“Slither.io…” President Banks darkly muttered, slumping back into his chair as he folded his hands onto his chin and pondered, finding the name somewhat familiar.

After a moment of silence, he blurted out, “The worm game?” his expression uncertain.

“Y-Yes Mr. Banks, the ‘worm game’. It was one of the first inner servers launched and developed back in the 2010s disguised as a mobile game by our company’s founding father, Willian E. Kang under a pseudonym of course. It was rather popular for it’s time, before being largely forgotten in the passing decades, being shelved away after it had completed its true purpose. If it wasn’t for the sudden breach in mainframe, we ourselves would have completely forgotten about it!”

“This is troubling. Such an old inner server lacks the advanced technology needed for defending against sentient data. If it eats of its core code, we’re screwed!” President Banks kneaded his temples as a few small bullets of sweat dripped from his wrinkled forehead.

“Have you tried deleting the inner server?” President Banks nervously asked, sadly already knowing the answer.

Secretary Johnny despondently nodded.

“We’ve tried. But the intelligent data has already corrupted the server, we no longer have any control! Our only option would be to shut down the entire mainframe!”

President Banks was already against the idea. He couldn’t afford to upset the investors, he knew how unreasonable they could be, just the slightest inconvenience could inadvertently trigger a seventh world war!

Wracking his brains, President Banks suddenly thought of an idea, raising his head, he confidently declared, “I have a solution.”

***

I’ve been hunting for a while now.

I don’t know how much time has passed.

Hours, days, years, I’m sure.

My mind is a muddled mess.

My body refuses to sleep, it only continues to move. As I mindlessly hunted, I began to think a lot about my past, but I couldn’t even remember my own name. I think I had a family, a group of friends, and even a girlfriend, but I couldn’t remember a single one of their faces.

I feel…empty.

Why am I continuing to hunt?

Because I wanted to live.

Why?

I wasn’t sure.

All I know is—it’s all just a game.

After long, long while, I finally reached the leaderboard. My old username was proudly displayed.

1# dog     9,026,702,362,001

2# brokenpp     8,967,304,003,112

3# mymumhitsme:(     7,361,661,342,991

4# JOHN CENA     5,364,477,200,121

5# Game Over     3,678,110,361,776

6# ass     1,020,344,269,043

7# I’m number #1!     1,010,459,132,009

8# Goku x Saitama     882,656,123,376

9# opopopo     762,440,457,201

10# the fighter     661,991,119,116

After knocking Dennis Lakefield off the leaderboard, I had no time to rejoice as countless worms who now looked tiny in comparison came swarming towards me, aiming for my head and hoping to kill me for my bounty of orbs.

Their bodies were glowing, a sign that they were accelerating, with such swift speed and such a large swarm, it was needless to say my death was inevitable.

But I wasn’t the same little worm anymore.

My black-patterned body gave off a fierce white glow as I too accelerated, but at a much faster speed. My movements were smooth, yet chaotic, coiling my body around the horde of greedy worms, I wrapped further around them until my body started closing in on them. There was no escape, their death was inevitable.

After all had died, I devoured their orbs, increasing my length, if only minuscule.

“Are you ‘the fighter’?”

Circling my body around in satisfaction, I heard a voice for what felt like the first time in eons.

I was shocked and surprised, but I was incapable of expressing those emotions with just two googly eyes. Turning to the source of the voice, I saw a white-patterned worm who seemed to be smiling.

“I was curious as to who took me off the leaderboard.”

I looked at his gamertag.

It was Dennis. Dennis Lakefield.