Darren sat on the couch pushing buttons on a black game controller identical to the ones that his two best friends, who were seated on either side of him, held. They were playing a platform game that they had beat already on all but the hardest difficulty.
Darren's character hit an explosive, causing his controller to shake in his hands. He sat it down on his lap while he waited for his character to revive and grabbed a handful of pretzels. Joe, to his left, took a brief sip of cola without missing a beat of his game. On the other side, Steven pointed his controller at the screen as if the entire reason his character was getting pummeled was due to a poor connection between the controller and the console.
Darren's character had just reappeared on the screen when he heard the basement door slam. He hit the pause button which elicited protests from his companions. He turned his head to see who was entering his domain. Ever since he had come home from college, after having achieved a useless degree and getting a job as a fast food manager, Darren had lived in the basement as if it was his own private home. Occasionally, his step mother would invade his space to throw in a load of laundry or his father would need some tool he hadn't used once in the past three years but for whatever reason was suddenly desperate for.