The rules were different. When Elias moved his King, the squares he left behind vanished into blackness. He wasn't playing to win; he was playing to keep the board from disappearing.
When the program launched, the screen didn't show a standard board. The grid was infinite, stretching into a digital fog. On his side of the board, Elias didn't have sixteen pieces. He had one—a King, carved from what looked like static. On the opposing side, deep in the gray mist, something moved. Chess.The.Lost.Pieces.rar
The screen flickered, the .rar file vanished, and for the first time in forty years, Elias looked away from the board and walked toward the window to watch the sun rise. The rules were different