A normal life. That is how I would have described my own existence. That's how everyone would have described it. After all, I really had a normal life: regular work and regular hobbies… and a little bit of writing. Not much, just enough to try to put on paper some of the ideas that swirled inside my head.

I liked to think that inside of my skull there was some genuinely good material. I was quite proud of what I was able to think up, but I remained level-headed. I never saw myself as a novelist: if I had been confident in my work, I would have tried to have it published, but alas, I did not.

To me, writing was mostly escapism: just a way to sprinkle a little bit of fantasy in my ordinary days and spice up my routine. While I was writing I could be anything I wanted: a noble hero, a charismatic villain, or even a psychopathic megalomaniac. I could be the protagonist, and their closest friend, and their biggest rival, and their greatest enemy… all at the same time.

This way, I could live lives I could have never lived. I found it quite refreshing and it helped me push through my routine. I didn't dislike my life, but I would have liked a little bit more in it, nonetheless I didn't really know what this "more" I was looking for would look like. I even tried participating in several religions, which were certainly enlightening, but in the end didn't fit the bill. The best thing I found was my "creative endeavour", which I saw as a strictly personal thing.

Still, that state of mind didn't stick for long, as a few years later I found myself putting my work online. I hoped to gather a little bit of interest because, after all, like many, I had come to crave attention. With time a small community of loyal readers ended up walking beside me in my voyage along the roads of my fantasies. Their advice really helped me improve. I also found great inspiration in the works of others, both professionals and amateurs. For this reason, my first works tended to follow alongside the most common cliches quite a bit, but in time I learnt to put my personal spin inside of them.

Unfortunately all the effort I put into improving the quality of my storytelling seemed to go to waste: a work choke-full of cliches I had written as a joke and which I particularly despised brought me into the limelight. The text I had published alongside it and which, despite all its shortcomings, I considered my best so far, went unnoticed and quickly fell into the depths of the world wide web. Even my oldest readers turned their back to it and consumed the trash I had produced as if it was sophisticated food.

From that point on, I stopped publishing almost out of spite and returned to my daily routine, which never seemed so dull. Initially many supporters tried reaching out to me, but as time passed even the most stubborn gave up . It took a long time before I started writing again, but this time I kept it to myself. Obviously, I was really out of shape, but I didn't really care at this point.

I had recently finished a new work which I didn't know how to evaluate. The plot was quite basic and unoriginal, heavily formulaic, but the world in which it took place was quite peculiar. The story was about a guy living on an Earth where something similar to magic had become reality, who would go on to become the hero he was always destined to be and defeat the big bad evil guy.

Far from the presence of the usual civilization, who had progressed along the path of science and technology, or of the arcane arts, thanks to the wonders made possible by magic, the planet had become a barren hellhole where no sane person would want to live. The world I had conceived felt so desolate, I had to introduce other ones just to make it possible for my protagonist to do something worthwhile with his time.

Nevertheless, I couldn't just leave the original world I had spent most of my free time working on. And so I was finally done, incredibly confused by what I had created, but also quite proud. I was so pleased I went back on my premises and posted it online, chapter by chapter.

The response was warm at best, with no elicited interest and a very small view count. The only outlier was a nameless user who found himself heavily involved in the story and commented under every chapter. Well, maybe not the story itself, looking at how he never failed to politely but heavily criticise it in every message he left, but he seemed to greatly appreciate the world in which the characters moved. I didn't really understand why, but it made me happy nonetheless.

Today, I published the last chapter.

The ending was quite grim, considering how, basically, the hero failed to save the world, although he defeated the villain. I had tried to come up with something different, but due to how everything had been designed, I was ultimately convinced this was the only appropriate ending.

Immediately after pressing the publish command, I felt something was off. I knew everything was going to go down the drain when mere minutes after the chapter went online, the unnamed user left this comment:

"Has been fun. Want to see more. Show me"

For some reason I felt something was very wrong: I found this message extremely ominous and I broke out in a cold sweat. Nevertheless I couldn't make much out of it. I got changed and got out my apartment to go to work. After all, I couldn't interrupt my life just for a groundless feeling.

I understood my hunch was probably correct when, in less than ten minutes, I had almost been run over seven times. Luckily, I had been able to avoid every vehicle, but I was now sure someone or something was out there to get me. I was on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary: at every turn, I crouched and scanned the horizon, at every intersection I kept my distance from the other pedestrians. The mysterious commentator could have been anyone and anywhere. I avoided windows and showcases, because I felt a gaze coming from behind them, and ran away every time a shopkeeper spoke to me.

After an hectic day, spent evading various clumsy attempts from the Grim Reaper to take hold of my soul, I was able to return home safe and sound. The feeling of relief didn't last long, since on entering my apartment, every single light went off. I was simply too tired to care anymore, so I decided to go to bed and rest. The last thing I heard before falling asleep was the sound of glass shattering.