I wake up under an unfamiliar ceiling. This isn't my room, and yet it feels like home. I leave my room just to brush my teeth and get some breakfast, and I return to it, booting up my computer. Strange, I have never done this before, and yet it is second nature.
The welcome screen greets me with a name that I have never seen before and yet feels like something I have owned since the day I was born. I type in a password that I should never have known to access programmes that I have never used before.
I catch up with emails, before looking at my undergraduate timetable. There is no outstanding work today. So I boot up a VPN and log into this weird Japanese browser game about ships who are girls. I seem to derive great joy from clicking on the screen and tracking some numbers and ranks.
Why am I doing this, and to what end?
I then log into this chat programme, chatting with people who I do not know, some I am friends with, and some I am more ambivalent to. It's weird; all of this is.
Who is this person that is supposed to be me? I am not in control, and yet all my thoughts, my actions, all of them feel innately "me".
I then pull up one of my folders, one filled with text files. I snigger as I pull up one labelled "27" and write some text. I join the voice channel in the chat programme, boasting that I am writing a new installment of the fan fiction based on the corruption of one of the characters from the Japanese Ship Waifu Clicker game, and that it will be something grand.
Well, I know the other 26 entries are nothing to write home about. Between the inconsistent tone, poorly-vetted text, and plot threads poorly established and not well-developed, it is probably some boilerplate trash that will fade into obscurity once constant updates stop. It won't even develop a cult following of lovers and haters, like this other fan fiction that also grossly mischaracterized basically everyone from the same game. It is just a shitty series that is basically where I as an author project myself one-for-one onto the main male character, embellishing my positive traits and glossing over all my negative attributes, and where the main female character blindly loves me for no realistic reason.
Wait, how the fuck do I know this? What even is happening?
After typing enough to make me happy, I lock the door to my room. I then open up another folder hidden deep within the many layers of other folders. It contains many, and I mean many, questionable images, all of that one character. I then proceed to do highly unsavory things, all while moaning that character's name.
What the fuck? Is this me? Please, for the love of all that is holy, please make it stop. Make it fucking stop.
My moans reach a crescendo. I notice the name I am howling animalistically. It is Haruna. The name of my battlecruiser wife. It is at this moment when I am able to leave the first-person view I am slaved to.
What gives this fat piece of shit the right to besmirch my wife; to base his entire online persona around being obsessed with my wife; to base his sociopolitical outlook around the idea that no one in the world he (I?) lives in are fundamentally good people and that my wife is the only "girl" he would ever love.
It is fucking disgusting.
No.
It is fucking pathethic. This obsession. This pettiness of making people who have slighted him in the past characters that are killed off violently. What kind of fucking pussy does not just move on and make himself a bigger and better person.
This is clearly a dream. But whose? It is mine, yet isn't mine. Is it mine from another existence? Is it happening at the same time as my own existence? That existence must be fucking pathetic if this is what he thinks the status quo should be. Do fucking better.
Yes, I am overcome with rage, knowing this could be me if I chose the easy way out every time. The same set of choices that both he and I had to make, and yet he is there while I am here.
I watch with horrified amusement as he climaxes, taking a breather before cleaning the place up. Truly cringe-inducing. He continues doing nothing of real value until after lunch, when he then checks his emails again and starts work on some coursework projects. I know this cycle of mediocrity has been going on for at least 3 years, and that he is unhappy, and yet does nothing about it.
Damn, I am starting to feel bad for this poor loser. The same shitty choices he made are ones I easily could have too. Maybe instead of hiding his delusions in a shitty fan fiction, he should spend the time and energy making actual small changes. I think he knows that too, but has no courage to take that first step.
Damn, now I am truly sorry for that piece of filth. Just as his thoughts and actions feel innately mine, I know his dreams are innately mine. And they are truly mine. He wants a comfortable life, someone who loves him and that he loves back, nothing too extravagant or flashy. I know he can probably somewhat get there even if he stays on his current path, and yet I feel he can be doing more, no, I can be doing more with the right push.
Things are fading to black. I guess the dream sequence is ending, and with that revelation all I can do is wish him well, and hope he finds something that can break this cycle of sucking.