I pass through a corridor lined with black sheets and push through a curtain. Or maybe it’s just another black sheet hung from the ceiling? Through another curtain, and another. Darker and darker. Deeper and deeper.

There are four people here gaming. Three guys and a woman.

One of the guys is wearing a virtual-reality headset and he’s standing facing a wall, swinging his arms and ducking and yelling, ‘Behind you, grenadier!’

The others are sitting in front of screens with their fingers on illuminated keyboards. They’re wearing headsets with microphones. A fridge glows in the corner. It’s stocked with Red Bull Extreme and other high-caffeine energy drinks.

‘You won’t get any sense out of him,’ says one of the twins, still facing his screen. ‘Playing since seven last night. He’s lost down the rabbit hole.’

His brother is sitting on the far side of the room facing me. Even in this dark room I can see his eyes glow red in the glare from the screen.

I speak up. ‘How much per hour?’

The twin keeps on playing for a few moments then smashes his fist on the table and throws off his headset and turns to me and says, ‘Twenty kronor. Sit anywhere you like.’

I sit two screens down from the blue-haired woman. That’s the etiquette. Always leave a space if you can. She’s about forty, and she’s playing UEFA World-Cup football or something similar.

The screensaver in front of me lists the specs of the computers. The speed of gameplay and the broadband levels. It tells me which games are available. Mostly ultra-violent shoot-em ups as far as I can tell. I load up a version of Doom I like.

One of the twins comes along beside me.

‘You game, eh?’

I keep looking at my screen and pick up a sawn-off shotgun. ‘What does it look like?’

He watches me play for a few seconds and then says, ‘You hear about––’

His twin screams from the back of the room and a can of Red Bull flies past, hits the far wall and explodes.

‘Fuck, David,’ says the twin next to me.

More fists hitting desks.

David goes over and helps his twin to clean up with paper towels.

‘You need to get out, brother. Clear your head. You should let me play on.’

David smacks him on the shoulder and Daniel heads back to the rear of the room.

‘Doom,’ says David, his eyes bright red, like an exotic rabbit that’s been clubbing all night.

‘Yup.’

‘You gotta harness that temper, David,’ says the blue-haired woman. ‘Focus it on the game at hand. Channel it.’

David flicks up his middle finger behind her back.

‘I saw that, nephew,’ she says. ‘Screen reflection, asshole.’

The clock on the base of my screen reads 11:59am.