Chelsi stared at the empty chat box. Her eyes burned again. Her thumb hovered a millimeter above the red End Stream button.

Just before the screen went black, a sharp ping echoed from her phone speaker. A new user entered the room.

The ID read: AlphaRoach.

Chelsi's thumb jerked back. She took a quick, shallow breath.

"H-hi," Chelsi stuttered into the cheap microphone. "Welcome to the stream, AlphaRoach."

AlphaRoach didn't type anything. He just sat in the viewer list. His profile picture was a solid black silhouette.

Chelsi's hands gripped the edge of her desk. She desperately needed him to stay.

"I was just talking about my day," Chelsi said, forcing a soft tone. "I went to the grocery store earlier. I had to buy the generic brand oatmeal because it was on sale for two dollars. It actually doesn't taste that bad if you put enough cinnamon in it."

She sounded clumsy, but her voice was raw and genuine.

A few seconds passed. Then, white text appeared in the chat box.

AlphaRoach: Life is hard sometimes.

Reading those four simple words, a heavy weight lifted off Chelsi's chest. Her tense shoulders dropped. She looked into the camera and gave a small, grateful smile.

Suddenly, a massive explosion of digital gold fireworks erupted in the center of her screen.

The system notification flashed in bright yellow: AlphaRoach has gifted a Starlight Rocket! ($50.00)

Chelsi gasped, slapping both hands over her mouth. Her eyes went wide. Because of the extreme AR filter, her jaw warped and distorted weirdly on the screen.

"Oh my god," Chelsi stammered, her heart hammering wildly against her ribs. "Fifty dollars? You didn't have to do that! Thank you! Thank you so much!"

Her hands shook as she tapped the screen, navigating the clunky menu. She quickly clicked on AlphaRoach's name and assigned him as the sole Moderator of her channel.

A green badge appeared next to his name.

AlphaRoach: [Sunglasses Emoji]

Chelsi let out a breathy laugh. The crushing anxiety in her stomach finally eased.

Right at that moment, a massive promotional banner popped up on the Apex homepage. It was a site-wide random PK challenge, and it covered half of Chelsi's screen.

Chelsi panicked. She reached out to tap the small 'X' in the top right corner. But right before her finger touched the glass, a small warning line at the bottom of the banner caught her eye: Declining a site-wide PK will result in a 30% drop in channel visibility for 48 hours. Her hand froze in mid-air. A 30% drop meant she might not see another viewer for days. She thought of the fourteen dollars in her bank account and the landlord's looming text message. She swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her ears. Bracing herself for whatever was to come, she deliberately pressed her trembling finger against the green button.

The screen flashed bright red.

System: You have accepted the Co-stream Battle from Morningstar!

Chelsi's screen instantly split in half.

On the left was her distorted, alien-filtered face in the dark basement. On the right, a blindingly bright, ultra-luxurious gaming room appeared.

Sitting in a three-thousand-dollar ergonomic leather chair was Kamron Cooper. He wore a designer black t-shirt and expensive gaming headset. His dark hair was slightly messy from wearing the headset, but it did nothing to detract from his sharp, arrogant good looks. His dark eyes held a lazy, predatory stare.

In the top right corner of Kamron's screen, the viewer count read 50,000.

Those fifty thousand viewers flooded into the shared stream. Chelsi's phone began to physically heat up in her hands.

Kamron had been in the middle of bragging about a recent game. He stopped talking. He leaned closer to his monitor, his dark eyebrows pulling together. He stared at Chelsi's heavily filtered face.

Kamron leaned into his high-end microphone. He let out a deep, mocking scoff that blasted through Chelsi's phone speaker.

"What the hell is this?" Kamron's deep voice vibrated with pure disdain.

Instantly, thousands of toxic comments flooded Chelsi's chat box.

Eww, look at that monster!

Catfish alert!

Turn off the filter, alien!

Chelsi's face drained of all color. Her skin turned ice-cold. She grabbed the edge of her desk, her breathing turning rapid and shallow.

She frantically tapped the screen, looking for the disconnect button.

A red warning box popped up: Warning: Forcibly disconnecting from an official PK will result in a 7-day ban and forfeiture of all current earnings.

Chelsi froze. Her hand hovered over the screen. If she disconnected, she would lose the fifty dollars AlphaRoach just gave her. She would lose her rent money.

She pulled her shaking hand back. She couldn't leave.

Kamron watched her panic. A cruel, sadistic smirk pulled at his lips. He snapped his fingers in front of the camera.

"Let's make this interesting," Kamron said, his low voice dripping with authority. "The loser of this battle has to accept a penalty. And the winner gets to dictate exactly what that penalty is. No backing out."

"No, please," Chelsi whispered, shaking her head. Her voice was so quiet it was completely drowned out by Kamron's loud electronic background music.

She was completely alone against fifty thousand people. Her stomach churned so violently she thought she might be sick.

Then, a bright red, bolded comment cut through the sea of hate in the chat box.

AlphaRoach: Picking on a rookie? How pathetic. We accept the battle.

Kamron's lazy smirk vanished. His eyes narrowed into sharp, dangerous slits. He stared at the screen, his jaw clenching.

Kamron hit the enter key on his mechanical keyboard with a loud clack.

The five-minute PK countdown timer appeared at the top of the screen. The battle had begun.

A massive red and blue health bar materialized at the top of the split screen.

Within the very first second, Kamron's blue bar surged forward, eating up a huge chunk of the screen as his fans tossed in small, rapid-fire donations.

Kamron leaned back into his leather chair. He pulled a limited-edition metal lighter from his pocket and began flipping the lid open and closed with a sharp click, click. His dark eyes locked onto Chelsi's screen with predatory amusement.

He cleared his throat, leaning toward the mic.

"Here is the penalty," Kamron announced loudly. "When you lose, you are going to turn off every single one of those AR beauty filters."

Chelsi's pupils shrank to pinpricks. Her hands flew up, instinctively covering her cheeks. Her heart slammed against her ribs like a trapped bird.

Kamron saw her terrified reaction and let out a dark, satisfied chuckle.

"I'm not done," Kamron added, his voice turning even colder. "You're going to take your phone into the bathroom. You're going to take a bar of soap, scrub your face completely clean, and shove your bare face right into the camera."

Kamron's chat exploded.

Yes! Expose the catfish!

Make the alien show her real face!

Get the makeup wipes ready!

Chelsi's breathing turned ragged. She leaned closer to her cheap microphone, her voice trembling violently.

"Please," Chelsi begged, her throat tight. "Can we change it? I can do push-ups. I can sing a song. Please."

"No negotiations," Kamron cut her off instantly. His tone was brutal. "On Apex, you accept the PK, you accept the terms. Unless you want to delete your account right now."

Chelsi thought of the fourteen dollars in her bank account. She thought of the fifty dollars she desperately needed to keep.

She bit down on her lower lip so hard she tasted copper. Tears pooled in her eyes, but she gave a stiff, jerky nod. She accepted the humiliation.

Kamron whistled sharply. "Alright, boys. You heard her. Let's push."

The moment the words left his mouth, the blue bar skyrocketed. It shoved Chelsi's red bar almost entirely off the screen.

Chelsi squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the timer to end.

Suddenly, the center of the screen erupted in a blinding flash of digital lightning.

The system broadcasted to the entire room: AlphaRoach has gifted 10 Thunderstorms! ($5,000.00)

The red bar jolted like it had been hit with a defibrillator. It violently pushed back, slamming Kamron's blue bar right back to the dead center of the screen.

Kamron's lazy posture vanished. He shot straight up in his chair, his hands gripping the armrests. He stared at the ID AlphaRoach in absolute disbelief.

Kamron's fans went feral. They saw this as a direct insult to the Morningstar army. Thousands of small gifts rained down on Kamron's side, trying to overwhelm the red bar with sheer volume.

AlphaRoach didn't type a single word. He didn't engage in the chat.

Exactly ten seconds later, another digital lightning bolt struck. Then another. And another.

The flashing lights illuminated Chelsi's dark bedroom in chaotic bursts of color. Her jaw dropped. Her hands gripped her knees so tightly her muscles ached. She couldn't process what was happening.

With two minutes left on the clock, Chelsi's red bar miraculously overpowered Kamron's. She was winning.

Kamron's face turned a dark, furious shade of red. Losing to a filtered rookie would make him the laughingstock of the entire platform.

Just as the panic set in, the VIP entrance channel on Kamron's side flashed with a blinding platinum light.

A user with the highest VIP badge on the platform entered the room. The ID read: Southwind.

Kamron's tense shoulders instantly dropped. He let out a loud, relieved laugh and pointed at the camera. "Welcome in, brother!"

Southwind didn't say hello. He just typed three words in the public chat.

Southwind: This is boring.

A second later, a massive, screen-shaking virtual Star Cruiser slowly floated across both screens. The system notification flashed: Southwind has gifted a Star Cruiser! ($5,000.00)

The massive influx of points instantly shoved Kamron's blue bar all the way to the edge. Chelsi's red bar was completely crushed.

AlphaRoach tried to fire back. A brief pause stretched on his end, the red bar stalling dangerously. Then, instead of another barrage of gifts, a single line of text appeared in the chat:

AlphaRoach: An urgent call from the board. I have to step away.

The countdown timer ticked down. Three. Two. One.

A massive, glowing blue VICTORY banner slammed onto Kamron's side of the screen.

Dead silence fell over Chelsi's room.

Kamron leaned back, a devilish, victorious smirk spreading across his face. He tapped his fingers against his desk.

"Go wash your face, little liar," Kamron commanded.

The massive red DEFEAT banner pulsed on Chelsi's screen, casting a harsh crimson glow over her dark room.

Chelsi took a deep, shuddering breath. She pressed her trembling hands flat against her thighs, trying to stop the shaking.

"We're waiting," Kamron's voice snapped through the speaker, heavy with impatience. He started counting down from ten. His chat was a blur of toxic demands.

Chelsi didn't argue. She reached out and yanked the charging cable out of her phone. She unclipped the device from the cheap plastic stand.

She held the phone in front of her. The camera shook violently with her footsteps as she walked out of the bedroom, down the narrow, cluttered hallway, and pushed open the peeling wooden door of the bathroom.

The overhead fluorescent light flickered with a low buzz. Chelsi propped her phone against the edge of the mirror above the sink, angling the camera down so it captured the basin.

She bowed her head. Her cold fingers twisted the rusted faucet. Freezing tap water gushed out, the loud splashing echoing clearly through the silent live stream.

On the other side of the screen, Kamron crossed his arms over his chest. He leaned in close, his dark eyes locked onto his monitor. His finger hovered over the screenshot button, ready to capture the ugliest frame possible.

Chelsi picked up a cheap, bright yellow bar of Dial soap. She rubbed it vigorously between her palms until a thick, white lather formed.

Without a second of hesitation, she smashed her soapy hands into her face. She rubbed the foam over her cheeks, her forehead, and her eyes. Water splashed onto the phone screen, creating a blurry, distorted fog over the lens.

She scrubbed for a full minute. The mocking comments in the chat slowly began to die down, replaced by a strange, tense anticipation.

Chelsi cupped her hands under the freezing water and splashed it over her face, washing away every trace of the soap. She grabbed a rough, faded towel from the rack and patted her skin dry.

She took one last, deep breath. Her chest heaved. She lifted her head and looked at the screen.

Her wet finger swiped across the glass, finding the AR filter icon.

Right before she tapped it, she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing her body for the tidal wave of insults.

Click.

The filter turned off. The video feed stuttered for a fraction of a second as the software disengaged.

When the frame rate smoothed out, Chelsi slowly opened her eyes.

Without the exaggerated chin and the blurry skin smoothing, the high-definition camera captured the absolute truth.

She possessed a breathtakingly delicate, oval-shaped face. Her skin was incredibly pale, almost translucent, completely flawless without a drop of makeup. Her nose was perfectly sloped. Her lips were naturally full and flushed pink. Wet strands of dark hair clung to her cheeks, framing a pair of large, watery, doe-like eyes that held a devastating vulnerability.

Because she had scrubbed so hard, a natural, rosy flush painted her cheeks and the corners of her eyes. It was a raw, stunning beauty that no algorithm could ever replicate.

The endless stream of insults and mockery abruptly ceased. For a few agonizingly long seconds, the chat box was filled with nothing but strings of ellipses and question marks. The fifty thousand viewers were struggling to process the raw, undeniable beauty on their screens, before the chat finally erupted into a tidal wave of pure shock.

Kamron's prepared insult died in his throat. His eyes blew wide open. His pupils dilated rapidly.

He instinctively sat up straight, his chest nearly touching his desk. His eyes darted across her face, frantically searching for a makeup line, a filter glitch, anything.

But the tiny water droplets clinging to her eyelashes and the fine, invisible peach fuzz on her cheeks proved it. This was her real face.

The silence shattered. Kamron's chat erupted like a volcano.

Holy Jesus.

What the f? She's gorgeous!

I just called an angel an alien. I'm going to hell.

Literal perfection.

Chelsi stared at the screen, her brow furrowing in confusion. She blinked her large eyes, completely bewildered by the sudden shift. That innocent, confused blink sent the chat into another frenzy.

Even AlphaRoach broke his silence.

AlphaRoach: You are beautiful. You never needed that fake garbage.

Kamron's face suddenly felt incredibly hot. A violent, erratic pounding started in his chest. It was a physical reaction he hadn't felt in years.

He realized exactly what he had just done. He had bullied and humiliated a girl who looked like a literal goddess.

To hide his sudden, overwhelming panic, Kamron coughed loudly into his fist. He threw himself back against his leather chair, trying to look relaxed, but his eyes were glued to Chelsi's face.

He ran a hand nervously through his perfectly styled hair. His other hand dropped to his mouse. He dragged the cursor straight to the gift panel, hovering over the most expensive icon on the entire platform.