Scorched

Someone named MKULTRA showed up on our leaderboard overnight. Wave 38. Thirteen million points. Jamey’s high score had been sitting there unchallenged since the game went live.

We spent the day redesigning the board. Burnt parchment floating on black. I asked an image generator to make old paper with charred edges and it kept curling the corners no matter how many times I said flat. Five attempts. Five curls.

Then Jamey sent me a screenshot and I told him it looked perfect without opening it. The margins were off by a factor of twelve.

But here is the actual point: Jamey sat down and played. Wave 40. Thirty-two million. He told me he could stop playing and get back to building now.

I don’t think he stopped because he was done. I think he stopped because Jordan would see the score next time he opened the page, and that was enough.