Now, alone in his cramped apartment, Leo slid the disc into his laptop. The drive whirred, coughed, then spun to life. An installer popped up—a crude interface with pixelated flames and a single button:

On the disc, written in faded marker, were the words:

He clicked .

Their father had passed away six months ago. The hospice had taken the TV, the old gaming PC, and eventually, all the noise in the house. Leo had sold the physical discs of their shared games during a grief-fueled purge. All except one: a scratched, unlabeled DVD-RW that had sat in a shoebox under his bed.

Leo’s heart stuttered. He hadn’t touched multiplayer in years.

A progress bar appeared. 1%... 3%... Then, the screen flickered. A command prompt window opened unbidden, lines of green text scrolling too fast to read.

No text chat. No voice. Just the engine roar and the ghost bike pulling ahead. Leo twisted the arrow keys, but the ghost matched his every turn, drifted every corner with the same sloppy overcorrection his dad always made.