Last Online: Seven Years Ago

Rishi’s name appeared in our Discord voice channel at 11:43 p.m.

I stopped typing and leaned towards the monitor.

rishispawn

The same orange astronaut picture. The same ridiculous spelling he had refused to change.

Rishi had died in a road accident seven years ago. Kabir, Nikhil and I had attended his funeral. None of us had seen his account online since.

My phone rang before I could click his name.

“Dev,” Kabir said. “You seeing this?”

“Yeah. Does his brother use the account?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Or someone’s hacked it.”

“Must be.”

Neither of us sounded convinced.

I was alone in my flat, working on an invoice at the small desk beside my bed. Until a minute ago, my biggest problem had been a client who kept promising to pay on Monday.

Now I couldn’t take my eyes off a dead friend’s name.

Behind Kabir, I could hear a television. His wife asked who was calling.

“It’s Dev,” he said. “Someone’s using Rishi’s account.”

The television went quiet.

The four of us had met in college.

Kabir was the broad-shouldered one who could turn a five-minute tea break into a two-hour gathering. Nikhil was thin, wore glasses, and checked the restaurant bill even when somebody else was paying. I was usually the one reminding everyone about class the next morning.

Rishi lived in the room opposite mine. He had untidy hair, a laugh you could hear down the corridor, and an old headset repaired with blue tape. If he saw light under my door after midnight, he would knock.

“One game?”

It was never one.

After college, we moved to different cities, but we still met online. We made a private Discord group where we could talk through our headsets while playing. Rishi named it One Last Game. Our usual voice channel was called Basement, after the room where we had played together in college.

The last game we played as a group was Ashen Keep. We each controlled a character exploring an old fortress. To win, we had to reach the throne room and defeat its king.

On a Thursday night, seven years ago, we stopped just short of the end.

Nikhil had a job interview in the morning. Kabir’s laptop kept overheating. I had to put a software update live at work by eight.

Rishi wanted to keep going.

“Twenty minutes,” he said. “We’re nearly there.”

“Sunday,” I told him. “We’ll finish it Sunday.”

On Saturday afternoon, a lorry crossed the divider and hit his car. He had been driving home for his mother’s birthday.

His younger brother called me that evening.

For a long time after the funeral, I kept reopening our chat and reading my promise.

Sunday pakka.

Sunday, definitely.

I messaged Nikhil.

Are you awake? Someone’s logged into Rishi’s account.

His answer came almost immediately.

Don’t join yet. Calling his brother.

Nikhil lived in Singapore now. It was past two in the morning there, but he was still awake, preparing for a presentation. Even at college, he had been the person we called when something went wrong. He would ask questions while the rest of us panicked.

A few minutes later, he called me. I added Kabir.

“I spoke to Anuj,” Nikhil said. “It isn’t him. He doesn’t use the account.”

“What about Rishi’s laptop?” I asked.

“Still packed away at their parents’ house. Anuj said it hasn’t worked in years.”

“Then someone has the password,” Kabir said.

“Probably,” Nikhil replied. “If they ask us to click anything, don’t.”

A message appeared in the Discord group.

rishispawn: abe aa jao. how long?

It was how Rishi used to type.

Of course someone with his account could have read his old messages. I reminded myself of that as I put on my headphones.

“We’ll ask who it is,” I said. “That’s all.”

The three of us joined Basement.

At first, there was only a faint whirring sound.

Then someone tapped a microphone three times.

“Hello? Dev?”

My fingers went cold.

It was Rishi’s voice.

Not a clean recording. There was a little distortion, and behind it the steady noise of a ceiling fan. His old microphone used to pick up everything.

“Who is this?” I asked. “Anuj?”

“Anuj? Why would he be here?”

Kabir spoke sharply.

“Whoever you are, this isn’t funny.”

The person went quiet.

Then: “Kabir. It’s me.”

I pushed my chair back. The wheels caught on the edge of the rug.

Nikhil stayed calm, but I could hear him breathing close to his microphone.

“Are you using a recording? Some kind of voice software?”

“No.”

“Then turn on your camera.”

“I can’t. There’s nothing to turn on here.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know how to explain it.”

Kabir swore and muted himself.

I stared at the orange astronaut.

“Rishi died,” I said. “Seven years ago. We were at his funeral.”

“I know, Dev.”

I pulled off my headphones.

For a few seconds, I sat in the silence of my room. My desk lamp was still on. The invoice was still open. Nothing around me had changed.

I put the headphones back on.

“Then how are you talking to us?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I’ve tried before. Tonight you can hear me.”

We kept questioning him.

Kabir asked about the night his laptop had caught fire.

“It didn’t catch fire,” Rishi said. “You left it on a blanket and melted the charging cable. Then you blamed my extension board.”

Nikhil asked what Rishi had put inside his suitcase before his first flight.

“Three bricks.”

“Two.”

“The third wouldn’t fit.”

I remembered Nikhil discovering them on the hostel steps while the taxi driver watched.

Those things had never been in our messages. Even so, I wanted another explanation.

“What was the last thing you said to me?” I asked.

Rishi answered more slowly this time.

“On the phone, Friday night? I asked if my mother would like the watch.”

I pressed my palm against my eyes.

He had called from a shop. He’d worried that it looked too expensive, that his mother would make him return it.

“What did you get?” I whispered.

“The silver one. With the small blue face.”

I had seen it at his parents’ house after the funeral, still inside its box.

Nobody spoke for a while.

Then Kabir unmuted.

“Rishi?”

“Yeah, bhai.”

Kabir started crying.

He tried to cover it with a cough, which somehow made it worse. Rishi stayed with him, saying his name quietly until he could speak again.

Rishi told us what he could.

He remembered buying the watch. He remembered driving home. After that, he remembered being back at the last place we had saved our progress in Ashen Keep.

“I can move around the camp,” he said. “But the gate won’t open unless all four players are there.”

“You’ve been there for seven years?” Nikhil asked.

“Sometimes it feels like I’ve only just arrived. Sometimes I remember waiting before. I can’t count it.”

“Can you hear us?” I asked.

“Sometimes. When one of you comes into this channel.”

I had joined Basement a few months earlier after a terrible day at work. I hadn’t called anyone. I’d just sat there, looking at our names.

“Did you hear me?”

“You sighed a lot,” he said gently.

I laughed, then wiped my face with my sleeve.

“Can we see you?” Kabir asked.

“In the game, I think.”

I still had my old copy on a backup drive. Finding it gave me something to do with my hands. While Kabir and Nikhil searched their own computers, I opened it.

The company had closed its online service years ago. Usually the game stopped at an error message.

Tonight, it opened straight into our saved campaign.

Four characters stood around a bonfire beneath the fortress walls.

“Mine’s opened too,” Nikhil said.

“Same,” said Kabir.

Rishi’s character, a swordsman in a green cloak, jumped twice.

He always did that when he was waiting for us.

Seeing it made my chest ache.

Before we went anywhere, Kabir asked us to turn on our webcams.

“Just you two,” he said. “I need to see you.”

A small video window opened beside my game. Kabir sat at his dining table, his eyes red. Behind him, plastic building blocks lay scattered across the floor.

Nikhil appeared next, wearing an old college T-shirt. He took off his glasses and cleaned them for longer than he needed to.

We looked older than the last time we had played together.

“Can you see us?” Kabir asked.

“No,” Rishi said. “Only your characters. But I can hear you.”

Rishi asked what he had missed.

We stayed by the bonfire and told him.

Nikhil had got the job from that Friday interview. Two jobs later, he had moved to Singapore. I had started a small software company.

Kabir had married.

“And we have a daughter,” he said. “Tara. She’s four.”

Rishi was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, “You’re someone’s father?”

“Apparently.”

“That child is going to need help with maths.”

Kabir laughed through his blocked nose.

He held his phone up to the webcam, then remembered Rishi couldn’t see it.

“Sorry.”

“Tell me what she looks like.”

Kabir described her carefully: her curly hair, the gap between her front teeth, the serious expression she wore when explaining things nobody had asked about.

Rishi listened without interrupting.

“Sounds like she’s in charge,” he said.

“She is.”

Eventually, Rishi asked if we would finish the game.

“What happens after?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Will you still be able to talk?”

“I hope so.”

He paused.

“But I’d like to get out of this camp.”

We went through the gate together.

Our old habits returned slowly.

Kabir controlled a heavily armoured warrior whose job was to stand in front and protect the others. Within five minutes, he had run too far ahead.

My character was the healer. I was supposed to restore everyone’s health, which was difficult when Kabir disappeared around corners.

“Come back,” I told him. “I can’t reach you.”

“I’m making space.”

“You’re in another room.”

Rishi laughed.

“Excellent leadership. Very inspiring.”

Nikhil, who played an archer, stopped beside a chest while enemies were still attacking us.

“Leave it!” Kabir shouted.

“It might have something useful.”

“You have hundreds of useful things!”

“For later,” Nikhil replied.

Rishi groaned.

“You’re still doing this?”

For a few minutes, we were talking as easily as we used to.

Then I glanced at Kabir’s webcam. He was smiling with tears running down his face.

I looked back at the game.

Rishi was waiting for me at the next doorway.

We reached the throne room after one in the morning.

Four stone plates were set into the floor. Each of us had to stand on one to open the final door.

Kabir, Nikhil and Rishi took their places.

I stopped at the bottom of the stairs.

“Dev?” Nikhil said.

“There’s another passage we haven’t checked.”

“It’s a side room.”

“We could look.”

On the screen, Rishi stepped off his plate.

He walked his swordsman down to my healer.

I knew what I was doing. If we kept exploring, we wouldn’t have to find out what happened at the end.

“I’m not ready,” I said.

Nobody hurried me.

On Kabir’s webcam, I saw him lower his head.

“I told you Sunday,” I said to Rishi. “You wanted to finish that night, and I said we had time.”

“We thought we did.”

“If I’d stayed—”

“We would’ve played another twenty minutes.”

“I know.”

Saying it aloud made me realise how often I had gone over it. I knew finishing a game on Thursday couldn’t have prevented an accident on Saturday. I still wished I could give him those twenty minutes.

“I wanted more time with you,” I said.

“Me too.”

We stood there for a while, our characters facing each other on the steps.

Then Nikhil began dropping bottles beside us.

They were healing potions, rare ones he had saved throughout the whole game.

“What are you doing?” Rishi asked.

“Giving everyone enough for the fight.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“What happened to saving them for later?”

Nikhil took off his glasses again.

“This is later,” he said.

I picked up my share and walked onto the last plate.

The king defeated us twice.

Each time, the game returned our characters to the doorway so we could try again.

On the third attempt, Kabir stayed close enough for me to heal him. Nikhil warned us before each attack. Rishi waited until we were ready before charging forward.

When the king finally fell, Kabir shouted, “Yes!”

Then he covered his mouth and looked towards his daughter’s bedroom.

For a moment, we all laughed.

The doors behind the throne opened. Beyond them was a grassy hillside in morning sunlight.

CAMPAIGN COMPLETE

We moved our characters to the doorway.

Rishi went first. As his swordsman stepped outside, the green cloak began to fade.

“Wait,” I said.

He stopped.

“Can we talk again tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so, Dev.”

Kabir leaned closer to his screen.

“Can you stay a bit longer?”

“I can try.”

We watched his character grow fainter.

There was so much I hadn’t asked him. But his microphone was becoming quieter too, and I was afraid of wasting what we had left.

“I missed you,” I said.

“I missed you too.”

Nikhil bent forward, his hands clasped in front of his mouth.

“Thanks for coming back.”

“I’m glad you answered,” Rishi said.

Kabir wiped his cheeks.

“Good game, bhai.”

“Good game.”

We each said it.

Then we said goodbye.

Rishi’s character disappeared in the sunlight. A moment later, his name left the voice channel.

The three of us stayed connected.

On my screen, Kabir was crying openly now. Nikhil sat very still.

I couldn’t bring myself to close the game.

“Don’t hang up yet,” I said.

“We’re here,” Kabir answered.

The following morning, Ashen Keep showed its old connection error again.

Rishi’s account was offline. His message from the night before was gone.

But Kabir and Nikhil remembered every conversation.

Later that day, the three of us called Anuj. We told him everything, including the watch.

He cried when I mentioned its blue face.

We stayed on the phone as long as he wanted.

A few weeks later, Nikhil came home on leave, and we met at Kabir’s flat.

Tara opened the door beside her father. She inspected the box of chocolates Nikhil was holding, then took his hand and led him inside.

We ordered too much food. Kabir brought out old college photographs.

In one, Rishi sat on the floor of my hostel room, laughing at something outside the frame. His headset hung around his neck. The blue tape was clearly visible.

Tara pointed at him.

“Who’s that?”

“Our friend Rishi,” Kabir said.

“What was he like?”

For once, none of us had trouble finding something to say.

We told her about the bricks in Nikhil’s suitcase. The broken headset. The time he tried to cook noodles in an electric kettle and ruined both.

She made us tell the suitcase story twice.

After she went to bed, we set up our laptops around the dining table and started a new game.

At eleven, Nikhil said he needed to leave early.

We finished the level and stopped.

Before shutting my laptop, I looked at the old Discord group. Rishi’s orange astronaut was still there, grey and offline.

“Goodnight, Rishi,” I said.

Kabir and Nikhil said it too.

Then we packed away our computers and made plans for Sunday.