Chapter Text
Carlsen looked up from the table.
He was playing as white and landed himself in a pretty complex endgame, and neither player was unsure of what their plan was going to be. So he got up and went to the bathroom as his opponent thought about what to play. In the bathroom, he was trying to resist breaking down as he realized 77 plus 33 was, in fact, not 100. He succeeded, continued on with his bathroom trip as normal, and went back to the table.
Nepomniachtchi played c5.
Somewhere else in the world, though, something of a completely different nature was happening. Picture yourself in Dubai, UAE, in the room Carlsen and Nepo were dancing on the 64 squares. Not a sound, apart from the occasional placement, pickup, and drop of a piece. Now picture yourself somehow traveling to Marlyand, Delaware, USA, at light speed. I have to phrase it like that because, for whatever reason, "teleporting" isn't classified as a word. First off, you just traveled at the speed of light with no protection, so you should be down to a skeleton. Also, you broke the laws of physics. And even if you somehow survived being reduced to Sans Undertale, the whiplash of being in such a quiet, almost relaxing room to an exceptionally loud and crowded, yet somehow still calming heavy metal concert should be the final nail in the coffin. But let's say, hypothetically, for the sake of the argument, you survived that. Makes sense, as you survived the Bite of 87. Would you agree that you are now listening to a live performance of Through the Fire and Flames by Dragonforce? It's true! They don't want you to know it, but you're a god of this world, drawing a mustache on a portrait of Newton and somehow getting a free entry to a concert!
Everyone in the venue notices you in the audience, as you landed inside one of the inferior beings in the audience. Everyone is freaking out, and from the stage you hear, "So far away we wait for the WHAT IS GOING ON? SINCE WHEN WAS THAN GUY A CONJOINED TWIN? HE WASN'T A SECOND AGO! EVERYONE PANIC!!!"
Traveling at the speed of light again, you exited the poor man. Still, nobody has calmed down since from what they can tell, someone just kinda popped into existence mid-performance. So before anything worse can happen, you go back to Dubai, back to the room. Except this time you're halfway through a wall. Going out, the players noticed you and also began panicking, as you weren't behind the live camera before. So now everyone is on to you. There's nowhere left to hide, so you just stand there as you're bombarded with questions. Most notably, "How did you get here?"
"Well, I just sort of started existing as a ghost when Carlsen went to the bathroom. By the time he got back, I started to exist, but when I did, I immediately dipped to go to a metal concert in America because I can run at the speed of light. But everyone panicked, since I accidentally landed inside of someone, so I came back here."
It was at this moment you had a funny thought in your head (more like, I had that funny thought, but this is my 3AM galaxy brain production, so you do as I say).
What if Carlsen and Herman from that concert you were just at dated?