Tick.

She stopped moving.

Alex stared at the cracked communicator screen, rain dripping from the rim of her iron helmet. The server had been quiet for weeks—no griefers, no hackers, just the usual hum of redstone clocks and distant squid splashing. But now, a new name flickered in the player list.

A player—former player— approached Kris’s frozen body. It didn’t move. It just opened a GUI above Kris’s head. Alex zoomed in with OptiFine.