It was a dark and stormy night…
Or that was what the Great Idiot had hoped.
She sat on the same hill whenever she was sad, whenever she had screwed something up. There was no rain to wash away her tears, only the bright crimson moonlight. There were no dark clouds to give her comfort, only the baking heat that made everything dry. There was no gloom, no chill, no sad atmosphere to fuel her depression. The Escapist Dream wasn’t there to sympathize with her, or cry with her for all that she’d been through. The weather itself was a big middle finger, signifying she was alone in her torment, abandoned by God.
Her life would never change, it would always be a never-ending series of mistakes and failures. People always said these were part of life, hence why no one was perfect. That the people who had never failed had never even tried. It was normal, according to them, so she should not give up. She should continue living because everything would be alright. Everything would work out just fine.
These were lies of course. They’d never met someone like her. Someone whose only talent was doing horribly in life. Mistakes were her forte; constant defeat filled her portfolio. No matter how much she tried to change, tried to learn, she was still the Great Idiot. Her existence would never improve for she was always destined to fail. She even considered it an art form since there seemed to be an evolution to her failures. Every mistake got dumber and dumber, worse and worse.
She was the lolcow of her generation and the star of her own Truman Show. Happiness would always be allergic to her; success would always keep its distance. A prisoner of fate, a slave to tragedy, and a princess of bad luck. There was nothing she could do. She was what she was – the ultimate loser.
GI wanted to die, but she lacked the guts to do it, nor was there anyone generous enough to do her. She was given the worst punishment, far worse than a death sentence. She was sentenced to suffer; sentenced to life.
Poor old Catherine. Poor brave Amp. Poor people trapped in this world. She was the cause of their misfortune. She was the seed of their demise.
From afar, Charlie watched as the girl buried herself in her sorrows. He badly wanted to go there and comfort her. It was his duty as her only remaining friend. Yet, his legs didn’t want to. His mind could think of nothing. He had a fault in this too. He was supposed to be the veteran; the one to help these people. But from Otaku Academy to Gamer’s Den, he’d done nothing but invoke death.
Even if he went there, sat with her, cried with her – what could he do? What should he say? What were the magic words that therapists – and extroverts in general – used in these situations to cure grief?
“I have to say, lad, that girl right there could be dangerous if she’s motivated. What she did to DudeAssassin was just pure bloody genius!”
The voice of the Nihilion spoke to Charlie again. There was no horrible display this time. It now communicated more subtlety, like a whisper, an auditory hallucination that he could not shake off. “Why are you doin’ this, really?!” Charlie asked as he continued to stare at GI, his teeth gritting.
“As I said, I found you guys amusing,” replied the Nihilion. “I came from a faraway land, so peaceful and harmonic. But I loathed peace, so I turned to science and gathered all the reality-bending powers to destroy my world. The same powers I used to arrive here. I have destroyed a lot of worlds before, and when I reached this system, seeing your filthy blue planet, I decided to do what I was born to do. But then I saw this digital world and all you little sad freaks wanting to live your fantasies. So I decided, before I fuck Earth up, maybe I could have myself some fun here first. And you people did not disappoint.”
“Christ Almighty…” Charlie muttered.
“Try to remember. From the Harem King to DudeAssassin. From those orcs to those creeps. I turned what made you happy against you. I turned the videogames you enjoyed; the anime heroes you loved; all the books, comics and movies; into horrors that would consume every single one of you. Why? Like I said, it’s just too amusing for me. I am having fun using the things you love to make you all suffer.”
“So you’re nothing more than a sad little troll. Fuck off!”
“As you wish, lad. Now go to her. She needs you. The game is far from over, you see? It has only begun.”
Charlie closed his eyes and shook his head. Since his last adventure, his heart had been throbbing quickly, his hands twitching uncontrollably, his head drowning under an ocean of stress. The pressure was mounting on him, beating him up with cudgels, asking for him to give up. And now, if it wasn’t enough that the Nihilion was hurting them, it was going to torment the Earth next.
The young geek concentrated his effort in making even a single leg move. His feet felt like they were encased in cement. He successfully made a step, followed by another and another. Soon he was walking towards GI while preparing the words he would say. The young girl heard his footsteps, but did not turn around. She didn’t care who it was; she just prayed it was someone who would bash her head in.
“Hey…” Charlie said as he stood behind the Great Idiot. When the Japanese otaku recognized his voice, she briskly wiped her tears and tried to stretch a smile before facing him.
“Hi!” she greeted back.
“Are you alright?” asked Charlie.
“I’m okay now. It’s… This is not my first time. I’ve been used to these things already. For over a year actually.”
“Come on, GI. Talk to me. I may lack wisdom and I don’t have the answers, but talkin’ helps you know. You don’t have to be alone.”
GI turned away, not knowing what to say. Charlie was wrong, talking would never help. She needed solutions to her problems. A way to fix her fumbles. It was too little too late however, there was no way for her life to recover.
“I’ve had a lot of failures too,” Charlie added. The source of GI’s distraught lies in her history. A thorn on her side that needed to be plucked. Charlie wondered what it could be. Family problems? School problems? Or maybe that one specific event Catherine mentioned to him. For GI to heal, she had to let go of these awful events. She had to acknowledge it could never be changed, but it could be replaced by something more joyful. That it was not yet the end of the world.
“Back then, three years ago, I was one of the reasons why the Escapist Dream turned crazy.”
The sudden confession of Charlie was enough to get the attention of the young girl. And so she turned around, and watched as Charlie’s face turned glum as he shared.
“The guy who was the reason why the Escapist Dream turned crazy back then, Jim Broughton, was a friend of mine. Or so I thought he was my friend. We both had our problems and wanted to help each other. He was like an older brother to me, my mentor or my senpai as you’d call him. But I didn’t know that I was actually helpin’ him in his plan to gather his bugs and hack the Escapist Dream. The moment it happened, the moment he betrayed me, it was too late.”
“I’m sorry about that, Charlie-kun.”
The American geek smiled, before sitting beside GI. He studied the horizon, looking beyond for answers, gazing upon his future amongst the thin line that divided heaven and earth. “Life’s full of shit,” Charlie said. “And these shit will become heavier and heavier. I just want to say, you don’t have to go through this by yourself.”
GI wanted to cry again the moment he said that. Charlie was a good person; so pure and kind. She felt sorry for being a selfish prick. She didn’t deserve a friend like him. “Please, GI,” continued Charlie. “Tell me what happened. What’s been bothering you? Let me carry your burden too.”
The otaku girl swallowed her fear and breathed out her tension. As she turned to the clouds, she prepared herself to open the gates of her hell.
