《No Longer Alive》Chapter 3: Main Character
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Yozo knew he was the main character of his story. If nothing else, he knew he was important. A lot goes into thinking that way. That's why it makes me ever so sad to see that Dazai never realized his own courage. Yozo isn't perfect but he knows it. He points out all the absurdities of this universe, how wrong people are and how unfair life can be. But all along, he talks about his incapability. He's never denied the fact that he was the bad guy, the real evil, the monster. Like Dostoevsky's Raskolnikov, very much like him in fact, Yozo carried more guilt in him than life. You begin to question if there was any way to save him.
I had realized early on that there was only so much I could do with my life. This sounds ridiculous to people when I mention it, purely accidentally of course. Yesterday I was called "blessed", today, "perfect".
This is nothing new. I've been called various things, people refuse to believe I could even be real. Genius, alien, vampire, god...the list goes on. I am no longer human. I've long given up struggling to protect my normalcy. Truth is, there is no other normal that I could be. Were I to relive my life, I would still choose this misery. I have never wanted to be happy, that's what I believe. I don't think there's anything particularly wrong with that either.
I kept wandering around like an idiot after I came back from the training camp. I absolutely couldn't stand my home, I was sick of answering the same questions over and over again. All the conversations always ended the same way. I began to skip school very often, which was a rare thing for me. Some of my friends believed I was still in military. I didn't go back for the next two months. I considered running away to become a vagabond because I liked my life like this. There was no reason for why I never did it. Probably because I'm a coward.
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When I did go back, I told people "the military couldn't handle me". This worked like a charm, people laughed, didn't ask anymore. I was in my first year of high school, then. School's always been a terrible place for me, it exhausts me beyond measure. On the bright side, it lets me see so much. I'm the kind that loves watching people. Holmes never did impress me. Reading people was as easy as pie. Some people would bore me to death, others would always bring a new annoyance. To be honest, I could care less for humans. I feel like I'm just sitting outside, watching a movie, separate from them all. It can get lonely. But it didn't.
I remember he was a third year in my school. I'd seen him around a couple of times but there'd never been an occasion for talking. I can't remember most of what he looked like. I never knew his name. Funny, isn't it? One day, a teacher wouldn't get off my case so I was a bit late going home. That teacher was a nice guy and I had nothing against him. So on my way home, I just got to thinking about what he'd said but I realized I could barely remember the bits and pieces. Then I got to thinking about the cigarette he was smoking and just like that, I stopped on a little bridge, thinking about the smoke and all.
That's when this guy came up to me. I don't know when and what he had said but then he told me a joke and that was funny. He told me he'd seen me getting an earful from the teacher. He suggested I should get myself in a club.
"No way. If I have to join a club, I'll make my own."
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"Great. Well, hit me up any time you do it", he left after that.
I don't think I'd have made a club but I did. And then I did invite him. But there could be no club with just two people so it got shut down. I would have thought this was all over. But then he invited me to join a club. I wouldn't have, but I did.
I shouldn't have...probably. This guy is the protagonist of my story. You see, I'm the kind of person who isn't even the main character of their own story. I'd always be a side character, I've known it all along. I'm not like Yozo. I'm not important. And I kill all the important people.
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The ones who purge purgatories are called vessels. The world is full of vessels who seek the top so what if amongst them, you were powerless? Lantern Venick is a man full of weakness but for his family, he decides to set out and the adventure that awaits him is something he never imagined...
8 170Thomas the Brawler
Thomas doesn't remember what his last name was, before it became Bluebrim, a name belonging to another universe. He's also pretty sure he wasn't this stupid before he arrived, but what can you do, when a day that was supposed to begin with an interview to set your life back on track instead begins in a universe that makes no sense, with rules you can't begin to understand? Maybe he should have paid more attention to the avatar creation screen ... Content warnings: All of them. Seriously. Expect lots of blue screens to begin with. Don't expect a power-leveling fantasy, in which the lone hero beats up all the bad guys, and gets a harem of women. There's just a guy who treats character creation like an annoying series of pop-up advertisements, and the story is basically the ramifications of that. The main character has to learn to take the world he's found himself in seriously, and he'll learn the way most of us do, by doing it wrong first. This is, insofar as it is successful, a dark comedy fantasy. Also a bit of horror, particularly but not exclusively body horror. I'm pretty sure I've earned those Content Warning tags, so, uh, yeah. This is practice. Hopefully things improve as I go, and figure out what I'm doing wrong, but I make no guarantees things will ever get better. I've already made mistakes, I'll make more, and I'm happy to notice them each time I make them. You don't improve unless you fail. (On the plus side, it probably won't get much worse.) Feel free to point out anything you think I'm doing wrong; I don't promise to change anything, particularly if it's a matter of taste, but I am looking to improve, and figuring out what I need to improve goes faster if I don't have to try to figure it out myself. I've updated the earlier chapters for formatting, in the hope that it would make everything easier to read on mobile devices. Hopefully things work slightly better now, but please let me know if there are any issues anywhere.
8 147The Worlds We Leave Behind (GameLit Novellette)
Some days are better than others for Holly. Today is one of the good ones, one of the ones where the crushing grief of losing her son eases back a little, and she's able to face the memories of who her son was, maybe even the potential of who he could have been. She feels like she's made tangible progress over the past three weeks, having progressed from crying on the couch to crying on her son's bed, in the room that he spent so much of his time. When it all finally threatens to overwhelm her again, she stands to leave, bumping his chair and awakening his computer. The voices filtering through the illuminted virtual reality headset are from three of David's best friends. Seperated by thousands of miles in the real world, they had come together inside of the virtual world of Silenia to quest for fame and fortune. At first she is unable to face them, unsure how to tell them that their friend is gone. Once she enters Silenia herself, she discovers that the virtual friendships David forged are as strong as any in reality.
8 221Icon of Paradise
With the people of his district hungry and no sign of the military lockdowns ending, Ichiro Kasai, an ex-Imperial Ninja, attacks a convoy of food trucks with his new acquaintance, John Dawson, a resistance member. Dawson wants Ichiro to join the conflict against Empress Akamine, who began her mysterious reign of tyranny inexplicably and without remorse with the aid of her six gluttonous and sociopathic governors. But Ichiro’s only concern is the well-being of his friends—many of which have come to be the only family he has.
8 141Gray Hour: The Cursed Coin
"Would you fall in love with your murderer?" Diana wakes up and finds that instead of only five minutes to live, she has now twenty-four hours. She needs to find the reason and ‘cure’ for her endless cycle of deaths. But, when there are infinite numbers of possibilities, suspects, and a boyfriend – or should she say a fiancé? – who is the reason for her deaths ninety-percent of the times, it becomes complicated.
8 152haunting ❁ halsey
in which ashley frangipane is bullied by melanie martinez and has no idea why
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