Level One vs. My Dog

“His stats are level one, his dog is the final boss, and his grandmother is running the tutorial.”

One Sunday afternoon, amid the remains of a cold pizza, Eloy switches on his old tube TV and the cartridge from his childhood swallows him whole. Inside, he wears polygon chain mail that scrapes like unsanded plastic, his grandmother Consuelo explains the controls in the daisy-print housecoat she wore on Saturdays, and Corcho, the mutt he grew up with, guards the exit as the final boss. To get home he'll have to win the game without breaking his best friend's heart.