Elias paused, his finger hovering over the spacebar. The invaders stopped too. They hovered just above his bunkers, their digital eyes—if they had any—seeming to stare through the webcam. He didn't fire. He waited.

The green bunkers appeared at the bottom, and the march began. Left, right, drop, increase speed. He played with surgical precision, his laser cannon rhythmic and steady. But as he cleared the first wave, the game didn't reset. Instead, the black background started to bleed into a deep, pulsing purple.

The invaders changed. Their pixelated edges softened, becoming organic and jagged. They didn't just move side-to-side; they began to break formation, drifting downward like falling soot.

He clicked download. The progress bar didn't crawl; it snapped to 100% instantly, as if the game had been waiting on the other side of the glass.

Elias looked back at his monitor. The game had deleted itself. In the reflection of the black screen, he saw dozens of glowing eyes reflected from the shadows of his living room.

Slowly, the invaders descended past the bunkers. They didn't trigger a "Game Over." Instead, they walked off the bottom of the screen. As they did, Elias heard a soft thump on the floor of his darkened apartment. Then another. And another.