What is more disgraceful?

Failure due to the absence of a God-given potential or failure due to the lackage of will?

Society would shame the unwilling and crown the unable. Burn the loser and praise the excuser. Because this is what it is all about, the bigger the excuse is the less visible the failure appears to be.

The modern-day clown parade merged the two unfortunate entities, and now, the losers are clinically diagnosed as sufferers of The losers syndrome.

//Whose alibi will be stronger this time?

I have a gun.

Hundreds of protestors gathered in the Berston city square holding awfully handwritten signs, shouting with their semi-drunk voices, and smelling of sweat and rotten pizzas. Out of tangled, scribbled, and invisible handwriting you can decode their demands.

"Freedom for the damned!" They shouted randomly with no unity in their protest. Even the slightest goal in a protest was unachievable for them. They slowly became quieter, and less dense. They were no violent people because their strength lied in dragging their bellies and failures, they were the damned, demanding an excuse to live on government supplies and protection, a pathetic view that even them pitied.

Bret watched from a corner, choking on the terrible smell of booze. He thought to himself how shameful it was to be associated with these people, but it was too late to revert things back again, or to be more precise, it wasn't something he can control.

He watched, sighed, and coughed. "Idiots..." He muttered angrily. Bret ended up being diagnosed with The Loser's syndrome after failing the level up test. That test was the gateway to become one of the society's elite, or their toilet paper, there was no in-between.

Bret identifies as a toilet paper.

The protestors looked at Bret, in someway they despised him for his detachment, but they understood. Confrontation was a loser's worst enemy and that young boy shouldn't be expected to be over that yet. After all, Bret was only eighteen years old. Three years past the diagnosis.

As Bret gathered the remaining strength he had, he took a deep breath and held it back to avoid the smell. He walked right back to the alley that brought him while carrying his heavy school bag on his back. He wasn't late for school as he already decided he wouldn't go that day. "Enough humiliation for a Sunday." He thought. His elite classmates would give the dirty look for the entirety of the day as they knew that he would be in the sad protest of his kind, the one where they shamelessly cry for the help they didn't deserve.

"Going home early, aren't ya?" Said a man that suddenly appeared in Bret's way. He was no older than thirty with yellow teeth that reeked of smoke and a face that the reaper would be terrified to see.

"I have no business here." Bret said, struggling to look behind the man as he was quite short, Bret was 165 centimeters tall and the man was almost twice his height.

"Running away from us? Y'know, kid, I hate cowards." The man said with a wide yellow grin, hovering over Bret who slowly backed down. He couldn't see the back of the alley nor could he see an exit.

"I am just late to school, can I go?" Bret calmly said, tying to keep his posture but, his eyes were screaming in horror.

"No."

"Why?!"

"I hate cowards. I said it, didn't I?!"

"I am not a coward!"

"Yes, yes you are."

"I said I am not."

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Then why are you running away?"

"Because-"

"Huh? I can't hear you!"

"Because I can't help any of those idiots here, you all are just motherfucking losers who can't do shit in their life, it’s a shame that I must come here!"

Bret shouted at the top of his lungs right at the man's face. He didn't twitch a muscle, yet he smirked. No one can hear them as they were in an empty alley, but now that Bret took a better look at the man's face and the posters on the wall, he knew he was done for.

"Now I can hear you." The man known as Carlos Welly said, that man was the head of the protestors and a rebel leader. Bret kept taking few steps backwards, but it was all in vain. This man was a skilled thug that killed over a hundred of his men before.

Carlos took out his pocketknife. "Any last words, kid?" He said, he had the worst smug smile and an unbearable smell that made Bret dizzy.

"I am sorry!" He said, still slowly walking backwards while Carlos walked towards him.

"I'm not like the likes of you." Carlos said, spitting on the floor. "I am a leader; I just failed a test and that's why I'm now forced to govern a group of scum like you." Carlos said as that smug smile faded, and a visible anger and offence appeared.

Bret held his words back; he knew that any word he said would only be a nail in his coffin. His body would lie here for months and no one would care, he was branded on his hand. No one would come near a loser's corpse.

"That ugly face would better be a bloody pudding..." Carlos muttered, coming closer to Bret's face with his pocketknife.

Bret's breath became erratic. He knew that if he took one step backward Carlos would call his men, he wasn't stupid to walk around guard less. He had no choice, perhaps dying wouldn't be this bad.

"Can I negotiate my way out of..this..?" Bret stuttered. His tears were close, but he held them back.

"What are you gonna do? Braid my hair as a peace treaty?" Carlos laughed as he mocked Bret.

"We could come up with something better?" Bret said, almost begging him.

"No shortie, best you can do is probably pick your nose, look at you!" Carlos laughed.

"I can do things!" Bret said.

"HAHAHA, NO!" Carlos quickly punched Bret unexpectedly, throwing him to the end of the alley. Bret cried out loud and felt his nose explode.

"Wh-what d-did you do?!" Bret cried, looking at Carlos with his blurry vision. Carlos was preparing his pocketknife.

Time..stopped?

As Carlos walked closer to Bret who was still in shock, a silhouette appeared right next to Bret, but there was nobody there. Bret felt his body give up on him before he could do anything. He had already planned to take his life, but now that he found himself in a deadly situation, the idea looked less appealing, and he felt the urge to fight back and live.

"Fight back you pussy." Bret cried to himself, trying to get up.

"Are you really going to let this low life thug mutilate you? What a disgrace..." Bret's eyes grew wider in a sudden realization.  The silhouette on beside him, on the wall, was the one speaking to him.

"What the fuck...?" He cried, looking at the wall and then looking back at Carlos who seemed to walk in delayed time.

"You have a gun in your bag, use it! Show him what you got!" The silhouette spoke. It showed what seemed to be a man with a suit, the voice fitted the silhouette.

"I can't kill a man, what the hell are you saying?!" Bret cried as he held his bloody nose in despair.

"If you don't..He will." The silhouette said. "Oh, come on, you pathetic loser! Are you going to die here? And killed by who? Mr. I haven't brushed my teeth in months?!" The man muttered aggressively, and Carlos stepped begun to revert to the normal passage of time.

"The choice is yours." The silhouette said.

Bret pulled his gun out of his bag in an unimaginable speed, he quickly pointed it at Carlos' head as he laid on the ground still.

"I have a gun!" Bret cried out loud, giving Carlos his first warning.

"So what?! I have a knife, you dumb-fuck" Carlos laughed like a maniac as he swayed his knife at Bret's face, Bret crawled back, "I'm warning you!" Bret cried, getting up quickly and retreating beside the silhouette.

"Don't you have any ideas to solve this peacefully!?" Bret cried, leaning on the wall.

"No, you either kill or be killed."  The silhouette calmly said, giving Bret the ultimatum. "Remember, Bret. There's no penalty" The silhouette continued.

Carlos didn't hesitate to charge at Bret, and Bret accepted the challenge he was given.

"I'm not a pathetic loser, I'm way worse than this." Bret said, turning the gun on himself and pulling the trigger.

There is no cure for those cursed by their own nature.