things. There was irritation in my voice at what smelt like another forgotten veggie culinary disaster. "Mai…"
I saw it then. The TV screen flickering, casting a pale blue light over the sitting room area. It’s on a pause screen for a video game: some web banner advert for an eSports tournament plays on the top. My sister hates those events despite her job. I looked down, and the world stopped.
Maya wasn’t answering because she was lying on the floor a few feet away. Body painted in the cold tones of the monitor’s images. Eyes hidden behind a VR headset the size of a small pair of glasses. A tiny blue light blinking on the frame, confirming her connection to some online game. A controller in her hand. Fingers wrapped tight around it. No movement. Completely, terrifyingly still.
The rest of the night is just fragments. I called the emergency services. The questions started over the phone. "Is she breathing? Was she sick? Did she take something? Can you see any sign that she was attacked?"
I looked around. Nothing. Nothing out of the ordinary.
Just her and some game that had switched off when I removed her glasses.
There was no breath – no rise and fall. The voice talked me through the chest compressions. My tears started streaming down my face as a horrible thought entered my mind – am I too late? I pushed against it, clinging desperately to hope. One, two, three. One, two, three. The ambulance crew and a detective arrived at the same time. It took ten minutes and all eternity for them to get there. They took over. One paramedic wearing blue quickly talked to the officer and a dispatcher on his radio. The siren not blaring as the ambulance took off. Me walking past our neighbours’ eyes; they all watched from their own doorways, none of them meeting my stare.
"Is there anyone I can call for you?" the police officer asked.
"No."
"Other family?" "No."
"A friend?" "No."
A sigh. The realization that there was no one to hand me off to. "My name’s Murphy."
A Game of Life or Death is published by Scholastic
