CHAPTER 1

It started with a fascination.

A fascination that slowly morphed into an obsession with a five letter word. Five letters, put together, making a word that would change everything.

A word has the power to change you I’ve come to realize. With me just that word was enough.

Skill.

Skill is everything to me.

To me it means to be better than your best.

To break past your limits.

To evolve into something that only you can become, and only you will ever become.

I was 10 years old when it happened. By chance I stumbled upon a video game that had me captivated from the moment I saw the 32 dollar game box in the superstore.

From LIZZARD gaming, World of Corecraft.

A game that at the time was played by 39 million people around the globe, for a simple one-time payment you could adventure online in an immersive and visually astounding world

from your computer at home.

I played and played and played, my friendships stagnated as I spent every waking moment away from school rushing to play my game.

My parents grew disappointed but with my constant promises of good grades and begging, I was allowed to keep pushing how much I could play.

For four years that was my entire life.

I’ve come to realize that people play with different mind-sets when it comes to online games. Some decided to enjoy it casually, focused on their own enjoyment rather than anything else. Others desired the company of others and spent their time socializing. There are also people who find small parts of the game and spend days focused on it, such as obtaining that one rare item or finishing every side-quest.

Then there’s the type of player who has only one goal in his mind.

To be the best. To be better than any other player.

That was me.

I slaved away, often doing tasks over and over again. Completing repetitive content simply to get an edge over all the other players.

All my focus was to be better, better than I could be. At that young age I spent time researching information about the game, fully focused only on Corecraft.

Even during bed-time, my thoughts would remain thinking about aspects of the game and theorizing intuitive ways to use abilities in the game.

Then at the age of fourteen, I became someone that was rumored to be the best.

In social circles and online forums, rumors began spreading of an assassin-class max level player who was debated to be the best player in the world. The character known as >.

Assassins were infamous for being a class that although had a lot of potential, could never be fully realized in a professional level due to the difficulty of the class. Assassin game-play was focused on reading your opponents and shutting them down with crowd control abilities or nullifying threats with evasive maneuvers.

Compared to the other classes, there was far too much mechanical prowess required to achieve good results. Thus it became an abandoned class by other players, often regarded as the joke of Corecraft.

That was before me.

All across the world people became shocked as they saw that the world’s highest rated 1v1 arena player was an assassin.

Videos on u-tube of professional players fighting against me popped up everywhere, players getting defeated by an assassin that played like never seen before.

They even nicknamed me “The Skygod”

Slaving away for four years, somewhere along the line I had morphed into someone obsessed with becoming the best.

Perhaps I am not normal.

No, I’m certain that I am not normal.

Why do I take so much pleasure from being the best at something?

Why does it mean so much to me?

What is this yearning in my heart that compels me to take things too far?

I don’t think it will ever become enough.

Why do I strive to transform myself into something…. Inhuman.

Those four years were the best of my life.

Then everything changed.

Because life is a vicious and cruel mistress.

One that rips your happiness away.

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On a cold sunrise, shadows crept away as the sky brightened. The sun glowed eagerly, painting the horizon in warm colors. Today on this cold Saturday a young man sat on a steel bench belonging to a lonely bus station in Hamilton Canada.

The youth wore a ragged and worn-out dark green jacket. The rest of his attire was even worse for wear. Ugly sneakers with blotches of caked mud and a dirt-stained pair of jeans that alluded to a lack of proper upkeep.

His face was unshaven and his hair disheveled. To those who marveled at rugged appearances, his face was not completely unappealing but considering his attire most would find him repulsive. Attractiveness after all is greatly tied to grooming and clothing, and he looked like a homeless person.

If any passerby were to take a close look at the young man’s face they would certainly conclude that he had a blank lost look, seeming as if his mind was filled with incoherent thoughts and ponderings that usually belong to the minds of the drug-addled.

But dare to look closer at the young mans expressionless face and you would notice that his eyes were simmering.

Not ablaze with intent and purpose but somberly simmering with a promise of great willpower. Simmering with emotions of anger, exhaustion, worry and sadness.

His thoughts trapped him in the past.

Replaying the same memories over and over.

In the distance the sounds of an approaching bus shook the young man out of his thoughts. He looked up as the bus loudly came to a stop in front of him and opened its sliding doors.

The youth walked inside and began to fish into his pockets. Slowly, one by one, change was retrieved and then dispensed into a coin machine. A green light on the machine glowed brightly, signalling that he had paid enough. A small ticket appeared from a slit on the side of the machine, which the young man promptly grabbed and stuffed into his pockets.

“Tickets good for 2 hours” said the bus driver

With a nod, the youth shuffled up to a seat and sat down.

After a moment the bus roared to life and took off once more.

A few minutes passed and again the young man drifted into the past. It called him.

Haunted him.

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Have you ever felt it within you?

A sudden thirst for tension.

A sudden desire to change everything.

Change back into when life was fun. Or change everything into something completely new.

I see a place in my dreams.

I would do anything to go to that place.

A place that me brings me back to that feeling that I remember.

Now the breath that I take seems so pointless.

Every day it’s the same over and over again. Look for food… Find a safe place to sleep…Stay away from those people…..those people that make me do those things…….

And every day…... every day you dream…..an endless waking dream…..lost in those memories……of when you were warm….and happy……..and you had them…….

Perhaps it’s short-minded of me to say this but is it not particularly cruel when life gives you good fortune only to wrest it out of your hands? Leaving you broken and remembering the past. Leaving you wishing more than anything that you could just go back, back to when you felt like you meant something.

Oh god there’s that crushing feeling again.

The feeling that leaves me breathless.

Why did you have to die?

Why did you have to die?

Why?

Why did you leave me alone?

I didn’t have anything besides you.

I shudder, shivering not from the cold but from the dread that the emptiness inside me brings.

I need……I need to stop living in the past.

I can see what it’s doing to me….my memories festering within my head like a cancer.

Slowly losing my humanity….becoming something that lives yet does not live.

It’s been four years now since they died.

Maybe it would be easier to move on if everything wasn’t just……..wasn’t just……..

So fucked.

“We have arrived at Mcnab terminal” blared an automated message from the bus’s speakers

Shaken from my bitter thoughts, I got up from my seat and walked out into the cold Canadian weather.

Today was the biggest day of my life.

I could change everything today, I just hoped to god that it would go smoothly.

Today I turned 18 years old, which meant that I could finally claim my parent’s life insurance.

It wouldn’t be much but it should be enough for me to rent a place for a year and clean myself up. I couldn’t get a job without proper ID or a proof of address so I would need money for all the identification, mainly Social Security and health insurance.

I already had a bank account so at least that wasn’t a problem. Thankfully I managed to not lose my passport over the years and kept it with myself. Which means that I had the ID necessary to technically get my parents life insurance and get my life back on track.

I was done being homeless.

I was done being cold.

I was done being hungry.

I was done being lost.

Today it will all change.