The next morning, I spent almost an hour showering, blow-drying my hair and clothing myself. While I was only barely awake, a single question bugged me to no end: How should I name myself. Since I wouldn't need that long to head to Daystreak, I shouldn't ponder so much over a name, but I couldn't just imagine being in Falan without being Mystyval.
The name grew on me. It was to the extent where I preferred it over any other name I ever choose even in other games. But it felt wrong to choose this name again. Especially since my avatar was a huge dude which could be taken as the demon king's twin brother.
So, how should I name myself?
Demon King's lil' bro? Nope, definitely, no!
Lucyfer? Cringe.
Shadow Spawn? Well, a certain no.
Spirit of vengeance? Hell no!
I thought about finding a double name again from which the first name's short form could be used as well. Like a nickname. So, which nickname did I want?
I thought a few minutes about it, without any satisfying result. My final attempt was to return to the basics. Who I was before. Mystyval. Mysty. It was my pet name. Coven's "little Mysty" always struck something in me. I felt calm and at peace after he called me like this.
But little Mysty was gone.
There only remained...val. Val. I didn't hate the sound of it. Only its shortness bothered me a bit. I needed another addition to it.
While thinking about this, I made myself ready and headed to work. The trains were filled with people and I luckily got a place to sit at the beginning of my ride.
In the office, I opened a tab with naming ideas, scrolling listlessly around the pages, names which were boring or too linked with other people or books that I read as a child. I wanted a name that no one else held. Maybe a construct of different words or meanings mashed at random to produce a nice name.
While keeping Val at all times in the back of my head. At the end of the day, I still hadn't found anything pleasing me. I ended my workday and drove home. On my way I went to a store to buy a few necessities. With my phone and my opened shopping list in my one hand and a draggable small one-person-cart, I coursed through the grocery market.
On my way out, someone called me. As I saw "Don't pick up. Just a prick." I walked home to check the messages that they left me.
"Maureen! Why aren't you answering, when your mother calls you?" or "Do you even care about me? Why didn't you call me back? If you see this, call me immediately!"
I was used to being treated like an annoying addition in my parent's life or a cheap servant they could work to the bone.
The lesson I had to learn years ago was, that there could be parents in this world, who didn't love their children. Or at least one of their children. Was it my gender? My elder brother always received love, gifts and everything else he desired. But not me. They didn't buy me clothes, sweets or toys I wanted. If my brother wanted the snack I had, I would be a bad girl if I didn't share it or give it to him. And if I called out if he stole my toys, I was the narrow-minded child that should enjoy playing alongside my brother. He was talented and brighter than me. Maybe because he received tutoring and went to studying classes. I never found out. Only that I was close to breaking apart at some point. I was two years younger than him and didn't receive tuition fees to go to university. I had only my small room and had to pay rent to my parents to stay after turning 18. And as I asked if I would be supported like my brother, I was told off. His tuition fee was too high to shoulder another. They told me. While he could stay for free at home and would receive meals. I had to help with cooking or to cook my own meals. Naturally with ingredients I bought by myself. As I shouldered two part-time-jobs and my studies, I slowly felt like turning mad. My composure cracked more than once and I just wanted to run. Run and leave all of this shit behind.
After failing an important exam, I did so. Two nights, I didn't return home, wandering the streets aimlessly, maybe hoping to disappear. But it didn't make any difference. It only showed me how many drunk and creepy people wandered the streets at night. I was lucky to be nimble enough to run from them.
My body wasn't exactly up to shape or beautiful. I wasn't beautiful and I never felt validated by anyone. Never to be seen as a woman certainly hurts, but not as much as being told one's flaws by their own family. On every occasion the closer family gathered, my aunts and uncles, as well as other family members had something to comment about my appearance. Maybe it was the reason why I tried for some time. I poured all effort and resources I had left to mold myself to fit their expectations, maybe hoping to receive praise or even a hint of love from them. I was starved from love. But this knowledge only came after I was hurt, cheated and further maltreated.
And I returned home after leaving the house for three days straight. The most cruel thing was that no one had cared. My absence wasn't even noticed by my father and brother. Only my mother complained to me, why I didn't help her for so long and stayed holed up in my room.
You might think, this would have made me leave my family behind and leave those terrible people. But no. I knew no other reality and had neither the time nor the money to make friendships last. Those I had only showed me an unreachable ideal I could never achieve. And I was content with it at some point. I just worked, burned out. My days were just filled with studies, working, helping with the housework, a bit of sleeping and another repetition of this endless vortex.
The thing which awoke me from this living hell hole was something so small as a kind gesture of a stranger. A customer gave me something trivial as a book about two sisters' adventures through love and life. And the sister I found to be a much happier reflection of my own miserable life endured hardships ending up embracing monsters and turning misfortune into a paradise on earth.
While the lucky, more beautiful sister got all she might want at first, she was struck with a tragic fate, was deprived of her lover, of riches and power only to die cruelly at the end. It was so far from my own reality that I started thinking again. For the first time in years, I dreamed again. And after this dream, my free seconds were lit by daydreams and hope again, by a future I could paint myself.
Through the struggle, I began picking myself up again, crafting myself anew for the first time, shaping myself into something I never believed I could be. And I felt growing more and more confident. As I experienced so much rejection in life, I no longer feared or hated it. It grew to be my validation. The more they criticized me and tried to change me, the fiercer my resistance grew.
I was beginning to stand up for myself and rid myself slowly from those around me. With my earnings, I rented a one-room-flat and moved out as soon as university was over and acquired a third part-time-job while job hunting. And only half a year later, at 22, just a few days from my 23rd birthday, I got a job and left my part-time job. After the probation passed, I moved to a larger flat and bought me my first capsule.
Now, with 27, and already owning a new capsule brought just one and half a year ago, I was another woman than the insecure girl years ago. Maybe still not as strong as others and never as confident or scar-free as them, but it was enough. I survived and had built my own happiness. My breaks were spent with colleagues sometimes and I had people I talked with occasionally. But I was so socially stunted that I still didn't experience so much stuff which was normal for others. I never entered or even tried to form relationships in fear of disappointment. What if I wasn't the sister which was reflecting me years ago but turned into the other sister who lost it all?
I had a few savings and received a promotion half a year ago. I earned enough money to make my savings bountiful. At least bountiful enough to attract sharks.
My parents, especially my mother, pressured me to support them in paying my share to my brother's tuition money. But as I refused them firmly, they cursed at me and bothered me until I called the police on them. Still they tried to extort money from me after I distanced myself from them. Although my brother finished his studies already and was working at a hospital in the city center, they still were like leeches trying to suck any drop of blood they could get. Sometimes they came up with excuses, at other times, they just straight up threatened me.
Ever since he had a child with his long-time girlfriend three years ago, it was especially hard to refuse since I couldn't hate the bundle of joy. He was innocent through and through and I would always buy toys and sweets for him. But lately, my sister-in-law and mother tried to get me to pay for trips or other things for him. I didn't refuse firmly enough from the beginning and their new strategy was a mixture of coaxing and bothering. Like playing good cop and bad cop. Without caring that I told them to stop as I knew what they schemed.
And this call was nothing else than another try to berate me to give them money. My mother had always worked part time as she was forced to cook and take care of the household as well. As I was still at home, I had taken a huge load of her work and she worked full time for a few years.
This wonderful daughter-in-law was also studying almost four years ago and had to stop studying because my idiot brother impregnated her.
Since then she returned to studying one year ago and my mother had to take care of the child, the household and her daughter-in-law as well as her dreamy son and husband.
For a few months she tried to force me to help her before she gave up.
And now, I saw the result of pent up anger and frustration on my phone. But I had found my ways to not be her emotional dumpster. In the first place by ignoring her calls and having a special ringtone for any family member who called me often.
And her calls were by far the most I received.
Ignoring her message, I started cooking. I had more important things to do. Something like finding a new name for a time-limited avatar in a fictional game I played for fun. Definitely more worth of my time.