One thing happened after the next and my life fell apart. Cornered against the wall, the bomb had been planted, and I was powerless to stop it. My team, no, my friends are dead. Their bodies lay bloody on the ground, exposed to the elements and the snarky jeers of the enemy.

The only thing left was my rifle, which although comforting, couldn’t help me in this situation. If the bomb went off, I’d die, and the day would end in tragedy. If I died before I could get to the bomb, then everything that led my men and me to this situation would be pointless. Nothing ever ends up in my favor.

I could hear the enemy’s footsteps approaching, and fast. Their heavy combat boots sent a shiver through my heart. This was my last chance. If I stayed here any longer, I was dead. If I moved, however, I may die, but there would be that one percent shot I’d survive and save the day from tragedy. Everyone can smile again.

Taking a deep breath, nothing left to lose, I appear from behind the cover. As soon as I did, my body was immediately shot with hundreds of bullets, no mercy given to the poor, scared boy. I fall, dead.

***

“God fucking dammit!” I yell, throwing my controller down. “That was the seventh game I’ve lost in a fucking row!”

No matter my complaints and cries over the unfairness, my team didn’t care. As soon as they could speak again, every racial slur known to man was heaped onto my corpse, one after the next, with no regard to my feelings. 

Of course, I wasn’t taking that lying down, so I immediately shot back at them with some slurs of my own before the match came to a close and the game took me back to the main menu. I had lost, and my day was ruined. 

I stare at my username, TieFuccedUrMom, a clever name that I came up with in a matter of seconds. It was a brilliant combination of my real name and the truth of reality.

My name is Ty Peon, and I have indeed fucked all those twelve-year-olds mothers. They may not know it, and neither do the mothers, but in my imagination, I was the walking babe magnet that no one else could match. 

I turned off the console and as soon as the T.V. switched to black, I could feel my eyes burning. I looked out the crack of my window curtain and saw the sun had set a long time ago. Stretching my scrunched-up bones, I faceplant on my bed and think about the day tomorrow.

Of course, I’m going to play my games again, but a grown man can’t just live on games alone. A man must have money, and I had recently found the perfect resource for it. 

Become an author, of course. That way I can make money while never having to leave my bedroom and come into contact with people. People are gross. Who would ever want to come into contact with them?

I managed to write two books throughout my career, and they aren’t half bad, really. Once I began writing, it turned out I had a knack for it. My first book sold moderately well and I could survive off those earnings for a while, but it’s the second book that let me relax for an entire year with no worries. 

The second book is a tragedy that follows an otaku from Japan as he tries to contort real life into the self-idealized world of anime and manga. It sold decently well at first, really only being picked up by other otakus, then randomly exploded out of nowhere. Even people not into Japanese-styled stories got into the book.

It was a rather simple story to write as well. As someone who spent their teenage years obsessing over anime, I already knew how otaku behaved and thought. All I had to do was take that, exaggerate a bit, then make sure that everyone around the protagonist behaved like real people. 

Outside of the evil succubus that pushes him farther into the deep end, I kept the story mostly tied around the people and their relationships, and how the otaku’s disillusion is damaging them. 

However, that masterpiece of a story was beginning to wear thin. I live by myself in a small house, having only two bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room, and a kitchen, which helped the money stay. In a shocking turn of events, however, the greed I made through gaming micro-transactions finally caught up to me. I have to write something else. But what?

I’ve always wanted to give fantasy a try. I’ve read enough fantasy manga and stories in my lifetime to give it a shot. However, it’ll be one hell of a task to accomplish. Writing fantasy takes a lot of time, and time is one thing I don’t have.

Maybe I could write erotica? Lots of middle-aged white women really like it when they read about someone like them getting kidnapped for some reason. I can’t relate, but if it’ll sell, let them buy. 

There is one problem with that, however. I’m a virgin. I got close to doing it with my high school crush back in sophomore year. We got each other’s clothes off, and I was about to insert it until I heard a car enter my driveway. Long story short, my parents put a curfew on me and I had no more chances. 

So what to do. I turn and face toward the ceiling. There just has to be something I could write about. Fantasy takes too long, and I was too inexperienced for erotica, so what are my other options?

Horror? Not my expertise. Thriller? Better, but that still takes a lot of planning. Every single genre I thought of turned out to either need excessive planning, or experience to actually write. Either way, my money situation was not faring all too well and my back was against the corner, enemies approaching from both directions.

To pass the time, I took out my phone and began scrolling through social media. I didn’t check it that often since my inbox and notifications were filled with either fan mail or hate threads about me. 

I even have several messages from women wanting to meet up, with obvious implications for what they want. If the world knew I went out with a fan, they’d blow a gasket. Just look at every famous person that met up with a fan in secret that ended with sex. Then again most of them were assholes anyway. 

My only way to lose this cursed virginity of mine went spiraling down the hill the second I decided to publish a book. 

As I scrolled through, I saw something interesting. It was a post made by some random news site and it caught my eye. The retail prices of homes had skyrocketed by around ten percent in the past month. 

I clicked on the article and read through it while fact-checking everything. Everything it said was true and it would only serve to discourage people from buying houses. 

I breathed a sigh of relief, thanking my past self for landing the deal on this place before something like this ever happened. With this news, an idea popped into my head. 

I have two bedrooms. The housing market just rose decently high. I need money. It all clicked together with little effort as fate handed me a roasted chicken served on a golden platter. 

Heading to my computer, I sat down and began working. I clicked on every roommate site I saw and detailed my information as follows.

Greetings. My name is John Johnson and I’m a twenty-four-year-old male. Let me cut this straight to anyone searching. I am in need of money. I have two bedrooms, and you probably need a place to stay. There is only a single bathroom sadly, but I’m not too steep with the price and am willing to negotiate. In fact, I’ll let you stay for the first month free. 

Anyone interested, contact my number and we’ll get the situation handled.

Once I finished typing, I submitted the advertisement and went straight to bed. A busy day awaits me tomorrow.

***

I awoke to the sound of someone banging at my door. Not even realizing I had heard knocking, I went straight to my computer and opened up google docs, and began typing away ideas.

The first one detailed a princess awaiting the prince at the villain’s tower, but when the prince arrives, she’s gone. The big twist that I came up with was that the princess broke out of her captivity and took control of the enemy forces. She then used her new position to destroy the world. So original, I know. Hold your applause. 

The final idea had to be the most brilliantest idea I ever came up with. A man wakes up to get toast but realizes he has no more bread. He goes to the store for some bread but finds the world overrun by bread monsters. The twist being that the bread is untoastable so he can never eat toast again in his life. Truly the worst moment of any story. The lack of burnt bread. 

However, after that truly genius idea, I sat in a slump for nearly ten minutes, coming up with half-baked ideas only to throw them away a second later. I may want money, but I also want to make a good product goddammit!

I slam my fist against the table, masking the first knock that echoed through the halls. It wasn’t until the second knock that I realized someone was at the door.

I didn’t have the faintest idea who it could be considering my lack of people skills. Who knew that holding up in a musky apartment with nothing but one’s own thoughts could make one lose any sense of social awareness. Especially when those thoughts involved either scantily clad women or games. Sometimes the two will clash, and I’ll have the best afternoon of my life.

A third knock slammed so hard against the door I could hear the vibrations from all the way in my room. Sighing, I stand up and head over to the living room door, yawning all the while. 

I open the door expecting a large burly man considering the strength behind those knocks. However, when I opened the door, the person standing there was a small brunette woman with oddly shaped pupils.

“Nice to meet you.” The woman said. “The name’s Harmony.”