Shortcut

Shortcut

"The pin is mightier than the sword. - Reinfeld"

Jared only meant to shave five minutes off the tournament.

He was two points behind in the standings, playing black, and stuck in a stale endgame he’d already visualized to a draw a dozen moves ahead. It wasn’t boredom—it was inevitability. The kind that crushes your will to even pretend you’re still in the game.

He needed a shortcut. Not to win. But to change the board entirely.

So he leaned back from the table, eyes drifting past his opponent, past the neat rows of chess clocks and polished tournament sets, toward a narrow hallway he’d never noticed before. No signage. No judges. Just a dim corridor between the trophy cases.

He stood up.

“I’ll be right back,” he mumbled.

The arbiter didn’t even look up. That was the thing with chess tournaments—silence covered all sins.

The hallway swallowed him quickly, each step echoing louder than expected. The fluorescent lights flickered like faulty logic. He felt like a pawn sliding off the edge of the board. At the far end, a single wooden door waited—painted a pale blue, with an ornate knight piece carved into the center.

He turned the brass knob.

It opened with a soft click.

Inside was… not a room, not exactly. It was a chamber shaped like a rook—circular, tall-ceilinged, lit from above by a shaft of cold light. In the center: a chessboard. Not digital. Not even modern. Wooden. Hand-carved. The pieces already mid-game, mid-conflict, as if two ghosts had been playing for centuries and stepped out for tea.

Jared approached it warily.

White to move.

He looked around. No one. Just the board, humming softly. The pieces were… warm. Alive, almost. Each one detailed down to expression—kings with tired eyes, bishops in cracked marble robes, queens that seemed to smirk slightly when you weren’t looking directly at them.

The white queen moved.

On its own.

Two spaces diagonally, capturing a black pawn.

Jared recoiled slightly, but the board didn’t react. It only waited.

“Your turn,” said a voice.

He turned around. No one there.

“What is this?” Jared asked.

The voice was behind him now. “You asked for a shortcut.”

He turned again. Still nothing.

“Who are you?”

The voice chuckled, dry as parchment. “Same as anyone. Just another player. But I know the way through.”

“Through what?”

The board shimmered.

The position had changed.

Suddenly, it wasn’t the same game anymore. It was his game. The one from the tournament. Same formation, same tension, but with one crucial difference—a fork he hadn’t seen. An aggressive line that would collapse his opponent’s defense in seven precise moves.

“I missed this,” Jared whispered. “How did I miss this?”

“Because you weren’t looking,” said the voice. “You were memorizing patterns, not reading possibilities.”

Jared reached down. Moved his knight.

It felt… real. Like making a move in the game of everything.

Each time he made a move, the pieces countered. It wasn’t a puzzle—it was a conversation. No clocks, no pressure. Only clarity. The fog of distraction lifted. His opponent’s threats dissolved. He played the winning line, and the final checkmate struck like a chord resolving.

He exhaled. Grinned.

And then the board vanished.

He was alone in the tower again. No door behind him. Only a new passage, spiraling downward like a bishop’s long arc across the diagonals.

He descended.

At the base of the tower, another chamber. This one wider, lined with mirrors. Each reflection showed him in a different phase of life: childhood tournaments; late-night blunders; the win that got him to nationals; the loss that made him consider quitting.

And one mirror that showed nothing at all.

A void.

He stepped closer.

It rippled—and he fell through.

He landed on a tiled floor. Not of a building, but a field. Stretching endlessly in both directions—black and white squares, perfectly aligned. He was standing on e4.

Across from him, a figure appeared. Cloaked. Crowned.

A King.

“I thought this was a shortcut,” Jared said.

“It is,” said the King. “But you must play it out.”

Jared blinked—and suddenly he was flanked by pieces. Human-sized. Breathing. Pawns standing solemn like soldiers. A Queen to his left, eyes burning with strategy. A knight snorted behind him, armor clanking.

He looked at his own hands. Gauntlets. He was a player no more.

He was the Black Bishop.

A voice echoed over the battlefield. “Play.”

And the game began.

It wasn’t just tactics—it was experience. The opening felt familiar, the tension like the quiet before a thunderstorm. He advanced diagonally, slicing through flanks. The white pieces struck back. They were clever. Fast. But flawed.

With every move, he felt something slipping away. Time. Memory. The weight of the outside world.

And then, the white Queen stood before him, holding a blade of light.

“This ends now,” she said.

Jared met her eyes. He saw his mother’s face again. His first coach. His rivals. His own reflection.

And he laughed. Not out of arrogance. But understanding.

“It already has,” he said, and stepped off the board.

When he came to, he was back in the tournament hall.

The fluorescent lights. The chess clocks. His opponent staring at him, confused.

“It’s your move,” the boy said.

Jared looked down at the board.

It was his game again. But different. He saw the fork. The line. The shortcut.

He played it.

The boy faltered. Three moves later, it was over.

Jared won.

But he didn’t smile.

He rose from the table, handed in his scoresheet, and stepped outside.

The sun was just beginning to set.

In his pocket, he found a small carved pawn—black, with a diagonal scratch across its surface.

He kept it.

He never found that hallway again.

*** I used to be a tournament director for a USCF club. One of my predecessors liked to create stories based on the players and the results of the event. Thank you for reading!!