I am a degenerate.
That's not me being edgy, not me exaggerating. It's the truth I remind myself every time I catch my reflection in the dust-coated mirror leaning against the corner of my room.
A twenty-two-year-old failure, skin pale from years without sunlight, eyes baggy from endless nights staring at glowing screens.
For days—weeks, really—I never left my room. My dad had to climb a ladder just to peer through my upstairs window, hoping to find his number-one son in the world. Instead, he always saw the same sight: me, hunched over, controller in hand, staring blankly at anime girls on a monitor.
Sometimes he'd catch me glued to a female streamer, spamming donations I couldn't afford, hoping for even a second of fake affection. Other times he'd find me lurking on adult websites, trying to convince myself that physical desire was all I'd ever amount to. That our family bloodline—the one my father carried with pride—would die with me.
My mom was no different. She left food by my door, tapping softly, whispering, "I made your favorite, Eddie. Please eat." Sometimes she'd sit there for hours, her voice muffled through the wood, talking about her day, about the weather, about nothing at all. I never responded. I just kept playing games, headphones blasting, pretending she didn't exist.
But every conversation ended the same. Her voice cracking, the silence stretching, until she said it: "I love you, my baby." A pause. Then the soft padding of her footsteps retreating down the hall.
And then there was my sister. She never lingered, never whispered kindness through the door. No, she delivered her disappointment in person, face to face.
"You're disgusting."
"You're wasting their lives."
"Do you even care what you're doing to us?"
Her words cut the deepest because they were true.
---
My name is Edward Mcvile. I graduated top of my high school class, the kid teachers loved to parade as a shining example of potential. I had a ticket to the best university in the country, a thousand paths opening in front of me—soccer scholarships, marine biology programs, futures I used to daydream about.
I wanted to be something. A star on the field, scoring goals that made stadiums roar. Or maybe the boy who discovered a new species in the ocean's depths, his name etched in textbooks.
But all of that collapsed the day I contracted the virus.
The doctors called it X-00. They didn't even give it a dramatic name—just a string of letters and numbers, as if my suffering was too clinical to deserve anything more human.
It was the perfect disease. Perfect in the worst way. Every medicine they tried, it adapted. Every treatment, it resisted. It never spread to anyone else; it chose me and me alone. I was the world's only "Subject Zero."
At first, the world prayed for me. Crowds outside the hospital holding candles, strangers online donating to experimental treatments. For a while, I believed I was a miracle in waiting, the one who'd inspire humanity to overcome nature itself.
But then the compassion rotted.
Cameras followed me in public, catching me limping down a sidewalk, gasping on a bench. They uploaded it with clickbait titles like "World's Sickest Man Still Smiling" or "Watch Edward Mcvile Try to Live a Normal Life." They didn't care. They just wanted views.
Then came the mockery. The cruel memes. People calling me virus boy, walking corpse, proof evolution makes mistakes.
I finally snapped.
I shut my door and never opened it again. I let my body rot in that room, day after day, until even standing felt like lifting mountains.
---
Sometimes, though, I still remembered the boy I used to be.
I remembered lacing up cleats under the burning sun, the smell of grass, the adrenaline of sprinting across a soccer field. My teammates' shouts, the crowd's cheer, the brief, impossible moment when I felt like I could fly.
I remembered afternoons at the library, hunched over books about coral reefs and whale migrations, sketching fish in the margins of my notebooks. I wanted to dive into the ocean, to discover something hidden and whisper to the world, "Look, it's beautiful."
I remembered my friends—my entire circle of laughing, loud idiots who'd cram into fast-food booths and argue about video games and girls.
And I remembered her.
My crush. Long hair like a curtain of night, smile like sunrise. I had it planned: Valentine's Day, a box of chocolates in my backpack, a note scribbled with shaking hands. I was going to ask her out.
But that Valentine's, I was in a hospital bed, too weak to stand, watching her Instagram story where she posted a picture of roses from someone else.
Every dream, every connection, severed by the virus.
---
One night, as my mom lingered by the door, I finally broke my silence.
"Why do you still try?" My voice rasped like paper tearing.
She froze. I could hear her breath hitch, the tray in her hands trembling.
"You've already given up on me, haven't you? I see it in your eyes. In Dad's. Even in hers. You're just… waiting. So why keep pretending?"
The silence that followed was unbearable. Finally, she whispered, "Because you're my son. And even if you hate yourself, I'll love you until the day I can't anymore."
Her words haunted me for days.
---
I wasn't supposed to hear it, but I did.
A memory carved into me like a scar:
I was halfway down the stairs one night, pale and trembling, when I heard them in the kitchen. My mom, my dad, my sister.
"He's suffering," Dad said. His voice cracked. "Every day is torture. What if we… what if we let him rest?"
Mom gasped like he'd struck her. "Don't you dare. That's our son. Our baby."
"Your baby is dying," my sister spat. "Look at him. He's a ghost. You think this is mercy? Keeping him alive to rot in that room?"
I clutched the railing, heart hammering, listening to them argue over my life like I wasn't even there.
In the end, Mom won. She always did. But the seed was planted. Even they wanted me gone.
---
It was May 31st, 6 a.m.
The day the world had been waiting for: the release of a game twelve years in the making. The forums had been buzzing for weeks, the countdown streams never stopping. Even my old friends had been planning all-night marathons.
I lay in bed, controller in hand, staring at the download bar crawling across the screen. 95%. 96%. 97%. 98%.
But my body was crumbling faster than the bar was filling. My chest felt heavy, like iron chains were pulling it down. My vision blurred, the edges of the screen dissolving into darkness.
The controller slipped from my hand. It clattered against the floor, echoing louder than it should have in my small room.
My mom knocked faintly. "Edward? Breakfast—"
Her voice faded.
I tried to respond, to whisper anything. But my heart clenched like a fist.
I saw the bar flicker: 99%. The game logo glowing against the pale blue morning light.
I thought of my soccer cleats. My textbooks. My friends' laughter. Her smile. My mom's voice.
And for the first time in years, I prayed.
Please… let me try again. Just once. Give me another life.
The world tilted. My blanket was the last thing to cover me. The glow of the monitor was the last light I saw.
And then, in the abyss, a voice—playful, curious—whispered:
"Another life? Very well. Let's paint you a new one."