He tried to steer away from the tree, but the car wouldn't turn. The controls were locked. The speedometer climbed past 60, 80, 110. The tree grew larger in the windshield. He slammed the brakes, but they didn't work. He tried to Alt+F4, to Ctrl+Alt+Del. Nothing. The keyboard was dead.
He looked in the rear-view mirror. The driver's seat behind him was empty. Then he understood. He wasn't the driver. He was the passenger. Again.
The impact didn't make a sound. The screen just went black, and then the window reappeared, as if nothing had happened. The disc ejected itself, clattering onto the floor. Gran Turismo 2 PC Game.exe
A message flashed on the screen:
He double-clicked.
Double-clicking the CD-ROM drive now showed a single file:
A track loaded: not Trial Mountain, but his own street. Pine Grove Avenue, rendered in grainy, PS1-era polygons. His house was there. The For Sale sign in the yard was legible. And at the end of the street, the tree. The one his brother hit. He tried to steer away from the tree,
He never played a racing game again.