[WIP]

Having an abusive father and been abandoned by his mother, he quite early on in life ran away from home to his only living grandfather's house.

Seeing his grandchild severely distressed and hearing about everything that happened, the grandfather took the guard of the child.

He was quite reclusive and quiet after the early childhood, which only made him an easy target to bullying in school.

Beaten, cursed, physically, mentally and emotionally abused. That almost drove him to suicide multiple times.

Being rescued again by his grandfather, they turned to home-schooling since they couldn't really move away due to the grandfather's deteriorated health.

He proved himself as being smart. Almost scary smart sometimes, at a few subjects.

Even with a somewhat short attention span and serious hardships at some subjects, there were things he memorized extremely easy and was capable of applying almost instantly and that almost savant-like pattern of being an absurd genious at some things and incapable at others repeated itself again and again.

He didn't like going outside.

It was not like a fear or being a complete shut-it, but he disliked crowds and didn't like nor trust people due to the fact that people ignored the abuse suffered by others that was used to sustain the status quo, which once disrespected, causes chaos that only worsened the abuse as a way to try to bring balance once again to the status quo.

Due to his grandfather having helped him, whenever he finds someone in need of help, if he could, he would do so.

He'd take nothing out of it except some fulfillment, but even so, he didn't allow others to approach him to much out of fear of being hurt, even though deep inside, as any human, he actually craved affection and proximity.

Though he wished to be stronger to protect himself or other people in need, he doesn't like very much of hurting others, since he hates pain.

Very rarely in his life would he resort to violence and only ever when he felt extremely necessary. Due to being weak, he always got the short end of it, and even if and when he didn't, he still regretted it soon after due to the consequences and the pain he himself caused, yet, he also cursed himself if he didn't get involved when he could very well help others.

As the world got turned upside-down due to a global pandemic, he was forced even more so to shut-himself in his own room.

Having not much to do and bored out of his mind, his grandfather gave him a computer and suggested he should he play games like other children, hoping that maybe a make-believe world would help him with his issues of connecting to people.

Talking and connecting to people online should be easier, right?

The internet, though, was toxic almost as much if not more than out of it. He felt in online games as much of an outcast and was even more insulted than he had been before.

This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

As a complete amateur gamer, loner and anti-social who didn't really research anything, wanting to learn alone, he usually invested his level ups in rpgs equally into all his stats, keeping them perfectly in balance. He didn't feel like he excelled in anything and didn't know what to focus or what would be good, so he felt like spreading things out could be useful.

Since he played solo and didn't talk to others to ask for any advice that quickly turned into a habit. Even if he turned into a useless character and would become impossible to advance to areas with good EXP, he took things slow and would usually raise his proficiency of as many skills as possible by repetition.

He wasn't really playing to be good or have fun, just to pass time and that kind of mechanical repetition would bring him some form of "balance".

Repeatable simple quests, like gathering resources to help npcs claiming to be in deep trouble were his favorites. Going around picking items up, spamming skills just to raise their proficiency and running from any danger he faced were his main source of EXP and money.

This ever-repeating daily life soon got wrecked though, since his grandfather got sick with the pandemic's virus.

He had hidden the truth from him trying to not worry him and tried as he could to suppress the symptoms, but he condition worsened too fast.

Less than a day after he started feeling anything, before he was able to go to the hospital behind his grandson's back, the grandfather collapsed in the sofa, making his blood almost freeze inside his veins when he heard it, turned the face away from the computer screen and saw his grandfather pale as a ghost and suffering.

He tried contacting hospital and ask for help, but the system was overcrowded at the moment. It was not that they didn't want to help but it was literally impossible at that moment. There was no ambulance at that very moment and it would take a few hours to maybe a day before they could send any help.

He was asked for his information and address in order to be put in line so that as soon as it was possible, they would send help and instructed as how to take care of his elder with what he had available. As soon as he done all he could, the operator hanged up as there were too many people still needing help.

It didn't take long for him to get sick as well and for the following days, help never arrived. His grandfather passed away in those days, and he was too sick to take care of himself. He spent a few days with not food or water collapsed on the ground near his dead grandfather until help finally arrived.

Those the put him in a stretcher seemed so tired and stressed when they arrived and still, after seeing similar scenes happening again and again for the last few weeks since the collapse of the health service, they cried.

He passed out while being carried and woke in the hospital, with a blurry vision, an extreme discomfort and pain in his throat and chest and weaker than he ever had felt in his life. He couldn't understand the muffled sounds and beeps he was hearing nor could he move a single muscle.

As he was dying, he could only think again and again how he hated that world. How he wanted to go somewhere else. How much he prefered those numb days being bad at playing games while talking and laughing with his grandfather than any other moment ever before or after that. He wanted to escape, from that world, from that life, even from himself. He wanted to run from everything on that planet...