The world began to dissolve. The sand, the pyramids, the skyscrapers—all began to un-render, turning back into white code that dissolved into the void. The music warped, the vocals stretching into a screech.
Leo smiled back, though he didn't know why. He closed the laptop. He didn't need to play the game anymore. He felt like he was already inside it.
He typed the holy grail into the search bar: "Super Mario Odyssey PC Download Highly Compressed."
"Three hundred megs?" Leo whispered to himself. "That’s impossible. That’s smaller than a movie trailer."
He extracted the folder. Inside was a single executable file with a pixelated icon of Mario’s face, stretched slightly too wide. He double-clicked.
In the reflection, Mario looked normal. The background looked normal. But Cappy... Cappy wasn't on Mario’s head in the reflection. Cappy was floating behind Mario, in the foreground of the mirror, staring back at Leo.
Leo froze. He tried to move the mouse, to turn Mario away, but the input was locked.