The four friends—Sam, Jake, Mike, and Alex—were hanging out in Alex’s basement on a lazy summer afternoon, the kind where boredom settles in thick and turns harmless games into something sharper. They were all eighteen, freshly out of high school, friends since middle school. The room smelled of cold pizza crusts and the faint metallic tang of energy drinks. A thick beige carpet covered most of the floor, muffling footste...