A silver streak of lightning zapped through the bulk of clouds. The weather forecast had positively claimed a sunny and cloudless day—that was not to be, apparently. Newspapers were gunned left and right as the wind galloped rampant through the cityscape, and children were forced to scramble back inside their homes.

Jered couldn't care a whit about the brewing storm, even less about the hustle and bustle of his neighborhood. School had just finished choking down his throat another dose of everyday minutiae, masked by promises of success in life and some other kind of bullshit he never bothered to listen to. Honestly, he'd pay more attention if they taught something useful instead of spitting down his brain dates upon dates of past events that would never make it into his curriculum.

Nowadays school's cultural-based knowledge could only push you that far, and that push was a half-hearted one. He certainly didn't need to know how to analyze the form and the structural semiotics of a poem to make a good impression at a job interview. And he'd rather be taught some god-forsaken law at school, instead of memorizing word by word the entire history behind the constitution.

And that piece of paper at the end was just a document stating you were an obedient student, not an intelligent one.

A thunderclap cracked overhead as the cluster of urban racket died off to the sky's raging symphony.

He rummaged inside his jacket, a tinkle from clattering metals ringing out as a set of keys were siphoned out and inserted into the keyhole. Jered stepped in and shut the door with a bump.

The house's archetype silence greeted him. His mother, Jane, must have been still working, he mused. Not surprising. After his father's tragic passing, the household's economy suffered a dent, and now they were barely scraping by. There were no inheritances to speak of—besides the less than generous amount in his savings deposit account—and no close relatives willing to dish out their own money to help them.

So the poor woman—God bless her—had to roll up her sleeves and put twice the effort to provide for them. Thankfully, Jasmine, his dearest sister, and himself were more than apt at taking care of the house's chores. However, instead of growing closer through hard times, it felt more like they were slowly drifting apart. He stopped paying attention when she engrossed herself in pursuing her teenage dream at her friend's house. He never understood why she put a wall between them, but he had no intention of tearing it down.

Which was why she was hardly ever at home. Dressing up her feelings with clothes and friends had done the trick for her. She had probably found a family in someone else, a little utopia to hide the stains of a dysfunctional family. It was disheartening to see Jane's faltering smile when she had to see her daughter leave for so long, only to sleep under the loving embrace of another family. He resented Jasmine a bit for that; she should have known better than hiding away somewhere else, leaving behind an even more tangled mess Jane was trying so hard to unknot.

He entertained the thought that if he wasn't so empty inside, he might have found respite in some odd endeavor as well, just so he could escape from those suffocating walls that reeked more of a prison than a home. And in a sense, it was fine. Because it was his prison, his cage, his purgatory.

There was no need to wear a mask when he was alone.

Jered traipsed up the stairs and shambled to his room. He chucked his school bag against a corner somewhere in his room; left to be unattended until the next morning. He loosened out an exhausted huff before heading towards the bathroom, where his reflection stared back at him with all the apathy of a teaspoon.

His life had become this: a quagmire of boring moments that wouldn't have been out of place in a black and white moving picture. God, he wished someone would shoot him and make him feel some adrenaline because he was about to go crazy. It was like having claustrophobia, a tapping in the back of his brain that was getting impatient, and he wanted nothing more than do something stupid so he'd feel alive, or maybe something noteworthy so he'd feel above everyone else. Whether it was for the good, or for the bad of others, he wanted to be special. His father would have understood; they had the same mettle.

It was such a handicap being ambitious for the wrong purposes, in a playground that limited his methods. At least he had still a long road ahead of him before old age pinned him down a bed, otherwise, he would have not been there postulating about his boring life. Instead, he would have been somewhere else, still postulating about his boring life, but with a gun pointed at his head.

He splashed cold water against his face.

No... suicide was for the weak-minded. People wore that excuse as if it were a new trend.

Jered yanked himself out of his daydream and waded towards his bed, where he crashed face down into it with a muffled groan. Yet another day would have gone by uneventfully... thank God his life wasn't a movie, or there would have been no one there to watch it.

[Welcome to Paranoia!]

The sudden hue of light swathing his face disturbed his unplanned afternoon nap. He swung his eyes back open, ready to lash out a long string of expletives... only to come face to face with a square-ish hologram.

[Downloading files: 1%]

[It will require 6 hours and 28 minutes to complete the download. The system advises you to sleep in the meantime to hasten the process.]

"I would have kept on blissfully sleeping if you darn alienish oddity hadn't woken me up!" he unconsciously hissed.

Of course, yelling at his hallucination would have not made it go away. Jered was relatively acquainted with such symptoms, and he wondered if this time it was due to his BPD friend's medicines whom he had borrowed from. She rarely used them anyway, and he stopped shortly after too.

He used the heel of his hand to rub the last vestiges of his somnolence away. Those overlapping screens were still hovering a few inches from his eyes, and in reaction to that he just cocked an eyebrow up, "Oh not again..." he took a long and heavy breath, as if savoring something abstract yet unmistakably familiar to his sensory apparatus, "Hmm... cancel download!" he ordered.

Nothing happened, of course.

Jered tucked his legs underneath the weight of his body for more comfort, his hand slowly flitting forth to touch the screen—but as he had been already expecting, it just phased through. There was not even a ripple or a feeling, "Hmm..." well, shit. What now? There was no magical word to make it go away, at least he had not found one yet. He careened his neck forward, and licked it. Honestly, the last time something like that happened, the smiley face staring at him blushed when he defiled it with his penis. Good times.

No taste made its way back, not that he expected it to. It would have been fun watching the screen in front of him turn red in embarrassment though.

"Whatever..." with his newfound novelty winding down into plain boredom, his face restored its unflappable and cold exterior. He sagged back on his bed, wholly uncaring of the glowing inmate close-by. It would have gone away on its own, given enough time. And if it didn't... well, the nearest asylum was twenty minutes' worth of walking if he ever wanted a change of scenery. He took another long breath, and slowly snored away into his dreamscape.

The moonlight trickled in as a flurry of hail whacked against his windowpane, orchestrating soothing drumming when the rain pelted against the glass, and tottered when a rather strong thunderclap raged out. It was just a background reminder that the weather was still going on, and showed no sign of simmering down.

[Downloading files: 99%]

[It will require 2 minutes and 14 seconds to complete the download.]

Jered had been awake for a while now, fiddling his time away by leafing through his social media's baloney. All his friends had an account there, with a substantial amount of followers. And of course, his sister hadn't been bailed out of the quandary of selfies and noteworthy poets and writers' quotes as well. He guessed it was a sort of teen-like social stigma to categorize the most outcast ones from those that followed the trend like a sheep.

Not that he could blame them, he had an account as well. But in confront to his peers, his homepage was comparatively lacking. No videos or selfies, only a short streak of photos where he was tagged in. He started scrolling down and down and down... his thumb dragging itself up across the screen as a bevy of images and posts flashed past, his eyes filtering through emblematic attention-whores and self-entitled assholes. Until a particular update halted his finger.

It was from his dear sister. She and Alison—aka her best chum—were doing faces to the camera. Jasmine's blond hair was bundled up in a ponytail, and she had her greenish eyes locked down on her nose to make the sight even sillier. Alison, instead, was hugging her from behind with her eyes squeezed shut and her tongue stuck out.

Despite the poor-lit setup, the image's quality did nothing to curtail their beauty. In fact, the selfie had already gone over 100 likes.

"..."

He always thought of himself as free of mundane emotions. Jered never understood how someone could feel guilty, sad, or depressed to the point of suicide. Even the tiniest of lies could make someone cower behind a sheet of guilt for a long time. Lies were necessary; 'you should never feel bad for twisting the truth into something people can bear and not crumble down under its weight', his father was a master in that field. That's why he frowned. Sometimes he felt something... but it was so faint, so feeble, and so tragically out of his grasp that it made him feel uneasy. Was he lying to himself, or was he so devoid of emotions that he translated any sway of mood as something more?

Jered hummed. Should he like her selfie or not? His sister had never been bashful about it, barraging likes on every photo that had his name cited on it, and he felt the need to reciprocate that. His train of thoughts suddenly slammed on its brakes when the delightful beep of a microwave sounded out next to his ears.

[Paranoia! has been successfully installed!]

[Congratulations on having been chosen as the System holder! You can access it by saying the command 'Menu'. Some features are currently locked, you may use them as you slowly become stronger and complete quests. Be mindful of not leaking Paranoia's existence under any circumstance!]