I was mid-sentence expining the lore of my new cursed fish familiar when my model froze.

  Not blink-and-you’ll-miss-it froze.

  I mean full-body rigor mortis, eyes wide, mouth stuck in an eternal scream, like someone just paused a horror movie on the worst frame.

  “Okay,” I said, not moving. “This is fine. This is the face of professionalism.”

  Chat, of course, lost its mind.

  [chat]

  [chArLiebron23] MOM WHY ARE YOU SCREAMING[SuckmypoTato] POSSESSED???[duck2346] screenshotting this for science[EggsInMyWiF is this part of the lore now???

  I reached for my mouse. Nothing.

  Clicked the keyboard. Nada.

  My streaming software had achieved inner peace by forcibly ascending to the void.

  “…I think Ketsusaki has astrally projected,” I muttered.

  Then—just to round out my humiliation—my very expensive ring light chose that exact moment to short circuit and shut off, plunging me into darkness so fast it felt personal.

  “Oh cool,” I said. “We’re doing mood lighting now.”

  [chat]

  [ror098] demon queen caught in a power outage arc[EggsInMyWiF this is why you don’t bully the goose god[eretvc] 10/10 immersive experience

  To salvage what was left of my pride, I leaned dramatically into the darkness, lit only by the blue glow of my monitor. “Welcome… to my vilin origin story.”

  I was halfway through my monologue when my screen went bck.

  All of it.

  No model. No OBS. No chat. Just me. And the void.

  I sat there for a moment, blinking at my own reflection.

  Then I heard it.

  A beep.

  The sound of a Discord call. From Krei.

  Of course.

  I answered it with the enthusiasm of a damp sponge. “Hi.”

  “Your soul left your body on stream,” Krei said, cheerfully. “I saw it. Beautiful arc. Ten out of ten. Did you plug your ring light into your rice cooker outlet again?”

  “That’s a deeply personal question.”

  He sighed. “Okay, reboot everything. I’ll stall the gremlins.”

  “You can’t stall the gremlins.”

  “I am the gremlins.”

  He wasn’t wrong.