#never started a share circle before and i am admittedly a very small blog so i have no idea if this'll work

[babymillennial]

Hey, TDP fanfic writers, please share with me an excerpt from one of your most recent stories/chapters that you are especially proud of!

Here's mine:

Ellie tilted her head and smiled, the ringlets of her hair caught a breeze as it ran between them. “Magic,” she began, “is the living beast what bends to the will of the one who knows it best. Oaths, ought be kept steady as yer heart beats, lest ye find both failing ye. And a named thing,” Ellie stood, resting the weight of herself on her staff a mere moment, swaying as she turned halfway, “is a tamed thing. So keep yer name on the tip o’ yer tongue, but never speak it, fer the beast what wants te bind ye with it will show you no mercy.” Aaravos watched as she turned away from him, a narrow scrutiny as he contemplated the knowledge. Something was wrong with it, he knew it. The truth of it curled into his lips as it clicked, a detail he’d been too charmed to notice, nonetheless carried through every moment of the journey after. Ellie had never asked for his name. He’d never offered it in the minutes after, finding himself taken with what she called him, never dwelling on the lack of a proper introduction. He stopped. Then grinned. What she called him. It seemed there’d been another detail he’d sorely missed.  He laughed, and the little woman who’d been leading him through the forest turned, the soft ghost of a smile playing on her lips. “Something funny, outlander?” “Oh, you are very clever,” Aaravos murmured, meeting her green gaze as it glittered, sharp with a wit he’d seen from the start.  “Doesnae seem like the right answer to ma question, stranger.” He smiled wider, crooked. What a sly minx, full of mirth and laughter. “Your name is not Ellie,” he answered, soft like a secret.  She grinned in turn, too wide and toothy, as she had when first they met. “Aye,” she replied, playful as she flipped her walking stick back over her shoulders, met his eyes with a gaze so sharp he started to question whether it could really be considered human. “But it’s what ye can call me.”

—Two Roads Walked to the Same End, Chapter 3: Gods and Their Kingdoms (full fic found here)

[ciathyzareposts]

Missed Classic 66: The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13 ¾ (1985)

By Ilmari

“I have decided to be a poet. My father said that there isn’t a suitable career structure for poets and no pensions and other boring things, but I am quite decided. He tried to interest me in becoming a computer operator, but I said, ‘I need to put my soul into my work and it is well known that computers haven’t got a soul’. My father said,’ The Americans are working on it’. But I can’t wait that long.”

“My mother has found a job. She collects money from Space Invader machines. She started today in response to an urgent phone call from the job agency that she is registered with. She said that the fullest machines are those in unrespectable cafes and university common rooms. I think my mother is betraying her principles. She is pandering to an obsession of weak minds.”

– Adrian Mole, would-be-intellectual –

It sucked to be the smallest person in a family with only one TV to share. While it would have been essential to increase my popculture stats by spending evening with an episode of Star Trek, McGyver or Batman, my parents and bigger brother would have the veto power on the decision. And more often than not, they would turn the channel to some lame and drab show, fit only for people who had lost their final spark of imagination. One of their favourites followed a spectacled bore, who was constantly speaking to his mirror, panicking over his growing nipples and gluing miniature aeroplanes on his nose.

OK, I admit I laughed to this even when I was child

My mother and brother were also constantly praising the book on which the series was based. I never took their advice seriously – what growing child would trust the literary taste of their elders? Thus, it was only in preparation for this blog that I for the first time introduced myself to the Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, aged 13 ¾, written by Sue Townsend. This was only the first book in a series of Adrian Mole stories. Last Adrian Mole book appeared 2009, shortly before Sue Townsend died in 2014.

The Secret Diary, as the name suggests, consists of diary excerpts, written by a teenage boy, recounting a year in his life. There is not any great unifying plot – the closest to that is the estrangement, separation and eventual reconciliation of Adrian’s parents, but this is not just very central theme in the diary. Instead, the book consists of a string of loosely related events, such as Adrian’s infatuation with Pandora, his eventual girlfriend, and his friendship with Bert Baxter, a lovable old curmudgeon, who becomes a sort of mentor for Adrian.

Sadly, I must tell you that the thirtysomething years I waited before reading the book have done no favours to it. Partly, it’s due to my own growth – I can’t help but find pretentious teenage drama too shallow for my taste and Adrian’s obsessive monthly measurement of his private parts seems, well, a tad too obsessive.

Partly, it’s the fault of Adrian himself, who is just insufferable. Oh, I can see that his antics are meant to be comical – it is so like a teenager to just decide that one is an intellectual and a poet, look down on everyone else because of one’s supposed intellectual superiority, read fancy books and understand nothing of them, paint one’s room completely black, because it suits the role of a melancholy poet, and be smug about rejection letters from BBC. But Adrian just takes it all too far. He has too many double standards (“Intellectuals like me are allowed to be interested in sex. It is ordinary people like Mr. Lucas who should be ashamed of themselves”), his attitudes are far too conservative to my liking (“My mother has got an interview for a job. She is practising her typing and not doing any cooking. So what will it be like if she gets the job? My father should put his foot down before we are a broken home”) and he generally acts like a self-centred bastard. I mean, for the first third of the book, Adrian is insensitive about his parents going through a rough patch in their marriage and just complains about them not understanding him. Adrian’s egoism makes him also completely oblivious about the affair his mother is having with their neighbour, Mr. Lucas, even though the signs are obvious.

Adrian’s interest in Pandora is especially discomforting. Adrian just one day decides that he should love the new girl, because he is old enough for romance. Adrian has strange feelings, while he sees Pandora’s chest wobble during a netball match, which makes him conclude that he must be in love. After this, Adrian’s obsession with Pandora just grows day by day. Despite having no signs of Pandora liking him back, Adrian is possessive and jealous of her. And to make it even worse, he becomes a stalker:

“I hid behind her father’s Volvo and then followed her to a field next to the disused railway line. I hid behind a scrap car in the corner of the field and watched her. She looked dead good in her riding stuff, her chest was wobbling like mad. She will need to wear a bra soon.” 

You tell him, grandma Mole!

Adrian and Pandora do end up together, due to the funniest part of the book, involving red socks, silly British rules about proper school attire and a small student uprising.

It’s difficult to explain, but here are the basics

Thankfully, the relationship with Pandora mellows Adrian, thus preventing him of becoming world’s first incel. Instead, by the end of the book Adrian becomes a two timing Don Juan, when he commits (non-sexual) adultery with yet another girl.

Compared to the book, the TV series, which I also watched now properly for the first time, was a pleasant surprise. Adrian’s actor was a good choice for the part, making Adrian not an obnoxious kid with an overgrown ego, but a Harry Potterish nerd, whom you might actually sympathise with. Furthermore, the series fleshed out many of the minor characters, who frankly seem far more interesting than Adrian himself. Finally, the series managed to cut all the unnecessary fluff and leave only the most essential parts of the diary, which made the plot of the series tighter than the plot of the book. Indeed, I’d recommend watching the series over reading the book.

If you are in a real hurry, you can just listen to Profoundly in Love with Pandora, 

the intro music of the series, which tells you all you need to know about the story

Brainbox Henderson has a bit dated information

Secret Diary of Adrian Mole was also made into a computer game. Behind this feat were, just like with Eric the Viking, Mosaic Publishing, which bought the licence and distributed the game, and Level 9, which did all the programming. While Eric the Viking was already meant to be an easy game by Level 9 standards, with Adrian Mole the producers went overboard with simplification – the game follows a Choose Your Own Adventure style. In practice this means that the player can do things differently from the book. For instance, Adrian might hear someone ringing the doorbell and the player could choose to open the door, which might lead to a completely new event that wasn’t in the book.

Like this meeting of missionaries

What would you do in Adrian’s shoes?

Still, player choices are rather limited, and no matter what you choose, certain events just happen, no matter what you do.

Deus ex machina…

…but I have to agree with her that Burt Baxter is the best character in the book

The goal of the game, as stated by the manual, is to make Adrian more popular. The game assigns Adrian a popularity score (between 0 and 100), which changes in accordance with player choices. It’s a bit unclear with whom Adrian should be popular – Parents? Friends? Teachers? – but the idea is simple to get intuitively. I played the game twice, as much as I could, and by choosing what I considered silly options I lowered my score all the way to 13. The second time I tried to make more reasonable choices and my score rose to around 60.

The game consists of four parts, but the copy I used was somehow faulty and the fourth part never loaded. Considering that the plot of the game consists just of a string of loosely, if at all, related events, I don’t think I missed much. I did watch the ending of a Let’s Play someone had made of the game, and well, just like the book, the game just stops after a year. Considering this, I don’t have high hopes for the PISSED score.

Puzzles and Solvability

The problem with CYOAs is that the outcomes of your choice are often just as unpredictable as a toss of coin. Secret Diary is no exception. Let’s take as an example a sequence where Adrian is preparing for a roller skate date and choosing a gift.

My first thought was that Adrian’s date would probably be sporty and not appreciate chocolate – and grapes just seemed too cheap. Circle of flowers seemed like a neutral choice. After few more choices, involving Adrian’s attire and his attempt to learn roller skating, the time had come to test my choice of gift.

How should I have known it was a funeral wreath, when nothing indicated it? Oh well, I guess I should have picked the grapes. This is a good example of a puzzle, where knowledge of future events is required to even make sense of the puzzle. Admittedly, it’s often quite simple to say what is the optimal choice. Still, these puzzles involve too much pure guesswork for my taste.

Score: 1

Interface and Inventory

I rarely feel that a game has too simple an interface – usually it’s the other way around – but this game is an exception. I mean, although pressing 1, 2 or 3 is as simple as it gets, I don’t feel that the interface really gives me an opportunity to affect anything. Add to this the fact that the game has no inventory, and this category can really have only one rating.

Score: 1

Story and Setting

I’ve already said that the book hasn’t that much of story, and the game loses even that by jumbling all the individual events to different places. You know something is wrong when things happen before they should have happened.

The new plot points are also problematic. An enthused reviewer was thrilled by Pete Austin’s capacity to stand in for Sue Townsend and called him even a genius, while Digital Antiquarian spoke of episodes from the book being glued together by “unsightly globs” of Pete Austin’s text. I tend to lean more toward Antiquarian’s opinion. Although Austin did manage to copy some of the phraseology Adrian Mole uses in the book, the new events steer away from comedy to a crude farce.

For instance, when Adrian considers joining the brotherhood of Purple People, led by Brother Ludovico, and shaves all his hair

Score: 2 Sound and Graphics

In a CYOA you don’t really have rooms to illustrate. Instead, Level 9 has decided to make pictures describing the mood of Adrian Mole. This makes the graphics seem a bit more creative than in an average Level 9 game.

Score: 4.

Environment and Atmosphere

The most distinct feature of Secret Diary – the book is that it serves as a window to Britain in early 1980s. For instance, you will read a lot about the wedding of Lady Diana and Charles, Prince of Wales, which apparently was cause for much spontaneous celebration. The game, on the other hand, has no sense of historical context.

Just look at this. Since we are following the book, the year should be 1981. Even the idea of selling personal computers to home was relatively new, and laser printer (which we later found out was made by Canon) was definitely such a luxury item that seeing it on a high school kid’s table seems ridiculous. I guess it is possible that Brainbox Henderson’s family was ahead of its time, but I sincerely doubt it.

Score 2:

Dialogue and Acting

Considering that lot of the game’s text has been taken directly from Sue Townsend, it cannot be that awful. Then again, I cannot give very high credit for copying someone else’s witticism, especially as the text provided by Level 9 doesn’t compare well with the text from book.

Score 4.

1 + 1 + 2 + 4 + 2 + 4 = 14/0.6 = 23.

It is no wonder that this game scores pretty much same as Erik the Viking, the so far worst Level 9 game. Level 9 made a second Adrian Mole game after this one, I hope they managed to improve upon the formula, or I will have dull times ahead of me, whenever I get to that game.

source http://reposts.ciathyza.com/missed-classic-66-the-secret-diary-of-adrian-mole-aged-13-%c2%be-1985/

[artsyarchangel-blog]

GunBreaker Chapter 1 Part 3

7

Slowly, people started to come around to me. “He might be a troll, but isn't he way to serious about this? Like, we are the ones making fun of him, this can't be entertaining for him anymore...”

“Maybe he is just legitimately insane.”

“Or maybe he has a point...”

“What, erase all guns from this planet? This is bullshit.”

It was at a very sluggish pace, yet I could see some positivity. People started to doubt themselves, maybe, just maybe there was some truth to my teachings. The hit count on my blog and on my channel also climbed steadily and some people were even saying they “might look into this”.

An euphoric feeling in my chest, I was even more resolved. Do you see, Hermes? We can do it, people can help themselves, you just have to be persistent in spreading the truth.

Now I really started to break the law though, it wasn't enough to just spread my message online, I wanted everyone to know, be it the net-generation, kids my age or the old man, who never quite got the hang of technology. Everyone needed to know what happened behind these walls and how we can change it. So I bought some spray-cans, pulled a hoodie over my face and hit the town, as soon as the sun went down. “Wake up, sheeps!” “Gunbreaker will liberate you!” these phrases were soon spread all over the walls, underneath some brigdes or on the broad site of a train. Pretty clumsily too, I'm sure it was hard to read, especially at night, but it was there, in their faces and I felt proud and accomplished. Flyers I threw all over the walkways, the adresse of my net-blog written on it. I certainly gave the police enough reason to go after me and in hindsight, this was so absolutely moronic!

Given everything I knew or believed to know, how could I pull such a stunt?!

If they caught me, they would have straight up put a bullet into my head or maybe torture me for information first. Teenagers really feel like they are invincible, it's scary... .

My actions were certainly noticed, even if I the city was huge and I only vandalised a really small district. My home district, incidentally, so stupid, the thought makes me cringe.

Just how wrong this all could have gone...

Pictures were taken and posted on the net, feeding my myth, the myth of the Gunbreaker. Seriously, at this point, I was like an urban legend, everyone talked about me.

“Did you see? It was written all over the district!”

“Yes, I go through there on my way to work, was it really him?”

“This happened in Ravenstar, right? So weird...is this an uprising?”

Now the circle of people who really knew about my ideals was still relatively small, I might blow it a little out of proportion. I certainly wasn't e-famous and I also never got any news-coverage on a big network. Thank God. But people recognized my name and I received messages, almost daily. Hate-mail mostly, but slowly, there were words of encouragement.

Outside of all the fuss, I never told anyone, not a single person in my admittedly small, social circle. At least I had that much foresight, as if I wasn't bullied enough at school, running around, throwing conspiracy theories around would have only made it worse. But the school talked about the Gunbreaker, obviously, it was their town that was dirtied by all the ugly graffiti, impossible for them to miss it. It wasn't all that interesting, the gossip in my class, just a mirror of the internet comments, only voiced this time. Well I didn't attend school all too frequently anyway, so I only catched some snippets. When my friends talked about it, I felt like a masked vigilante, some kind of superhero and when they asked me about my opinion I just said:”Meh, probably some loser living in his mom´s basement.” Gotta keep it cool after all, can't raise any suspicion.

This went on for a while, my popularity steadily rising and as other people started to look into the matter, researching, basically asking what the hell actually happened behind these walls in their own, long blog-posts, I received another E-Mail. “Bloodedge” , that was the name displayed as the sender and of course I remembered him, it wasn't so long ago. Curiously I opened his message:

“Yo, man! The Net is on fire, you're really making a change! Well, that's how I feel at least, but the bois over at HERMES don't really share my opinion. They're probs just jelly, right? Anyway, if there is anything I can do to help, totally tell me. We're going to tear their asses down, these government shitbags.”

This was great, I had my own sidekick. Naturally, I motivated him further, told him simply to imitate my actions. In other words, hit his district the same way I hit mine. I think they call that “Inciting an offence”, add this to my growing criminal record. He did it, too! The next day I saw a bunch of pictures, sprayed words similar to my own work, even signed as the GunBreaker.

Again, the clicks kept on coming and more conspirators joined me.

They introduced themselves rather similar to my dear and bloody assistent, ready to prove themselves after Hermes couldn't give them what they were seeking. The thrill of a real revolution, it was the same thing I was looking for after all. I was way in over my head here, some teenager leading a rebellion.

But as young folk tend to do, I simply didn't give a shit about that, just doing what I thought was right, no matter the consequences. In a way, that's rather admirable, even we adults should take some risks from time to time, standing up for what we believe in. Let's be real though, I wasn't all that idealistic, as i said, I was just a bored teenager. The only weird thing is, despite all that, despite the growing scale of the little Gunbreaker-operation, the police never came after us, they never conducted an investigation and they never silently arrested us. Was that it, the power of the five Warlords, the quiet power leading our very lives. Laughable, I only grew more confident as time went on. More and more people believed us, our voices were heard, questions were asked and even the media started to show interest!

Once, on an ordinary day, the sky bleak and covered with grey clouds, someone wrote his query into a rather popular forum. That he'd like to look into these allegations, that he started to believe that there was something wrong in our world and that he'd find the ones responsible and expose them. A huge report on a major tv-network was about to happen, as soon as he'd got the clear of his editor and then nobody could pretend they didn't see the lies anymore.

Yes, this was it! The breakthrough, the final attack. First we would riot and save our glorious Metropolis Ravenstar and then, after we achieved this, the other four cities would be next.

Beware, Warlords, this was the day of your reckoning!

This reporter guy, he never gave his name, since it could put him at risk, promised to interview me personally, the legendary Gunbreaker! We even set a date, obviously we would communicate via  video, so I should get a cool looking mask. As I browsed through various online shops in the search of my perfect outfit (thank god I never actually got the chance to wear any of it, my personal favorite was the glowing skull-mask after all) the day of the scheduled interview drew ever closer.

And as it arrived, I never heard from him again.

No posts, no mails, not a single call. He never left me his contact-info, so there was nothing I could do. Honestly, at this point I think they just killed him, neutralized him before he could become a problem. And this trend continued! Suddenly all my contacts disappeared one after another, never to be heard of again. Now there weren't as well known as I was, but by the time even the Bloodedge vanished, people were spreading dark rumors. That the government finally catched up to them, that they were tortured, probed for information and ultimately killed off.

Fear started to spread, the kind inhabitants of the internet started to wonder if maybe, they should stop talking about war, about massacres behind the wall and return to their quiet, ignorant lifes. While I did my best, really gave it my all to quell these concerns I trembled behind my flat computer-screen. I could barely hit the keyboard, the way my fingers were shaking. This was bad, it was way to weird, how could they all just up and leave? All of them, there was no other explanation, something happened to them.

And I would be next.

Will they at least keep my family alive? They never did anything wrong after all, why should they suffer for my reckless crimes. Really it was a dread I would not feel for many years afterwards, the imminent threat of my life ending any time now.

But in front of my audience, my fans if you will, I played it cool, Problem was, nobody cared about me anymore, it was all just about these mysterious disappearences, so slowly, my message died down.

It was then that I received a light in my darkness, a ray of hope that might just save me. I had a high opinion of Hermes after all, so soon I found myself face to face with him again. Figuratively speaking of course. He didn't waste any time bringing his point across.

HERMES: We wish to cooperate. Your cause is a just one, however, the ship you set out with received crippling damage and won't be able to carry you to your destination. How about you board our vessel instead? After all, our destination remains the same.

Now I could have continued to stay cool, to keep up my composed facade but I was just scared shitless.

GUNBREAKER: Yes! I mean, that is an interesting propostion. Actually, please let's cooperate. Together we might be able to change something.

HERMES: We are acknowledging your position and what you were able to achieve all on your own, so...

GUNBREAKER: Please, just take me under your wing. I don't care if I am just a code monkey or your personal servant!

HERMES:...we would grant you a position befitting of your abilities, at the side of our best and brightest.

After this exchange, there was an awkward silence, no words appeared on the sreen for a while. Cold sweat ran down my back, did I blew it? Did he now think I was absolutely disgusting, some basement-dwelling virgin who lost his mind at the mere sight of danger? Well, I let you know we lived in an appartement, there was no basement.

HERMES: Why don't we continue this personally? We are sure we can work this out and we also understand that you are frightened. It is a difficult position to be in after all, no one here can even imagine how you feel. After all, we'd never draw this kind of attention to ourselves, knowing our dangerous enemy.

I could practically see his mocking smirk. Or theirs, he kept speaking like there's a whole group behind his name.

HERMES: There is an abandoned toy shop not far from your location. We'd like to meet you there, if you feel that you can trust us. Please know that we also put our trust in you, never before have we decided to reveal our face. This offer is not to be taken lightly. Meet us at 2100 tomorrow evening, we will wait for you exactly thirty minutes, but if you fail to arrive in time, there won't be a second chance. We will cease all contact, you will be on your own.

He never even waited for my reply, after he told me of the plan, he was just gone. No chance to talk back, all I could do was follow his directions exactly as told. I actually knew of the toy shop he mentioned, I passed it sometimes on my way to school, when I was feeling adventurous and picked the alternate route and of course I sprayed it with graffiti when I was spreading my message. A huge, kinda creepy building with a giant stuffed bear on top? That certainly attracted attention, a perfect target to vandalize.

So this was to be the place where I'd find my destiny. So be it.

Honestly, I am kinda bluffing here, my actual thought process at this time looked more like:”OHSHIT, whatdoidowhatdoido, WHAT THE FUCK DO I DO NOW?!”

Even Hermes started to give me some seriously bad vibes, being all smug, so high and mighty. Like he enjoyed my misery. It was a fleeting thought however, then in the end, I had no choice in the matter. They would come for me, whoever they were and they would hurt and kill me and maybe even my family. Never thought that I actually cared that much about my parents and my little sister, but here I was, priotizing their safety over my own.

But why tomorrow, I could barely handle the wait. Feeling antsy all day I hardly slept, always half expecting for someone to break down my door and take me away, dragging me past the corpses of my family members. Indeed, my thoughts went to a real dark place there, but why not? Reasons I had enough, people didn't just vanish off the internet after all. Okay, I mean, they did sometimes, then they surfaced again after weeks or months of absence, it happened. Maybe they just needed a change of pace, a new identity, a new screen-name and a new community. Or maybe their parents grounded them, taking away their internet-access. It was all possible, on an individual level at least. But all of them, in the span of just a few days? Impossible, something got to them, they really died, I was certain of that. Someone like the warlords, they wouldn't just question you and leave you off, scot free and with just a friendly warning. They would silence you, permanently.

To prevent that, I snuck out of the apartement, careful to wake no one up as I treaded carefully through the living room and out of the door, closing as slowly as I possibly could. Not an easy task, considering my shaking arms, but I managed to do it. Frankly, this wasn't the first time, obviously, though I was never this anxious before, somehow, back then there seemed to be no stakes involved.

Dressed in a grey hoodie, concealing my face god knows why I slowly walked down the stairs. While it was true that the toy store wasn't far from here, I still had to take the train. Reaching it by foot would have been possible, only I just had an hour left at best, so taking a long walk was out of the question. As I made my way to the station I couldn't help but look around, almost jumping out of my skin at every noise, every stray cat moving about in the shadows. It was almost unbearable, every hair stood on end and my heart seemed to be resolved to burst out of my chest. My breath came hard and fast out between my teeth and I had to steady myself at the corner of a street. Did I have a little panic-attack? It was certainly possible, but I had to compose myself, otherwise i'd attract the eyes I so desperately seeked to avoid. In a way, I already looked up to no good anyway, with the hood covering my face. Like a small, skinny drug dealer, I never dared to take it off though. Like they knew my face, of course they didn't, I just... I was confused, can you really fault me for losing my head a little. So I arrived at the station, there were only a few people, it was late after all and a week day to boot, so I was only surrounded by the night owls of this district. And they looked at me funny, of course they did, some kid with a hood, hands buried deep in his pocket, while looking nervously around, shaking all the while. At least I graduated, from a dealer to an addict.

That was fine, it was alright if they perceived me like that as long as no one could identify me as the rumored, the infamous Gunbreaker! I gripped my shaking arm, hard enough until it started to sting and I had to clench my teeth. It was time to end this, never again would I speak that name, I learned my lesson, just...let me survive this, I'm begging you, whoever's in charge of my fate, don't let it end here. People around me started to check the time, I could see them looking briefly at their phones, twisting their faces in annoyance.

The train was late, it was plain to see.

But that wasn't actually possible, haha, it couldn't be late, I needed to get their on time. 9 pm, that's what he said, he'd vanish exactly half an hour later, never to contact me again. So it could not be late! My eyes were glued to my phone, displaying 20:35. Not even an hour left, but then again, the train was only five minutes late. He'd arrive any second now, surely.

So while I stood there, in horror on the brightly lit station, people were slowly leaving the station.

Another five minutes passed, then ten, then twenty.

Until I could only clench my fists, while the tears flowed freely under my grey hood.

Only when there was no way to reach the store in time would the train finally arrive at the station. I boarded it regardless, clinging to this tiny hope that maybe, a one in a million chance, Hermes would still be waiting for me. My heart skipped a beat as the battered door actually creaked open, but as I squinted into the darkness I soon found out:

There was nothing, no clue, no notes, not even the lingering presence of a human being. Maybe he toyed with me from the start, maybe Hermes wasn't even real, not the one I imagined at least...

8

And that was the end for the Gunbreaker.

Not me as a person, nobody ever came for me. While I was devastated, scared out of my wits to the point where I slightly worried my family for a few days, even a whole month almost, nothing ever happened. There was no police force, no assassins, never a mention again of these warlords. Even the Net went silent on these topics, but to be honest, I never really dug all that deep anymore.It was over and done with, I didn't want any part in it anymore. Purged it all out of my memory, Hermes, Decoy, Bloodedge, all these stupid names, I tried not to think about them anymore.

And life became easier!

My grades went up, as I attended school more regularly, I spent more time with my friends, even found myself the occasional girlfriend. Certainly lost my shut-in card over these last highschool years, even if I still enjoyed some video games. They didn't consume my life anymore though.

The only downside of it all? I lived in blissful ignorance.

Somewhere in the back of my head I still remebered the video that started it all, this dreadful execution so on some level I was still very much aware what exactly took place behind the massive walls surrounding my existence. I just didn't care anymore and in some ways, I think that's worse than not looking for the truth in the first place.

Guilt however, was never an emotion that burdened my carefree days, I simply told myself that it was all fake anyway. Not an unreasonable assumption, given that I never received any proof and yet I just knew it to be true. Yes, there were some details that I missed, something was definitely fishy, but I was convinced.

Convinced of the existence of the warlords and their schemes. Yet I chose to ignore it, for my own happiness, leaving the presumed millions of corpses aside.

And so I stood on another station, the subway this time, roughly four years, staring bored down on my phone.

It was at this time, my red-headed destiny passed me without even looking twice.