Chapter 3 - Trending
976 Words
I sat cross-legged in my gaming chair, one hand idly spinning a pen between my fingers while the other scrolled through my DMs.
Most were the usual—memes, game recommendations, fun exploits, and the occasional "sit on my face" from some horny creep.
Standard.
I skimmed past them, my brain running on autopilot until something caught my eye.
@PixelPrince77: Yo, Trashleigh, you’re trending.
I frowned. Trending?
My pulse kicked up a notch as I clicked on the link he’d attached.
Please don’t be something embarrassing. Please don’t be something embarrassing.
A video loaded and the caption caught my attention:
"This girl went from absolutely roasting this game to being a literal god at it in under ten seconds."
Huh?
I hesitated before hitting play.
There I was, on screen, ranting loudly about Maliketh, the Black Blade.
"This boss is literally designed to ruin lives," I growled, gripping my mouse so hard I was surprised it hadn’t crumbled in my hand. "Like, I’m convinced FromSoftware made this just to personally humiliate me. WHY DOES HE HAVE A SECOND PHASE THAT FEELS LIKE A THIRD?!"
On-screen, I dodged left—too slow. The screen flashed red as my character got yeeted into next week.
You Died.
The chat exploded with F’s.
I exhaled sharply, cracking open an energy drink as the tragic violin death music played in the background.
"Cool. Love that for me," I watched myself mutter, taking a sip. "Honestly, at this point, I’m considering uninstalling. Maybe I’ll take up something less stressful. Like tax evasion."
The clip cut to my next attempt, where I respawned, seething.
"Alright. One more try. But if I die again, I’m writing a strongly worded email to Miyazaki himself."
I marched back through the arena, determined. "Listen here, you geriatric, emo cat—I refuse to lose to you again."
Chat was dying at my insults.
Then, somehow—miraculously—I parried him.
Perfectly.
The room fell silent as my on-screen self absolutely wrecked Maliketh with a series of flawless dodges, ripostes, and devastatingly lucky critical hits.
The health bar plummeted.
The boss screeched.
And suddenly, he was dead.
Victory Achieved.
On the video, I just sat there, frozen, staring at the screen like I couldn’t believe what had just happened.
"…Well," I finally muttered, dragging my mic closer. "I take that back. I am, in fact, a god."
Relief filled me. It was an older clip, maybe from a few months ago. Not sure why it was circulating now, but I wasn't going to complain. Maybe it would get me a few more subs.
It definitely could have been worse.
I sighed, leaning back in my chair and taking another sip of Red Bull as I recalled a previous clip of myself that had done the rounds where I had faceplanted into my mic as I reached for a snack mid-game. That one still haunted me.
I scrolled through some of the comments.
@DaggerWolf: This is why I watch her. The pure chaos.
@TuchMyWeener: This chick is cracked at every game she plays. HOW.
@SimpLord420: Trashleigh, I would literally die for you.
@Pigette: One of us. One of us.
I snorted. Yeah, my community was insane.
Loyal, but insane.
Streaming started as a hobby for me, something to do, something to escape into. And yet, somewhere along the way, it turned into something bigger.
A career? Maybe. I wasn’t making millions, but 100K across platforms was solid. Enough to pay for a decent setup—three monitors, RGB lighting, a high-quality mic, and my beloved neon-purple headphones with demon horns on top.
I stretched, rolling my shoulders before checking the time.
3:27 PM.
I didn’t have a set schedule. I streamed whenever I felt like it, but I always went live Tuesdays and Saturdays at the same time. Non-negotiable.
The rest? Completely erratic. Sometimes I’d hop on at 2 AM because I couldn’t sleep, but I never opened chat unless one of my mods was online.
Not because I couldn’t handle trolls. I just had better things to do than babysit a bunch of basement-dwelling losers who thought harassing female streamers was a personality trait.
I took another sip of Red Bull and checked the rest of my messages.
[MOD] ToxicBoi88: Just a heads up, banned BigDaddy69 again. He was spamming weird p**n links.
I sighed. f*****g BigDaddy69.
Every community had that one guy, and BigDaddy69 was mine.
Dude had been watching me for a while, but lately, he’d gone full creep-mode. Spamming NSFW links, making disgusting comments, sending DM's I refused to open... Total f*****g basement dweller.
I’d muted him before, but apparently, he was back.
Not anymore.
[ME]: Permanent ban. Dude needs to touch grass.
A few seconds later, a message popped up.
[MOD] ToxicBoi88: Already done. You know I got you, Leigh.
I smirked. Good mod.
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The soft hum of my PC filled the room, the glow of my monitors casting long shadows across my walls. I leaned back in my chair, stretching out my fingers as I stared blankly at the screen.
A half-finished math problem stared back at me, mocking me.
Nope.
I sighed, clicking the cross in the corner of the screen. That was a problem for another day.
Rolling my chair back, I stood, grabbing my hoodie from the back of my chair and pulling it on before making my way downstairs for a much-needed energy drink before my stream.
I shuffled into the kitchen, heading straight for the fridge, pulling it open with a sigh of relief when I saw my stash still intact. It wasn’t unlike Caleb to help himself…
I grabbed two cans, one for now, one for later, then let the fridge door swing shut—and nearly launched both drinks across the kitchen when I turned around to find Ryan f*****g Callahan standing there.
- Writer
