> FORTRESS K12: UNAUTHORIZED GAMING DETECTED. > YOUR ACTIVITY HAS BEEN LOGGED. > THIS DOMAIN WILL BE BLACKLISTED IN 60 SECONDS.

Leo leaned back, heart hammering. The pixelated door was still there. He clicked it. The game hummed to life.

The countdown froze at four seconds. Then the message vanished.

Leo was a high school sophomore who lived for two things: speedrunning obscure indie platformers and dodging his school’s iron-fisted IT firewall. The network, dubbed "Fortress K12," blocked everything—Steam, Discord, even the word "game" in any URL. A kid once got a three-day detention for trying to load Solitaire .