I used to think people like me didn't matter. Not in some deep or some sort of philosophical sense but more just in the everyday, boring kind of way. The kind where you go through life unnoticed, unremarkable, and ultimately unwanted, coasting through without really doing much. Living, yet not living at the same time.
Staring at my computer screen, I bitterly smiled, what was I doing with my life, would things have been different if I could start over?
For those wondering my name's Rain Ariken. I'm twenty years old, a failing college student washed in debt, who wastes what little money he has on cigarettes and cheap booze, and if you asked me what I wanted to do with my life, I'd probably laugh in your face. Because the truth is, I don't know.
I've already given up.
Classes? Dropped half of them. Friends? Lost touch with them ages ago. Family? They've stopped asking questions, frankly they viewed me more of a parasite, but then again thats a whole can of worms I didn't want to get into. The only thing that's been consistent in my life—the only thing I've ever managed to finish—is a visual novel called Starbreaker.
Don't bother looking it up. Almost no one's played it. Some obscure indie title with clunky mechanics, broken English, and a fanbase you could count on two hands. But for whatever reason, I stuck with it. Maybe due to a sense of camaraderie, because it felt like the game was just as unwanted as I was.
If I was being brutally honest, the game was quite horrible, buggy in multiple ways, and the decisions that looked like common sense could ultimately leave you splat dead, not to mention the game was incredibly long. After all this time I hadn't even completed a single route yet. However, tonight after years of starting and stopping, I finally finished the basic route, aka the beginner route. According to the creator this route was the most simplest route that was created to get the user acclimatised to the visual novel and its gameplay mechanics, but I called bullshit.
"Beginner my ass."
This must have been some sick joke by the creator, no wonder nobody wanted to play his stupid game, frankly I wouldn't have been surprised if I was the only person in the world who had completed it, or well at least a single route. As the credits rolled, I sat back in my chair, a cigarette burning down in my hand, and wondered if that was it. If that was the highlight of my life completing a story no one cared about, in a world that wasn't real.
But then something strange happened.
The screen flickered, and instead of returning to the main menu, a message popped up in bold, glowing text:
"You have completed the path of mediocrity. Would you like to accept the Gift of Change?"
I actually laughed. Out loud."What the hell is this, DLC?" I muttered.
The cigarette ash tumbled onto my desk, but I didn't care. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the exhaustion, but I clicked Yes without thinking.
"Do you wish to change your life?"
"Yes," I whispered, mocking the screen. "Change my life. Sure. Why not?"
The monitor pulsed, light flooding the room. My smirk faltered as my reflection on the glass surface warped, distorted, then vanished entirely.
"What the—"
I didn't get to finish.
The screen exploded in colour, and something yanked me forward, dragging me out of my chair and into the light. I tried to scream, but my voice was swallowed by static. My body dissolved into fragments, scattering like broken pixels.
The last thing I thought before everything went dark was:
So this is it. This is how I finally disappear.