Shirts, hoodies, clean underwear, my gaming mouse and keyboard, the necessities for the upcoming tournament are all spread out on my bed. I check everything one last time before I stuff them in my suitcase. There's this tingling feeling in my stomach and restlessness in my head. I packed and unpacked my suitcase ten times already, to make sure I got all things I will need the next week.

The sound of the doorbell stops my train of thought. The man in front of my door identifies himself as the taxi driver I had ordered. I throw a quick glance at my watch. He's late and we have to hurry to catch my flight.

The man helps me carry my suitcase, while I carry my computer and screen. I want to keep a close eye on them. It wouldn't be the first time someone drops out of a tournament, because some joker thinks it's funny to sabotage a contender's gear.

When everything's in the trunk of the cab, we're off to the airport.

The tournament starts tomorrow. If everything goes as planned, I will be away for six days.

I can't believe it's more than two weeks ago Morgenstern expelled me. The next day I went back to the hospital to talk one more time about what happened, but as soon as I got near the building I knew my chances were slim. In the parking lot, several journalists were arguing with security guards. They were partially blocking the main entrance, and if I had any hope of getting back, it was now crushed completely.

Dan didn't go with me to the meeting, he was afraid his presence would make things worse. He said it wasn't about him, it was about me. People would mix those things up if he would go with me, making a big media circus out of the whole situation and he didn't want that to happen. He shouldn't have worried about it. It already was a media circus.

I was accompanied by a lawyer when I walked into the building. I felt bad for the people that had to go to the hospital that afternoon as they had to push their way through a group of journalists. I tried not to pay too much attention to the paparazzi.

I'm not sure if it was me, the lawyer, or the presence of the journalists that rubbed Morgenstern the wrong way, but it seemed as if he was even in a worse mood than the day before. He didn't come alone to the meeting. He brought a press officer, someone from human resource management, and of course a lawyer as well.

The whole ordeal didn't take long. At first, it felt like there was a staring contest going on. There was a lot of whispering and waving with papers. In my eyes, we were just spending time. Precious time that I could use for other things. The lawyers did the most of the talking. I tried to follow their discussion, but my knowledge of the law is limited and as soon as the first mentions of articles flew over the table, my mind started to wander off. In the end, my lawyer shook his head and said: "I think we're done here."

When we walked outside, I tried to read my lawyer's face, but he must be really good at card games with his poker face.

"I'm sorry miss Morgan, we have to wait three or four weeks what the board will say," he finally said.

"What do you mean?" I said. "They can't do anything like this. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Sadly they can. They decided it's too dangerous to let you work here at the moment. We have to be patient, the board might decide otherwise." He raised his hands as if he wanted to apologize for something.

Although I knew this was coming, I felt sad. What if the board kicked me out for good? I had worked so hard to get here, it wasn't fair that they did this to me.

On the other hand, I could focus fully on the upcoming tournament, which would have been hard if I had to focus on my internship as well. So I started to train, learn tactics, practice battlegrounds until my eyes were red and my fingers were swollen. I had a hard time getting any sleep, as soon as I closed my eyes, the game continued in my head. And when I managed to fall asleep my dreams were filled with battlefields and tactics.

I prepared myself as well as possible for the tournament. It was a five-day event. The first three days were qualification rounds. All the players had been put into groups and had to play four games. The best two of the group would go to the next round and then you had to win to proceed. That part should take only two days. It was still unknown who was last year's winner, but more and more people thought it was Joey.

And I wanted to beat him so badly. I was almost certain that he was the one who sent me those letters. No one else knew about those images, those videos. And almost all the letters that were sent to me had the same layout. The address labels looked all similar; the same font was used.

But then there was this one question that irked me. Why?

Why did he do this? Did he want to threaten me to keep me nice and docile? Was this a little reminder I should never talk about what happened between us? He made no demands in the letters, they only contained those gross pictures and sentences mocking me. None of the letters contained a clue about what he could possibly want from me. The only time a clear statement was made, was during that phone call. The caller wanted to take everything from me as I had taken everything from him. But what did I take from Joey? It made no sense to me at all.

The more I thought about the whole situation, the more nervous I became. I changed my mind a million times about participating in the tournament. What if the letter writer tried to lure me to the tournament? What if it was some kind of trap? It all seemed completely random; the letters, the heart, the pictures, the phone call. I tried to see the deeper meaning in all the things that happened to me and I have to say I became a bit paranoid.

I started to make assumptions about what Joey wanted and what he thought I would do until Dan told me to shut up because he was fearing for my mental health. So I kept quiet about my theories. We only had a couple of days left with each other, before he had to leave for his next project. I tried to make as much time free to be with him as possible.

It became eerily quiet in the house when he left. He went away last week, to prepare for the upcoming movie, to get to know the other actors and actresses. I miss him. I miss his presence, I miss the piles of books he made through my apartment, I miss his experimental cooking, I even miss his clothes lying on the floor. I wish he was here.

The worst thing is that I can't even call him. The director forbade the actors to have any contact with the rest of the world, as he thinks it's a distraction and they will lose focus if they keep calling their families and friends. Not that Dan listened. He sneaked out several times to let me know everything is fine, but the last time he got caught and the last thing I heard him heard from him was some cussing and a promise he would call me as soon as possible. I haven't heard from him since then.

"Miss?" The taxi driver looks expectantly at me. I glance around and I see we've arrived at the airport. I pay him and he helps me with my luggage.

It's not going to be a long flight, two hours, probably less. It's not the flying I worry about, I actually like flying. It's the loss of time that worries me more. The whole journey is an interruption of my training schedule. I'm still not content about my skill level and not being able to play for a couple of hours makes me restless. I wish I had more time to prepare myself.

The man sitting next to me on the airplane must think I'm some kind of lunatic. He tries to talk to me, but I'm too busy writing down tactics and I keep my answers short, almost rudely short and in the end, he gives up. The flight is smooth, with no turbulence or other disturbances.

It's busy in the arrivals hall, a lot of people are waiting for their friends and family members to pick them up. My eyes search the crowd, until they find a cardboard sign, saying 'Miss Morgan'. A man holds it before his potbelly. He looks like a giant teddy bear. A teddy bear with glasses. His face is mostly covered by a thick brown beard and he's wearing a black t-shirt saying 'gamers don't age, they level up'.

I walk up to him. "Al?"

His eyes start to sparkle, he spreads his arms and takes me in a giant bear hug. "It's good to see you again, Elise."

When he finally releases me, he takes my suitcase. "Follow me. The others are already waiting for you. I will fill you in about our preparations during the ride."

--------------

AN: Thanks for reading! If you liked the chapter, please vote for it by pressing the little star :)

Note 1: Elise and Al met each other during former tournaments when she was sixteen, and they always kept contact, not sure if that was clear. She might be a bit daft now and then, but she's not going to meet up with anybody she met on the internet :)

Note 2: I will probably edit this chapter a bit as it was mostly written in the hospital and I apologize for any mistakes I made. Please tell me if you find any and I will correct them as soon as possible. I wanted to post it as we're getting closer and closer to the end.