Pete was as fat as a small hippo.
There is no exaggeration here. Neither is body-shaming intended. As a consequence of their habits, some humans come pretty close to animals quite early in their lives.
Pete weighed over 300 pounds and had a bite-size large enough to swallow a quarter-pound-burger whole. His skin was pale enough to be mistaken as wallpaper. The sixteen-year-old's body wobbled as he walked, as if he were filled with water.
At the moment, Pete was at the head of a queue inside the retail floor of CHIVALRY GAMES Inc. The gaming studio had brought forth worldwide MMORPG bestsellers like THE AGE OF EXCALIBUR, inspired by King Arthur's adventures, and CLEOPATRA'S DIARIES, which brought the Egyptian queen's sensual exploits to life.
It was almost 4 a.m., but the crowd gathered in the hall was as alert as owls on Adderall.
The untimely gathering during the witching hours was a rush to purchase the new release- THE PRINCE OF THIEVES, a game based on the legend of the infamous and notorious Robin Hood. CHIVALRY GAMES had carried out aggressive promotions but had allowed no pre-orders. At the last moment, they had doubled the price of the game.
Pete stood in front of a retail window with a CLOSED sign leaning against it. He checked the time on a giant digital clock mounted above.
03:55.
'Five minutes to go,' he thought merrily. 'A pretty sales clerk will arrive shortly and help me purchase the game.' His heart almost exploded with excitement. THE PRINCE OF THIEVES would be a thrilling experience with realistic graphics and a well-researched storyline of Robin Hood and his adventures.
Pete turned his double-chinned head to the sides to search for familiar faces. He had no friends, but occasionally, he could recognize some veteran gamers.
A crowd of over a thousand teenagers swarmed the hall. Every now and then, an almighty push came from the back or the sides. The desperate gamers had been waiting for hours in line without pee breaks. Hopped up in caffeine and sugar, they hustled and bustled noisily. It was like a zombie apocalypse.
Pete smirked at the stupidity of those who had come hours earlier. He had rested in his car while his driver stood in line. When fifteen minutes were left for the release time, the boy had pushed through the rabble and taken first place. The crowd had booed and thrown napkin balls at him. But there was no rule against a stand-in.
Pete had a king-size soda in one hand and a credit card in the other. He was not very tall, but his circumference and weight ensured he was never squished.
"Go back home, fatso!" a mean-looking kid growled from behind him. Pete shook off the insult with a derisive smirk and took a large sip of his sugary soda. 'Losers will always complain.'
Pete was a spoiled child. He was given a generous allowance. He had servants clean his messy room and bring him fried snacks all day long. His father's wealth, combined with his gaming expertise, made him one of the top 10 on the CHIVALRY GAMES leaderboard. Pete's life as a gamer was like a baby swaddled in linen.
"Die, fatso! You cut in line!" another boy groaned from beside him. He was thin and significantly shorter. Pete took a large sip of soda and spouted the mouthful in his face. The poor kid got stung in the eyes and fell backward into the crowd. 'The little munchkin is definitely going to be trampled,' Pete thought in amusement. He could hear muffled cries of help, which only made him snigger. 'Somebody will pick the kid up, eventually.'
Blink!
SALES ARE OPEN!
The counter in front of him lit up. As expected, a pretty, petite girl in uniform had arrived behind the glass and taken a seat. "Welcome to Chivalry Games," she said, smiling ear-to-ear. "Gamer ID and credit card, please?" A nametag- MOMO, was pinned on her t-shirt.
'I wish she could be my girlfriend,' Pete thought, sliding his credit card and mumbling a sequence of digits to her. 'THE PRINCE OF THIEVES will have plenty of voluptuous women, though, based on the pre-release art. It's an 18+ game with harem elements, after all. I could think about one of them and-'
"Here is your game package," Momo said, the smile still persistent. Pete wondered if they trained the retail girls to smile like that.
Momo pushed out a small green box through the window.
Oooooo. The crowd moaned in jealousy.
"Later!" Pete said disrespectfully to the counter girl before turning around.
"Let me pass, losers!" he mouthed at the sea of fellow gamers in front of him. He pushed a few out of the way and inched towards the exit, which was at least fifty feet away. The crowd was so thick that it appeared like everyone was knotted in a mattress of limbs.
Huff! Huff!
Five minutes passed, and Pete had traversed only a few feet towards the exit. The mob of gamers had only become denser. Taller and older people bustled around him. Pete was out of breath and hungry once again. He had a heavy meal of chicken wings and fries before leaving the car. But it appeared the light exercise had pushed down the food, making space for more.
Pete tried to lift his right foot, but found it was stuck somewhere. Instead, his body pivoted, and he fell face first.
Crack!
He felt something break. The gaming box? No! Terrible pain shot up his hip and traveled up his spine.
'Did I break my hip?' A recent visit to the doctor had revealed that his bones had become brittle out of a consistently lousy diet.
"Help…" he mumbled from the ground. It was dark at the ankle level, and it smelled of pungent socks. The noisy crowd muffled his voice.
Pete felt someone walk over him. Again. Then the frequency increased. A kick to his head. A blow on his arm. He was being trampled!
Huff! Huff! Huff! Huff!
Pete turned his head to the side while he suffocated under the weight of the swarm of desperate gamers.
He could see someone lying down on the floor alongside him.
'Oh shit!'
It was the same boy on whose face Pete had spat the soda. The munchkin! The little boy's eyes were open but did not seem to move.
Was he…
Dead?
Pete felt he was having a nightmare. There was no other way to explain it.
He tried to move his body, but it wouldn't. Was his spine fractured?
The boy realized he could not breathe anymore. All the regrets of his brief life seemed to flash before his eyes- obesity, a terrible lifestyle, treating others like shit, not having any friends. Much to his surprise, the biggest regret was not being able to play THE PRINCE OF THIEVES. The box lay trampled ahead of him. Pete smiled bitterly at his shallow life. Perhaps he deserved a miserable death like that.
Lupp dubb!
Huff! Huff! Huff! Ff! Ff! ffff…
There was a sharp pain inside his chest, which seemed to go on forever. Finally, when it ended, Pete’s body convulsed, his vision darkened, and shadows seemed to engulf him.
Lupp dub! Luppp dubbb…
His heart gave a sigh and stopped.