He played nine more matches. Won all of them 47-0. The leaderboard glitched. His username turned red. Then black. Then it vanished.

A week later, his little sister found the phone under his bed. The screen was cracked. The battery was dead. But when she plugged it in, eFootball opened by itself.

The app icon shimmered differently. Instead of the usual glossy football, it looked like a cracked, pixelated eye. But Rohan didn’t notice. He was already inside.