Quite early in the morning, within a certain small city, a man could be seen sitting within a dark room with bloodshot eyes glued to a dim monitor that provided the only source of light in the room, since the thick curtains kept the morning brightness from entering even a little.
He appeared to be troubled, in fact, very troubled as he looked at the monitor. The reason for his state of being? A cruel reality, the worse thing that could happen to any gamer… His account had been deleted.
Actually, it was way worse than that, since it wasn't a problem of simple deletion—his account had disappeared into thin air.
He had been staring at those words for more than thirty hours now… well, not exactly staring, but that had been his new reality for a while now. The poor guy had tried everything, from refreshing pages to clearing cache, restarting his PC, not to mention diving into rabbit holes in forums. In just a split second, his entire life had been ruined!
Pushing forty with nothing to show for it in his life except the exuberant collection of virtual trophies, Ethan was in a deep state of pre-trauma at this moment… if there was anything like that.
After finishing highschool and getting some inheritance money from his father who was still alive and kicking, Ethan decided to console himself following his mother's death, not by succeeding in life, but by escaping reality through videogames. His father had married another wife and even brought her back home into the very bed his mother had died in, less than a year after his mother died… He couldn't understand nor take it. As far as he knew, his parents didn't have any problem or dispute, so for his young mind, he couldn't understand his father's actions.
Well, all that meant that he only had a highschool diploma and about two decades of apex gaming experience.
As for his romantic history, well… a string of usernames with hearts beside them was all he ever got, none lasting past the three-month mark.
Unsuprisingly, he lived in a one-bedroom rental where energy drink cans formed aluminum mountain ranges around the neural link headset that had swallowed his real life whole.
At the onset of things, it really seemed like the money he had would last… well, he wasn't really thinking of it much either back then. Anyway, whether or not he thought about it didn't matter much, inflation be damned—and now even the one thing that gave him solace was gone.
Sitting before the screen, his hand trembled as he scrolled through the Lost World Online forum one more time. His post which he had desperately titled "YAMAMOTO ACCOUNT VANISHED OVERNIGHT PLEASE HELP," had finally gotten a response from a developer, and not just another player with wild theories or ridicules. He clicked it with what little hope remained in his chest, seriously and desperately hoping it would bring solution.
"We've checked our databases thoroughly. No account under the username 'Yamamoto' exists or has ever existed in our system. We cannot restore what our records show was never created. If you believe this is an error, please provide your original registration email and Game ID… Thank you."
Yeah, of course not!
Ethan wanted to scream after reading the message!
Never existed? He'd spent years building that account. More than fifteen years grinding, mastering every skill and equipment, conquering every raid available till date, completing the game as they awaited an update, forming a legend around his character… He was ranked #1 on the global leaderboards! EVERYONE knew the in-game name YAMAMOTO… To say no nothing was found in their database… perhaps the theories that the developers were really tampering with player accounts was true?
Not to mention, with poverty breathing down his neck, and a lack of a life outside his room staring at him, he'd been thinking about streaming, or posting videos online to make money, after all, who wouldn't want to get insider info on the legend, Yamamoto? With his skill level, he could've made something of himself—sponsorships, a community, enough money to finally move out of his shoebox apartment…
And now? Now he'd have to start from level 1 like some nobody. All that time, all that mastery, not to mention the money that had gone into that game, at least a million or more—gone. It's not like he could go outside now to work a job, not with a body filled with energy drinks and junk food for the past two decades. He was lucky to be just a little fat even, but that didn't mean he was healthy, even in times when he had to visit the grocery shop, he could tell his body was deteriorating.
What was the point?
He pushed back from his desk, his gaming chair squeaking in protest. The morning sun was beginning to seep through the gaps in his blackout curtains now, painting his failures in somewhat gloomy light. He hadn't slept in an entire day because of this issue, so his head was pounding, and his eyes burned and felt heavy.
"Forget it," he muttered to himself. "Just…" He didn't even finish the sentence as he dragged his weight.
He stumbled to his bed, not bothering to change out of the same clothes he'd worn for three days. As his head hit the pillow, a bitter thought crossed his mind… maybe when he woke up, this would all turn out to be some nightmare. Maybe his Yamamoto account would be there, waiting for him… 'just… forget it.'
Just like that, and perhaps unusually so, sleep claimed him within seconds.