To be a cashier in a small store is boring and I mean it is really boring. Day in, day out you sit in a chair and slide the goods of the customer over the register. Accept the money and give back the change. Then you smile at costumers and thank them for their purchase. Not the happy smile but the smile that everybody knows that it is faked.

But the worst is not the suicide-inducing boredom that I feel every minute on the job but the customer. Most of the time alone the interaction with the customer is just awkward but if they are parents with children? Well, then it is like a bloody massacre. Some children just chirp happily about and sometimes ask for snacks and sweets. But then there are these little monsters that throw a temper tantrum in the store because they did not get a sweet. These tantrum days are the worst and today it was such a day.

Sigh. Fortunately, my shifts end soon. I counted the minutes with absolute concentration in the last hour of my shift and as the last costumer comes closer I did not have to fake a smile. I slide the goods of the last costumer over the register, accept the money, count it and give back the change. I pack my things as fast as possible and walk home.

It is a really boring job but it brings in money and with only my high school education there are no better jobs available. All in all the job is quite bearable. There are also some good aspects of the job. Ok, not really. The only good thing about it is the money and the work times. We work in four-hour shifts and I work in the afternoon and the evening shift. Because of that I could sleep in and play as much as I want in the night.

As I walked home I had to put every bit of willpower to use so that I would not just sprint home. Today in the morning I got a package with a new game and I just wanted to play it.

My favourite games are RPGs. Open World RPGs for the matter. In them, you can be whatever you want wherever you want. You are not bound to any routine like in a job or in life. You have the freedom to choose and that is what I want.

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That's something really lacking in the real world. Yes, in the real world you can also choose to be whatever you want but it comes with a cost and for me, the cost is too high. If you decided that you want the complete freedom of choice, you will not be part of society anymore. You will be an outcast. We humans need social interaction on a deep unconscious level. No one wants to be an outcast because of that.

For example, if I choose to quit my job and decided to go on an adventure, society would label me as an outcast. They would be impressed by my adventures but in our society, it is better to have a stable income and home. Society in this age likes stability and it expels everyone, who does something to break this stability.

This is my dilemma. I want to have the freedom of choice so that I can do whatever I want but the negative aspects associated with it are too high for me. I also simply lack the money to casually quit my job. So I choose to simple flee reality through games. In games I am free and because I feel free when I play a game so I do it often.

Ok, more than often. In reality, it is more like an obsession. But what can I do? It is my only way out. It lifts the chains of society for a moment and that's enough for me. It was also easier to just flee into games than to make preparation for an adventure. The desire was there in my mind but the motivation was something I lost a long time ago.

Finally, back at my apartment, I put the food cooked yesterday into the microwave and while it was cooking I started the computer. I swallow the food as fast as possible because the sooner I start to play the better. Sigh, at last, I am free, if only for a short while.

I play until deep into the night not noticing the passage of time. As the first rays of the morning sun began to shine through my window I shut down my computer and walk to my bed. I knew that a new day of boring work would be in front of me.

I let my body fall down on the bed and as soon as my head hits the pillow I was asleep, dreaming about freedom and an entire world to explore.

In my last waking moments, I thought I heard a voice whisper in my ear.

Rise or Fall in the Dungeon