There was a man. Not a hero, not a villain. Just a man. Ethan Carter, 32, middle-class driftwood in the current of America’s decaying South. His world was cheap microwavable dinners, half-priced Venom energy drinks, and fantasy escapism masquerading as identity. By day, he stocked shelves at a grocery store that smelled like mildew and ambition lost. By night, he became GawainnXIV, a Twitch streamer with zero viewers and an unhealthy obsession with old-school RPGs, grimdark anime, and lore so deep it could drown you.

  His studio apartment was a shrine to neglect: half-empty Code Red bottles, a noisy ceiling fan, a cheap computer desk glowing with RGB lights. On the wall, tacked up with yellowing masking tape, were printouts of knightly figures, fantasy maps, and screenshots from Berserk and The Witcher. His only furniture of note was a torn gaming chair, a mattress on the floor, and a full-length mirror cracked diagonally like a lightning scar.

  Sleep was a myth. There was always one more chapter of a light novel, one more manga release, one more dungeon to crawl, one more rabbit hole of fan theories. Real life—bills, his manager Mark, the growing black mold colony in the bathroom—was the B-plot. Ethan lived in fantasy, pixel by pixel.

  Ethan hadn’t meant to go out. He almost didn’t. But the stale air in his apartment had turned suffocating, and the idea of eating another bowl of instant ramen made his stomach turn. He grabbed his hoodie and wandered to the corner gas station—the one with the flickering sign and half-working freezer section.

  He was standing in the snack aisle, debating between gummy worms and boiled peanuts, when someone bumped him gently with a shoulder.

  “Shit, sorry,” the guy said, reaching for a bag of sunflower seeds. He looked about Ethan’s age—maybe younger—tall, wiry, with tired eyes and a faded bomber jacket. His voice had a dry, casual drawl. “Didn’t mean to crowd you.”

  “No worries,” Ethan muttered, stepping aside.

  The guy glanced at him, then did a small double take. “Wait—have we met? You look kind of familiar.”

  Ethan blinked. “I don’t think so.”

  The guy gave a crooked grin. “Tyler,” he said, sticking out a hand.

  Ethan hesitated a second before shaking it. “Ethan.”

  “Cool.” Tyler tossed the seeds in his basket. “Anyway—sorry again, man. I’ve been walking around all night. Just needed something salty.”

  He started to move off, then paused. “You live around here?”

  “Yeah, a few blocks,” Ethan said. “You?”

  “Sort of,” Tyler replied vaguely. “Couch-surfing these days.”

  He gave Ethan a quick nod, then wandered toward the fridges, leaving Ethan standing there, oddly unsettled—not in a bad way, but like something small had shifted. Like the pilot light of a conversation that hadn’t quite started.

  They ended up sitting on the curb outside the store one night, sipping energy drinks and watching a thunderstorm roll in. Tyler mentioned offhand that he used to draw comics.

  Ethan perked up. “Like, actual comics? What kind?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Knights. Monsters. Weird shit. Nothing good.”

  Ethan stared into his drink. “I used to make up lore for fake games.”

  Tyler chuckled. “Guess we’re both a little broken, huh?”

  The silence that followed wasn’t awkward. It was comfortable.

  Tyler leaned back on his hands, rain misting his boots. “It’s like we were born too late to be knights, but too early to conquer space.” He said it like a joke, but there was something serious in his tone.

  Ethan cracked a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “I think about that a lot,” he admitted. “Like maybe I was supposed to die for a cause or something. Not... ring up groceries.”

  Tyler glanced over, something like recognition in his face. “You ever think the world doesn’t need saving, but you wish it did?”

  “I used to think history was full of thousands of years of knights and heroes,” Tyler said suddenly. “Like, a golden age that lasted forever. But it was short. Just a few weird centuries in the middle of a lot of mud and nothing.”

  He took a sip from his can, eyes on the storm rolling in. “Still... I used to draw knights that didn’t die. Not in battle, not from age. Just—kept going. Eternal. Stupid, right?”

  Ethan shook his head. “No. That’s exactly the kind of knight I wanted to be.”

  They laughed, quiet and honest. Then Tyler reached into his coat and pulled out a cheap lighter, flicked it open like it meant something.

  “Swear something,” he said. “Anything. Right now.”

  Ethan hesitated, then lifted his can like a goblet. “I swear to live like I matter, even if no one else thinks I do.”

  Tyler clinked his can against Ethan’s. “Good enough for me, Ethan.”

  After the can-toast and shared vow, Ethan and Tyler stood as the storm broke. Rain poured, lightning flashed. They didn’t run. Tyler said something like, “Let’s not waste this night,” and they walked into the storm—not as bums or losers, but as knights reborn.

  Tyler led Ethan through the dark streets of the rundown city to a rusty old warehouse, where two motorcycles—customized with knight-like decals—were waiting. Tyler strapped on his leather jacket and tossed one to Ethan. “These are our steeds. Every knight needs one.”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Ethan laughed but followed along, strapping on his helmet as Tyler revved the engine. The roar of their motorcycles filled the night air, cutting through the stillness of the empty streets.

  They rode side by side, scanning the shadows, alert for anything out of place. After a while, they pulled into a dimly lit gas station on the outskirts of town. The flickering fluorescent lights cast long shadows across the pavement, giving the place a deserted, eerie feel.

  As they approached the pumps, Ethan spotted movement inside the store. Three young men in balaclavas were holding up the place—eyes darting nervously behind their masks, hands shaking as they waved guns around. Behind the counter, a young part-timer stood frozen, pale as a ghost, eyes wide in fear.

  Tyler cut the engine and dismounted in one fluid motion, pulling his jacket tight as he moved toward the door.

  “This is it, Sir Gawain,” he said with a grin, his voice low but full of excitement.

  Ethan followed, heart pounding, breath coming quick, though he wasn’t sure whether it was from adrenaline or nerves. They stood there for a moment, watching, the weight of the moment settling in. Neither of them fully grasped what they were about to do—but the thrill was enough to push them forward.

  “This is a death sentence,” Ethan hissed. “They’ll gun us down in seconds.”

  Tyler flashed a grin that was half madness, half challenge. “Then let’s die trying. Better than dying in a break room.”

  He shoved the bat into Ethan’s hands like it was Excalibur. “You swore, remember?”

  Then he was off, boot slamming the door open like a siege ram. “Leeroy Jenkins!” he bellowed into the fluorescent-lit chaos of the gas station.

  Three masked robbers turned in unison, startled by the war cry. One of them—skinny, jumpy, holding a cheap-looking pistol—actually lowered his weapon in confusion.

  Tyler didn’t slow. He charged like a man on a caffeine bender with something to prove, baseball bat raised high.

  “Back off!” the robber shouted, lifting the pistol.

  CRACK. Plastic shattered. Tyler batted the fake gun clean out of his hands and into the candy aisle.

  “You brought props,” Tyler sneered, “to a sword fight.”

  The robber blinked. “Wait, what—?”

  WHAM. Tyler’s follow-up strike landed in his gut. The man folded like a cheap lawn chair, gasping on the floor between shelves of energy drinks.

  Ethan hesitated at the threshold, heart jackhammering in his chest. One of the remaining robbers stepped forward, brandishing a butterfly knife. Tyler was too far to help. The guy lunged.

  Ethan screamed. It was high-pitched. Undignified. But it got the job done—he ducked the stab and swung wildly. The bat clipped the robber’s elbow, sending the knife clattering across the tile.

  “Shit!” the man cursed, clutching his arm.

  Another swing. This one caught him right in the kneecap. He dropped like a puppet with its strings cut, howling.

  Ethan stood over him, panting. “This is what happens,” he muttered, “when you mess with the order.”

  The third robber tried to run—tried. Tyler caught him by the collar near the beer fridge and spun him around just in time to deliver a bat-slam to the shin. The man screamed, stumbling into a standee of beef jerky.

  “You!” Tyler shouted, hauling him back up. “Trial by combat!”

  The robber whimpered. “Dude, what?”

  Tyler didn’t answer. He just roared, spinning and slamming the robber straight through a rack of Takis and Fritos. Snack bags rained down like battlefield shrapnel.

  Somewhere behind them, the CCTV captured every second of it—two lunatics, dressed like gas station knights, laying siege to petty crime.

  Ethan leaned against the counter, sweat dripping from his brow. A hot dog roller squealed in the background like a dying animal. One of the robbers groaned from the floor, half-covered in spilled Big Gulp and powdered donuts.

  “Stop monologuing and tie him up!” Tyler yelled, rifling through drawers for duct tape.

  And then came the sound—wailing, warbling sirens, slicing through the night air.

  Ethan froze. “Oh crap.”

  “Fear not,” Tyler said, slipping on a pair of aviators like a bandit king. “We ride... or die.”

  They ran.

  No glory. No medals. No dramatic soundtrack. Just two idiots, pumped full of stolen gas station adrenaline and dollar-store courage, limping through back alleys under flickering streetlights. Ethan’s side throbbed with every step, and Tyler was bleeding from somewhere—neither of them checked. There wasn’t time.

  They made it to the bikes—miraculously still there—and peeled off into the neon-soaked dark, engines roaring like war drums. Behind them, sirens screamed and chaos settled like dust.

  No one cheered. No grateful cashier hugged them. No slow clap. Just the wind howling in their ears and the city staring back with indifference.

  Ethan didn’t even shower. He dropped his bat in the hallway, peeled off his jacket like it weighed a hundred pounds, and collapsed into bed like it owed him sleep. Bruised, sore, mind blank. For the first time in years, he didn’t feel like a loser. Just... tired.

  And the second he passed out, the world logged in.

  Phones buzzed. Group chats lit up. Subreddits argued if it was staged. TikToks looped his awkward bat swing beside Tyler’s deranged war cry. One video showed Tyler tackling a robber into a pyramid of Monster Energy cans, edited with epic music and flames. Another had already added him to a tier list of “Most Unhinged Vigilantes.”

  Tyler’s crusade wasn’t a secret anymore.

  It was trending.

  And when Ethan woke up, everything would change.