Still trying to unpack my life’s meaning.

Meaning…ha. Is there any meaning to this? Is there any meaning to anything at all? Do I truly have a purpose? If I’ve been living in a simulation…was everything just an illusion all this time? Is nothing real? Was anything ever real? What is real? Like, what makes anything real?

Am I a real boy or just an—oh look!

Quests Available

(Task incomplete)

Can I complete enough quests to erase this feeling?

Convert First Safe Haven: Ralph has told you there is a way to create a safe zone in this apocalyptic age.

Toggle this as Active Quest for more information.

Unlock Magic of the Moon: You have been informed of a method that will help awaken your inner power.

Toggle this as your Active Quest for more information.

Destroy Spawn Point: You have learned some truth about Simulation Earth-V.42. Bought and ruled by the 1%, all forms of government are nothing more than a parasitic blight on humanity. Their insidious plague has inspired Base Reality’s actions.

As such, all government buildings are to be transformed into a Spawn Point of Evil. This would lead you to believe that there wouldn’t be all that much difference, given that the government is already the Soul-Sucking Mother Succubus, Spamming Spawns of Evil from her wide loins.

But you’d be wrong. The transformed Spawn Points spawn dignified sources of evil— even monolithic monsters and barbaric beasts have more dignity than Earth-V.42’s governments. Destroy these Spawn Points and you will be greatly rewarded.

Toggle this as your Active Quest for more information.

Maybe I could, but shit…that all sounds so hard.

I wrestle the crippling depression long enough to start thinking about making a decision. But thinking doesn’t help, perhaps because I’m both over thinking as well as over-thinking; there’s gotta be a difference…

Reading over the Available Quests, my mind becomes a colosseum, and all three quests are duking it out gladiator style using their arsenal of pros and cons.

I’m also annoyed that the System doesn’t give me any real information about what the rewards would be on any specific quest, but I guess it makes sense in a way, they probably want us to make our decision based on what we want to do instead of deciding based on what we want to gain.

Both the Destroy Spawn Point and Convert Safe Haven seem like quests I should do. Like the most altruistic options. The heroic, noble path, to helping others.

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But…

…the Magic of the Moon quest heavily implies I won’t have to live as a goddamn fucking barbarian for-fucking-ever, and I’m actually real curious about what the fuck a Fate Mage could become.

Mind racing - not efficiently - just racing. No direction. No purpose. What’s fucking new.

I pace.

Stop in front of the mirror and inspect my reflection. Still kind of stupidly glad to fix that receding hairline I had two hours ago. The perma-fat loss of four pounds is nothing to scoff at either. Actually, wasting my modification point on helping myself get an eight pack is pretty scoffable now that I think about it.

Oh well. This is the best I’ve ever looked. And that’s gotta be worth something…shit…now I know how burpie-obsessed fitness influencers feel every day of their worthless lives!

I look over the rest of myself, and realize something’s missing. It’s not my purpose or meaning. I spotted that well-before the apocalypse, thank you very much. This missing thing is far more…I dunno…missing?

I set my teal and pink strapped too-small backpack on the floor.

Curious to see if that mobile inventory conversion worked earlier, I unzip the pack, slowly reach my hand in. Think of the words, “Equip Big Sword, please.” I instantly feel the hilt of a sword against my palms. I pull. Like king fucking arthur unsure of himself, I pull. Slowly but surely, my little backpack delivers to me a sword that’s not just too long to fit inside, but too girthy as well (I know, that’s what she never said…sigh, my shortcomings have no end). It comes as no surprise that it’s insanely heavy. Like all big swords should be (another sigh).

Now I look at myself.

Almost got a cloud thing going on. But, like, not really. Even he has more magic than me. Damnit. I shouldn’t have let my thoughts go there. Now I’m thinking about it, and how much I hate not having magic and fuck my life.

And I sneer at my reflection, then squint to blur my silhouette’s lines, and use that bit of blur to envision, like, a magical aura or something around myself. It’s difficult. I imagine myself casting cool spells, perhaps imbuing my stupid sword with arcane elemental ranged abilities.

The asshole imps haunting my brain’s caverns speak up and chant about how I’m nothing but a dumb barbarian and always will be and how I’ll never have magic because I don’t deserve it, and the volume increases.

Sometimes my mind is deafeningly loud.

Jaw clenched and hands white knuckling my sword, I want to swing it against my mirror, shatter my reflection.

I resist though.

Still, inside I am screaming for silence.

And then it occurs to me, this is the end of the world. Do I really want to spend the remainder of my life trying to please people and be all noble and shit? I tried living that way before all this, and it got me pretty much nowhere.

Hell, the only reason I never offed myself was because I didn't want to hurt the few people who might give a shit about me. And yet, here I am, finally given the chance to do something that could possibly make existence worthwhile, and I’m still wrestling with whether my next decision is the right one.

Fuck that. I want to unlock magic. My magic.

To my several selves, I say, “Fuck you. It’s time I do what I want for a change, and you can all just shut the fuck up and deal with it.”

I shouldn’t talk to myself. It’s weird. But also...kind of empowering.

Honestly, I sometimes wonder if I’m an introvert solely because I’m constantly exhausted by the social interactions it seems I gotta have with the voices in my head. For example, right now: my inner critics are calling me a selfish asshole and all that, but fuck them, because even a wretch like me has free will, I know because my mom once told me so…using those exact words.

You have selected Magic of the Moon as your Active Quest

Confirm?

Yes/No

I hit confirm, and it already starts making me feel a little better. Kind of. I mean, like, not really. But a little. I’ll take whatever fractions I can get, especially in an apocalypse (that still doesn’t feel worse than my previous reality, selfishly speaking at least).

Just in time to interrupt my brain’s spiral over why I’d ever think such a horrible awful thought, another prompt pops up.