chapter 1

He always knew he was good at video games. But he never knew just how good until the day his friend invited him to a gaming tournament. It was highly competitive; the best players in the state played here. However, it was open to everyone. So, just for fun, he decided to enter. Most other people entered in the tournament spent hours each day training, and some were even professional gamers. He had only ever played for fun, so he figured he would be eliminated in the first round. That's why everyone was so surprised when he made it past the first round. Then, the second. In the end, he ended up winning twelfth place. Everyone knew that this was a major accomplishment for someone who had never competed before. He was shocked. He never thought he would have made it so far, and he had a lot of fun doing it. He decided that he wanted to keep competing. After leaving the tournament, he bought the game and a controller, then went home. While eating dinner with his girlfriend, he told her how great it was, and she said that if he had so much fun doing it, he should definitely try to get even better. That night, he played the game for eight hours. Around 2 a.m., his girlfriend got tired and told him she was going to bed. He told her he was hungry again, having eaten dinner over five hours ago, and asked her to order him a pizza. She did. And that's how it started. Knowing it was unhealthy to play video games eight hours a day, he spent only thirty minutes to an hour sitting in front of the screen playing the game every day after work while she made dinner. Then, they would eat and spend the night together. By playing just an hour a day, he really thought he was making improvement. However, at the next month's tournament, he did worse than the first time, placing only in twentieth place. He was sad and confused, so he asked his friend what he thought went wrong. His friend told him that almost everyone else at the tournament trains many hours a day, so he must have just gotten lucky in his first tournament. He went home upset. His girlfriend was out for the night, so he stopped on the way home and got himself a double burger, fries and a soda. When he got home, he sat down to eat, feeling like he never wanted to play the video game again.