He didn't play Red Dead that night. He went to bed at 2:00 AM, the error message burned into the back of his eyelids. He dreamed of Dutch, but Dutch wasn't talking about Tahiti. Dutch was just standing in a black void, holding a small white dialog box with a red X.

Arthur Morgan didn’t believe in ghosts. Not the kind that moaned in swamps or rattled chains in mansions. But the ghost in his machine? That one was real.

The converter spat back: À��{

"We just need more redistributable packages , Arthur!" Dutch yelled. "Have some FAITH!"

The second hour was anger. He slammed his fist on the desk. The cheap IKEA wood rattled. The frozen pizza burned in the oven. He ate it cold, standing up, chewing rubbery cheese while searching "0xc00007b RDR2 fix" on his phone. The forums were a graveyard of other people’s broken dreams. "Reinstall DirectX." "Install Visual C++ Redistributable." "It's your RAM." "No, it's your motherboard." "Pray."

The error bloomed again. 0xc00007b.

Then, a small, cruel window popped up. White background. Red X.