"Haha! Do you think that you can kill me?"

"You seriously can't kill me with a Bell and Grand Skewer?"

"Fuck! I'm dead again!"

Inside of a dark bedroom sat a young man before a monitor, his face bathed in the light of the game he was playing. Another sliver of light shined across the dark room from the small opening of the curtains, illuminating the carpet floor.

"Should I wipe this time or escape The Depths again...?" said the young man out loud. He was currently playing Deepwoken, a Roblox fantasy game. Based on multiple games like Dark Souls or Skyrim, Deepwoken was a perma-death style game that included quests, magic, and guilds. It incentivized exploring and learning the many secrets the game developers put in an open-world setting. From the many islands of the overworld to the sprawling ocean underworld, many NPC's existed that allowed players' progression in developing a character based on their play style. As a casual player and newbie, he had just died from another guild's ganking.

As he was pondering his next action, he heard the door behind him swim open.

"'Sup dude just came back from class." greeted another man, dropping his backpack against the wall as he made his wall to the other bed in the room.

"Hi, Mark," replied the man at the computer screen curtly, "was the Physic exam hard?"

Mark groaned, laying back on his bed. "Of course it was, Myschelksy always makes the exam hard. I felt like I was performing on two brain cells through the whole test."

Tilting his head to glance at Mark, the young man gave the other some encouragement. "Maybe the curve will boost your grade up?"

Mark scoffed. "I highly doubt that, Troy. Knowing those Chinese and Korean exchange students, they'll somehow mess up the curve again. Dang, I wish I was Asian so that I could be that smart."

Troy, finally dying to a Deep Owl, swiveled his chair to face Mark who was now on his phone. "Did you really just say that? You know, people get canceled for lesser things these days. So you should be careful where you say that. Besides, nothing is free in this world. They probably studied more than you to get where there are."

"You don't understand, Troy, 'cause you spend like an hour studying and get an A. And you have zero social life outside me. Every time I get back from class I always see you playing your Roblox game religiously."

He felt offended by that. "It's called Deepwoken, for your information."

Mark waved his hand to dismiss the topic. "Whatever. But tonight, our dormitory building is hosting a movie night to watch that new Korean zombie movie. Apparently, it might be as good as Squid Game."

Troy rolled his eyes. "Squid Game is overhyped anyway. I think I'll have to pass on that." He then turned back to his monitor to start another character slot.

His roommate let out a sigh of frustration. Holding both hands up in mock surrender, he began to leave the room. "Suit yourself, but there's free food if you happen to stop by."

"Alright, have fun," he said, without looking back, he gave Mark a wave.

"See you later," said Mark before leaving the dorm room.

Several hours passed by and before Troy knew it, the only light that passed through the room came from the computer screen.

Suddenly, the game shut down.

[image]

"Dang it, just as I was about to grip this dude too?" he complained. Switching tabs to discord, he saw the official Deepwoken discord server descend into chaos as the chatrooms were spammed by people asking why the game shut down so abruptly, with the occasion degradation of Felinor players mixed in.

The usual.

Looking at the bottom of his screen, he saw it was almost nine. He mused to himself that a shower was most likely needed after such a long session in front of his computer. Taking a whiff at his armpit, he almost gagged at his own body odor. Who would have thought playing games would get you so sweaty? The League community certainly did those sweaty try-hards. Troy was joking, of course, but he did know League players were a different breed of people. Just like he knew that he needed a shower as well.

He felt his stomach let out a low rumble. Maybe he should actually stop by the first floor to see if there was food left? Worst-case scenario, he would have to leave campus to go find something cheap to eat. He turned to look at the curtain. There was no point keeping it closed any longer. Wanting to have a fresh breeze of air, he pulled back the curtains and opened the windows. The outdoors was well-lit, having multiple lampposts shining on the multiple paths around campus.

He took in a deep breath of air. Ahh. Nothing like some fresh air after being coped in all day. Just as he was about to slide the window shut and head downstairs, he saw something fall down in front of him. Looking down he noticed it was a shoe. He stared at the shoe for a moment, processing the strange sight, before slowly turning his head to look up.

There was a man standing on the ledge.

Both their eyes met each other, and though it was just for an instance, Troy could see the lack of will to live in the other man's eyes.

"Wait there! Don't move!" he shouted upward. Without waiting for the other party's response, he quickly left the room in a boxer and t-shirt.

Running down the hallways without shoes, he made his way to the stairways. He pushed open the door with a slam, knocking the person on the other side on the floor. The man looked angrily up at him.

"What the hell du-"

"Call 911! Someone's about to jump!" he shouted, not wasting any more time as he ran up the stairs to the rooftop access. Being on the ninth form meant there was only one flight of stairs to climb up. Finally reaching the top of the stairs, he opened the rooftop door and saw the man from before standing on the edge.

"Wait! Hold on a minute," he cried out, "we can talk about this. There's no need for things to go this way. C'mon, come back over the ledge."

The man standing against the ledge turned back to face him. He looked familiar. Recollecting his thoughts, he vaguely remembered the fellow college student introducing himself as Larry the Engineering major.

"Larry, you don't have to do this, whatever you're facing, we can work it out together, you and me."

Larry was shaking as he held onto the railing higher. "We barely know each other. Why should you care? No gives a damn about me. Not you, not the professors, not the goddamn university. And not my parents after I failed my classes."

"You can always try again," he said in a loud but soft voice, creeping slowly and slowly closer to Larry, "and if you need tutoring, you can always ask or help at student services."

"You don't understand how it feels!" shouted Larry, rage in his voice. He then took a more sarcastic tone. "Of course, you don't understand, you're Troy Letterman: smart, rich, and popular. You don't understand what it is to be an outcast. To be bullied every single day!"

He wanted to ask when he got so popular but decided to remain quiet.

Larry then slammed his hand to his chest. "You don't know the stress of having to succeed. Every time I call my parents, I keep on being reminded of why they sold their farm, why they sold their livestock, why they now work at Walmart! How can I just tell my parents that all their hard work was spent on a failure, huh Troy?!"

Troy winced internally. This was not going well, maybe he should try another approach. Quickly combing through Larry's speech, noticed that he kept constantly bringing up the topic of his parents.

"How would your parents feel about this, Larry?" he asked.

Larry paused at that, the rage leaving his body instantly. That seemed to work.

"My parents-"

"Your parents would be devasted." he finished for the young man. "Devasted that their son who they love so much died. No parent wishes to bury their children, Larry."

Seeing the man quiet down, he pushed on. "You're right, Larry. I don't understand how you feel. Probably no one in the world can truly feel the things you're going through. But doesn't stop me, your parents, or anyone else from being to sympathize with someone in pain. Everyone has experienced pain, and I know it really hurts, but you know what, Larry?"

"What?"

"My mom used to say, 'after the pain comes the rainbow.' That pain means you're alive, Larry, that there's one big beating heart in your chest that's keeping you going."

Tears started to well up in Larry's eyes. "I can't do this anymore," Larry whispered, "the expectation is weighing down on my chest like a car. I don't want this anymore."

"Just think of your parents, Larry, think of them," Troy consoled, now less than a meter away from the young man. "They would prefer you live than die trying to go college. You could take some time off and when you're better, you can come back and try again."

Troy could see it in Larry's eyes. The lack of blank eyes he once saw from his dorm room was gradually pulling back to be replaced by fear, fear of the situation he now found himself in.

He saw Larry look over where he was standing before the man hugged the railing even tighter. Larry turned to face him, crying. "I don't want to die, *sniff*, I don't want to die."

"You won't die," promised Troy, now finally in reach of Larry. He noticed that railing was four feet tall. "Slowly climb over and I'll take you downstairs, alright?"

Seeing Larry nod, he beckoned the man to slowly climb back over the railing. Everything seemed fine like nothing could go wrong.

*Woosh*

A strong wind came in, ruffling his clothes as he used his arms to block the debris from getting in his face. He felt himself shiver from the cold in his t-shirt and boxers.

"Help!"

Through the gusts of wind, he saw Larry slip from over the top railing. Fuck! He forgot that it got dewy at night. His heart dropped as he thought the man was about to fall to his death. But lady luck had shined on Larry that night. By some measure of pure reflexes and a natural instinct to survive, Larry had managed to cling to the ledge, dangling ten stories above ground.

"Help me! I don't want to die, please help!" Larry screamed through the roar of the wind that picked up.

"Shit, what do I do?" he said out loud in a stupor. Did mother nature seriously want Larry to die?

"Help!" Larry screamed again.

"Fuck it," he said, slapping himself a couple of times to steel his nerves. He took off his shirt, wiping the moist railings dry. Wrapping one hand in his shirt, he carefully scaled the railings and made it to the ledge next to Larry. Grabbing onto the railing for support, Troy used his other hand to reach out to Larry. "Grab my hand!" he shouted over the wind.

"I can't!" cried Larry.

"You have to, I can't reach out any lower!" he shouted.

Troy saw Larry bite his lips before began trying to reach out to his hand. The strain of clinging on the ledge with one hand caused Larry to wheeze loudly. Suddenly, Larry let go of the ledge.

He let go of the railing, letting himself fall forward. Grabbing Larry's hand, he performed a one-in-a-million maneuver. With a mighty grunt, he used feet that had caught to the ledge to put his weight behind a swing that threw Larry into the open window of his dorm room. He could feel the grip his now bloody feet had on the ledge detach, leaving him to free fall headfirst.

Troy heard that people said that their lives flashed before their eyes moments before death. The only that flashed by him was the rushing proximity of the air and ground.

His head hit the ground below, cracking like an egg dropped onto the floor.

Troy Letterman had died.