I blinked my eyes slowly at the fluorescent light that was blaring in my face, trying to relieve the pain in my skull. Staring at a computer screen for, let's see, twenty-eight and a fourty-three minutes might do that to you. But then again, I had given up on anything else in life, other than the damn computer. My dingy, tiny ass apartment only had a bed and a dresser, which came with the package. The only other add on was a desk I pick off the street one day, and the chair that I took from home.

It was pretty much the only thing I took from home, other than some clothes and money. But I liked the chair. So even though my mother watched me with appalled eyes as I wheeled it out, I had already decided I didn't give a fuck about what she thought of me. And if the chair made her add on to the list of mental problems I had, it was no sweat off my back.

Of course, the computer was something I had to find, piece by piece, at the cheapest of prices, and build myself. It took me about two years, scrounging for the money, but it ran better than I probably could.

That's when I finally found this abysmal shack of mine and made it my home. Set up the computer, place my throne, and I was set. Then I sat there for days on end, most of the time forgetting to eat until my stomach would cannibalize and start eating itself. Or so it felt like. Could be a viable option one day. Then I would never have to eat again. Heh.

Now, this all paints me in a shitty color, and I have to tell you, friend, that I'm completely, 100%, high-quality manure. I'm that person in that one MMO that's constantly spamming your Global Chat with trade offers, the person that helps the noobs out of the beautif- cough- horrible knife they found, the jerk that pvp's you over and over again, until your gear is shot, and you just log out.

Yes, that's me. Of course, I'm also the person that heads one of the most well known guilds, full of honor and shit. Hey, give what people want, and they eat it up. And who says I can never have multiple accounts?

I play at least two games at a time, sometimes three, and I have various players spanning over fifty MMOs, from Japan, Korea, China, America, and even some Euro ones. You want to know who the top player is in your favorite game? It's me. This piece of shit, the lowest of the low, and I rule them all.

I stretched back, my chair making a squeak, and stared up at a water mark in the ceiling. I'd finished what I decided was my quota, spamming mobs, dungeons, and players, to the point that people were completely fed up with me, or I was being praised as a God. That last one mostly for the six hour dungeon rush I just completed on one of my solo accounts. Considering the dungeon was meant for a full raid, and lasts five hours at least, when I finished, the game decided to do a mass announcement about it. Normally, I would be fine with that, but this was the one account I had wanted to keep hidden. A simple two handed warrior, and it was the one character I had friends with. Like, people I enjoyed talking too. But as soon as the message got out, I was being spammed by randoms. Disgusted, I blocked any messages not on my friends list. But then I got messages from my friends.

"You did that raid by yourself?! You said you were too weak to do it with me just two weeks ago!!"

"Hey, did you get any good drops? I've been low on gold lately, so it would help..."

"Wow. I want to congratulate you, but why haven't you told me about it? Pretty selfish."

That water stain kinda looked like the Milky Way. Or maybe it's just a shitty water-mark from a shitty rundown apartment, in a shitty run down neighborhood. Just like my shitty life. I leaned forward again, staring at the messages. Then I systematically deleted every person on my friends list. After that, I deleted my character. Then I went on every other MMO I played and deleted all of my characters, one by one. My mind was empty, my face was blank, and my hands moved as if pulled by strings of and evil marionette.

After the last one, my hands dropped to the keyboard. Then my head joined it with a bang. I groaned, more from the bottled up pain from my psyche than physical damage, because all I was on the inside was pain. That and a void full of nothingness. I thought if I gave life to characters, made them the best or, hell, the worst, somehow, the real me might show up. Just pop into existence like my fairy Godmother, and go, POOF, you have a personality, you have feelings, there are no strange things you see at night, and you are a person, not some creepy alien.

That's why I walked out of my house at sixteen, when all of my mother's "treatments" just weren't working. I'd seen doctor, both professional and crazy, priests and voodoo, and she switched to some herbal all natural crap when I gave up. Nothing she did was going to fix me, and I couldn't stay and pretend I was normal. So I left, chair in tow, and I lived on the streets, took up a few jobs, tried to stay mostly legal, until I got the apartment and started what I thought was my best chance. I mean, you can be anyone on the internet, right? Maybe I could even find myself.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Of course, I shouldn't be surprised all I found was shit. That must be who I am. Just the bottom of the barrel, the weird fuck at those freak exhibits.

I didn't want to sleep. Sleep meant dreams, and the dreams weren't nice. Mostly, they ended up with me dead in hundreds of different ways before I woke up in a cold sweat. Sometimes I'd be walking down the streets, then there's a knife in my back and two rounds in my chest. The doctors told me dreams shouldn't actually have pain, which I guess is why people pinch themselves when they think they're dreaming. But for me, every single wound was like the real thing. Every cut, shot, stab, burn, you name it, it all felt real. I know, I tried. When I was eight I stuck my finger in a candles flame. I was able to hold it there for about ten seconds before my mother screamed and rushed me to the hospital. By then, my pain tolerance was so high, I didn't even cry. Oh it hurt, but I was used to a much bigger hurt. That was when the doctors and my mother found the various wounds on my body, some stitched up, some just left to scar.

That was also when my mother realized I wasn't... right. It was when she started to try and "fix" me. She also took me out of the karate class that I had been in since I was three.

"Too dangerous." She said to me with a glare, despite the fact I was already a black belt at that age. She also took me out of school and homeschooled me. Mostly it was about the bible, as she thought I was demon possessed, so I took to learning things online. Of course, she had locked me out, so I had to find the key. And that’s when I learned hacking, and of the dark net. Also, it was my first look at dark gaming, where you play to make money. But I also found gambling sites, ones that used real money. Mother was always moaning about money, so I thought I should make some for her. I was a little guilty over the fact that the reason we were low on money was because of me.

When she came in my room one day, I was fifteen. She seemed... confused, and almost scared.

"Honey?" Mother asked, "Why do we have a separate account that has $672,902,433.12 in it? And why have I never seen this."

Whoops. I had kept it hidden from her, because I wanted it to be a surprise, but I thought she would find it sooner. Like, maybe when it only had a few thousand. But over the years, I had accumulated a lot of what I called "dark money". Money that I earned from gambling, games, whatever when just on the wrong side of the legal line. I would filter money from the Dark Account to hers very slowly, so she wouldn't notice. In fact, I might even have accumulated a billion if I hadn't spread it to her.

I cleared my throat. "You need money, so I just...uh, made some. On the internet."

She exploded. "The INTERNET?! You're not even allowed on the computer, it contains viruses and horrible people and Lord knows what else!"

Yes, my mother was not the smartest.

She grew frantic. "Won't we be in trouble for having this money? I never even knew about it! I don't--!"

"Mom." I said firmly, cutting off her charade. "It's an off-shore account, but if you have to know, I've been doing the taxes since I was ten. It's fine."

Mother got a look in her eye, one that I had gotten used to all to quickly. It was a mixture of horror, disgust, and overall—frightened. She used to try and hide it, when I would say something I should not know about, or when she saw the wounds on my body, but as each year passed, that look happened more and more often, and she didn't hide it anymore.

After a long few seconds, she left the room. I looked down at my hands. They looked pretty normal to me. I don't keep a mirror around, but my hair was brown, as well as my eyes. My skin had a light tan, even with the normal lack of sun I normally had. I was skinny, "underweight", the doctors had said, and I knew I was about 5'7".

But to my mother, I was a monster. Somehow, I couldn't refute that thought of hers, because I thought I was too.

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This is just the set up. Give you a slight intro to the character. I don't want to spoil anything, but if you've looked at the tabs, there will be VR. So look forward to that.

Thanks for reading.