Chapter Text
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You've been doom-scrolling for a while now. It was understandable. Life gets exhausting, sometimes to the point you just want to be away from the stuff in your head. To shut it out and pretend time stopped moving for your sake. But it got irritating, didn't it? Chasing next dopamine hit every single day couldn't be healthy. Hell, it wasn't healthy. To the extent something that used to bring you joy, currently makes you unbelievably frustrated.
You used so many devices every day, all day on social media to the point nothing phased you anymore. A post about asking for donations for help? Someone crying that their life had gone to shit? Someone going through something traumatic? Post about recent tragedies? News shorts about recent murder cases? All skipped like the thought of it didn't linger, like it didn't matter. Your brain became so desensitized that if anyone knew what was going on inside you, they would stay away from you forever. Would you even care if someone died in front of you? Or would you just walk past them, like the dead wild animals you see on the side of the road after being ran over?
"…Shut up," you said to yourself. How sick were you, telling someone to shut up when no one was there with you? There must have been something really wrong with you, that nobody can fix anymore. You acted like those thoughts weren't part of you, but could you be sure? Talking to yourself like you hear voices. Who knows, maybe you actually did.
You've been searching for something interesting to watch with no avail. Nothing seemed entertaining enough. Not with your declining attention span at least. Lately it took you more time to find something to your liking than actually engaging with said media. Which of course - was annoying. No wonder you were so "fussy" these days. You had an urge to throw your phone to the corner of your room at this rate. Or bang your head against the wall. But at the end of the day, it was just a thought. You wouldn't actually act out on it. Just like with every other urge you had in the back of your twisted mind.
You stopped going to school some time ago. You were in your senior year and apparently you decided one day you didn't care anymore. Well, that was until your mother caught you still being home and all. She wasn't around much, but when she was it was just constant screaming coming from her. How irresponsible you were. How you kept on throwing away your future and how did you expect to even graduate, and make anything of yourself. You thought of dropping out, but then again what would you even do? Your mother would kick you out and you would be left with nothing.
Hell, you didn't even have a concrete plan for the future. Maybe you used to, but those faded with time. And dropping out in a senior year of high school seemed like a waste. At least that was what other people were convinced of. Perhaps they were right, to some extent - it would be a waste to quit when the end was so near. However you couldn't help with how exhausted you felt. Mentally drained. Once you thought it would be a good idea to ask for help from your beloved parent which was of course your mom - unsurprisingly being from the older generation, her mindset was old fashioned as well. Back in her times "young people used to be hard working and you clearly were the problem. You were just lazy". Sure, whatever she said. It wasn't shocking that as a result, you never told your mom anything related to your life after that incident.
Luckily enough that woman that happened to be related to you was nowhere around on that day. Probably working away retched hours, just to keep that household barely functioning. You sighed heavily as you put your phone down, still unable to find a perfect fix for your growing boredom.
So for the time being, you decided to make yourself some kind of snack. For that you went down the stairs, going through the living room where your father was sitting. Just like you, shutting his brain off but with the entertainment of the TV. He didn't even spare you a glance. Neither did you. Soon enough, you arrived to the kitchen. It was messy, dishes piling up in the sink, the counter stained from whatever your father prepared for himself to eat. No one bothered to clean it up and why would you? You were not the one who made the mess, so you didn't bother. Not like you had any energy for that either. You managed to make an extravagant dish and it was a... sandwich. Wow, what an achievement I must say. It still was better than the last few days when you barely had eaten anything. You were about to climb up back upstairs before you had been stopped in your tracks.
"Figured out where you'll be applying?" Your father asked the dreadful question.
Of course out of all things he would ask that. You should've been prepared for that. Despite still being in high school, many students in your year already were considering their possible options for college or universities. Time would quickly fly by from October to August after all. It was a time for planning - where to go, what course, moving out soon or not, getting a part time job to afford living away from home, debt those future students would have to pay off for the next twenty years. You, however avoided even thinking about it. If you could, you'd stay in the eternal limbo of your 'safe' space which was your room and forget anything else existed.
Now… how were you supposed to answer that question? Maybe the truth would be the easiest. Or you so naively thought.
"I'm not going to the university," you said despite your thoughts warning you that admitting to it might not be the greatest idea you've had.
You were met with silence. And you couldn't tell from the step on the stairs you were standing on what your father expression was. Therefore you didn't know if you'd be met with indifference, outrage or encouragement. Probably not the last one. Your mother by that point would start her usual yelling match. But that didn't mean your father was a saint. Far from it, if he wasn't even worse than the woman that gave birth to you.
"You're not smart enough to make it anyway."
And there it was. The reason you barely left your room. Inside you were boiling like water inside the kettle. Those types of comments didn't hurt you anymore, they were frustrating and insufferable. Or at least you that was your way of reassuring yourself. Screaming at that pathetic man would earn you nothing. So you didn't respond and went back into your room without making a sound.
You locked the doors like you always did. It was a habit you developed over time. You didn't want anyone bothering you, when you tried to forget you existed in the first place. It led to multiple arguments in your family in the past, but it wasn't like you cared enough to stop.
Maybe if you tried a little harder, life would be easier on you. When did you stop caring about anyone and anything? How selfish you were. It was pathetic really. How hard was it to make someone proud at least once in your life? But on the other hand, what was there to be proud of? You couldn't even clean up your room properly. The bags of the takeout you've eaten weeks ago were still under your desk. The visible bump on your bed that hurt your back whenever you laid down was still an undeniable proof of how much time you spent laying there, doing absolutely nothing. Your parents told you months ago to buy a new mattress and yet you just couldn't bring yourself to do it. I won't even mention the stains on the walls or floor made by your carelessness. Maybe your mother and father were right about you after all.
You sighed heavily. What else could you do? What more could you do? You sat down in the corner of your room, where your beanbag was. It wasn't much but sometimes it even felt comfortable. You put the plate - where your sandwich was - on the floor beside you and you took your laptop, then placed it on your lap. It seemed like you figured out what you would do for the few next hours and that was... of course you were going to search for the games to play. Why wouldn't you? But like the degenerate that you were, you weren't searching for them legally. First of all you didn't have any money to spend - your parents stopped giving you money years ago. You've survived this far from birthday money and we have to be honest here, you had none left for the time being. Solution? Pirate sites. That was your go-to whenever you wanted to play something new. Just forgetting about the other games you still didn't finish playing, sure.
So far it was pure luck you didn't get your laptop invaded by viruses after using these sites so many times. Who on earth pays for anti-virus applications? Sure there were many free ones, however you never bothered downloading any of them either. Why? I didn't know, that was what I was asking you.
But perhaps that wasn't important at the moment. Your goal in that moment was to find a perfect game that would make you forget about your loathsome existence. Something not repetitive, yet indulging, interesting. Maybe a game where your choices mattered, you loved those types of games. Where you could get attached to characters and they weren't just two-dimensional beings. You'd rather think that it was your favorite type of games because it was interesting, rather than some deep psychological issue within you. If you didn't think about it, it didn't matter - right?
You scrolled through the most popular downloads. Pass, pass, that one you've already played, another one was too much for your storage to handle, and another pass. Seriously, what was going on with game industries, did developers suddenly and collectively decided to make the most boring games you've seen? How annoying. This was getting repetitive very fast, first you've been searching for the perfect video to watch, now you were searching for the best game to play by your impossible to meet standards. Nothing could satisfy you it seemed. At this rate, you were even considering eating the sandwich you've made and going to sleep afterwards. And you barely did either of those these days, only enough to survive.
That was until you finally found something that peeked your interest.
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Wasn't this game only published for Nintendo 64? How would someone even play this on their PC? It was weird and honestly seemed like a scam, an undercover malware for the gullible enough to download the thing. It wouldn't be as strange to see on a website specifically dedicated for Nintendo games you could play through emulator. However it was listed in PC games category. It didn't make sense.
You remembered watching your older cousin play it on her console when you were six, maybe seven years old or something around that age. You also remembered how you begged your parents to buy you the console only for them to tell you they didn't have enough money. Meanwhile they were the ones who bought Nintendo 64 for your cousin for Christmas in the first place. The truth was, of course - they had money. They would just never willingly spend them on you if they weren't obligated to.
Never mind that.
The more you thought about the game, the weirder feeling you've got. You trusted this site for so long, you never got any issues before when you downloaded anything. No malware, no weird spying applications or the ones that steal your data, none of that bullshit. So why would they suddenly put an unchecked game that was most probably a scam on their site?
Unless… they somehow imported it from Nintendo 64 on PC but how did that make any sense? As already mentioned, you'd need emulator for that. Yet it was listed as PC operable, no mentions of any outside programs needed. Would it even be playable? Wouldn't someone still need to waste their money on the outdated console just to play pirated version? No, that sounded silly.
You were curious, even though you were still a little hesitant. Yet, eventually like people often said - curiosity killed the cat, but the satisfaction brought it back. So of course you ended up with the gamble of getting doxxed and clicked the download button. What was the worst thing that could happen?
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