Peyton didn't sleep for four straight days.
He lived on Red Bull, cold pizza, and pure spite.
By the end of the marathon coding binge, **The Lonely Ocean** was finished, and it was a masterpiece of misery.
Core gameplay:
- You are a single plastic straw floating in an endless garbage patch.
- There are no controls. None. Not even mouse movement.
- The camera slowly zooms out over 72 real-life hours, revealing more and more floating trash until the screen is nothing but plastic.
- Audio: distant seagull screams, faint at first, then gradually louder, angrier, until they sound like they're inside your skull.
- Every six hours a whale carcass floats by with a sad trombone sound.
- The only text on screen, in tiny gray font at the bottom:
"You are not saving the planet. You are the problem."
He removed the pause button, removed the quit button, removed the window close button.
The only way to exit the game was to open Task Manager and murder the process like it owed you money.
Price: $4.99 (he tried $0, but the store forced a minimum).
Store description (written at 4 a.m. with shaking hands):
> A meditative experience about humanity's legacy.
> No goals. No achievements. No hope.
> Just you, the ocean, and the consequences of your species.
He hit PUBLISH and passed out face-down on the keyboard.
He woke up twelve hours later to Mason shaking him like a maraca.
"Dude. Dude. Wake up. You're trending again. Like… nuclear trending."
Peyton sat up so fast his neck cracked. "Tell me it flopped. Please tell me it flopped."
Mason just handed him his phone, screen open to Twitter.
#1 Worldwide Trend: #SaveTheStraw
#3: TheLonelyOcean
#7: PeytonHoltIsEvilGenius
He opened the ESDH dashboard with the dread of a man checking his own death certificate.
**The Lonely Ocean**
**Downloads in first 12 hours: 2,841,003**
**Gross revenue: $11.3 million**
**Steam front page banner: "The game that made PewDiePie cry on stream"**
Peyton made a sound like a dying animal.
Mason scrolled through the top reviews:
- "I played for six hours and called my mom to apologize for existing." ★★★★★
- "This cured my depression by giving me a worse one." ★★★★★
- "Environmental studies professors are adding this to the syllabus." ★★★★★
Old Joe had already uploaded a 72-hour charity stream titled "Send Me to Therapy."
Current donations: $4.2 million dollars and climbing.
Peyton stared at the ceiling.
The system panel updated with sadistic cheer.
[Current company profit: $10,918,442]
[Personal conversion at settlement (100:1): $109,184.42]
[Money you will never touch: $10,809,257.58]
He had spent $500,000 trying to lose money.
He had made twenty times that instead.
He slowly turned to Mason, eyes hollow.
"I think the universe hates me."
Mason patted his shoulder awkwardly. "Look on the bright side—at least you're rich?"
"I don't want to be rich," Peyton whispered. "I want to be broke on a beach drinking something that doesn't taste like regret."
His phone buzzed again.
Email from Greta Thunberg's team: "We would love to partner with SkyHigh Games to raise awareness."
Email from the United Nations Environment Programme: "Potential collaboration?"
Email from Netflix: "Documentary pitch?"
Peyton closed the laptop, stood up, and walked straight out of the dorm.
Mason called after him. "Where are you going?"
"To jump off the roof," Peyton said calmly.
Mason sprinted after him. "Dude, chill! It's only the third floor!"
Peyton stopped in the hallway, took a deep breath, and made a new decision.
Fine.
If the universe wanted to play dirty, he would play dirtier.
He pulled up the system panel one more time.
[Request new System Funds? Y/N]
He smashed the Y button so hard the screen flickered.
[Approved. $5,000,000 transferred to SkyHigh Games LLC.]
Mason's jaw dropped. "Where the hell are you getting this money?!"
"From the devil," Peyton said. "And I'm about to give him the worst return on investment in history."
He opened a new project.
Working title: **Tax Season Simulator 2025**
Core gameplay: 400 hours of filling out IRS forms.
No skip button.
Random audits every 30 minutes.
If you make one mistake, the game deletes your save and mails your real address to the IRS.
He looked at Mason with the manic grin of a man who had finally snapped.
"This one's gonna bankrupt me. I can feel it."
Mason took three big steps back.
"I'm moving out."
Peyton didn't hear him.
He was already buying the most expensive tax-law database the asset store had.
The universe had beaten him twice.
Third time's the charm.
Right?
…Right?