**********
"Why am I still doing this?"
Alex Kane muttered to himself, leaning back in his creaky office chair, which squeaked louder than his declining career.
His eyes were bloodshot, his mind was numb, and the faint glow of his computer screen was the only thing illuminating his otherwise dark and cluttered room.
A few empty cans of soda lay scattered across his desk.
Half-eaten bags of chips were strewn around like confetti from a party that had ended long ago.
If someone could look at his setup, they'd think they were stepping into the lair of a failed tech entrepreneur—or, more fittingly, a washed-up gamer.
He scrolled through his social media feed, which now only filled him with a sense of nostalgia and dread.
His old handle,
"GlitchMasterX", was still recognized by a handful of loyal followers, but that was about it.
The comments under his old streams, once filled with praise, were now riddled with sarcasm.
"Hey, GlitchMaster, you still living in your mom's basement?"
"What happened to the legend? You were a god at this game once."
"Dude, I remember when you were the best. Now? LOL. Get a real job."
"Get a real job."
The words stung.
He had been a pro gamer once.
The pro gamer.
The guy who could clear the hardest levels, exploit the most insane glitches, and climb to the top of leaderboards in every game he touched.
There was a time when the GlitchMasterX name was synonymous with gaming excellence.
Tournaments, sponsorships, media appearances—hell, he even had a fanbase that would follow him wherever he went.
His reflexes were sharper than a blade, his skills almost unnatural.
His streams were the kind that people tuned into just to see the incredible things he could do in a game.
His fanbase grew, and so did his ego.
But in the gaming world, where the competition was fierce and fickle, that was always a dangerous combination.
But that was the past.
Now, he was just another has-been.
Alex's thoughts drifted back to when it all started—before the fame, before the glory, before the fall.
He was a young kid, no older than sixteen, spending more time in front of his computer than in real life.
His parents—well, they didn't really understand.
They were the type who thought every video game was a waste of time.
They wanted him to focus on "real" things. School.
A job.
A future.
But Alex knew he was destined for something bigger.
Gaming wasn't just a hobby; it was his escape, his world, his passion.
And when he stumbled into competitive gaming, he felt like he'd finally found his place.
"You can do this," he'd told himself. "You're good enough. You're better than anyone else at this."
And he was.
In the beginning, his parents were skeptical.
They didn't believe in the whole "pro gamer" thing.
They'd push him to focus on his studies.
But the more he won, the more sponsors called, the more recognition he got, the more his parents came to realize this wasn't just a phase.
He was good—no, great—at this.
They didn't have to understand it; they just had to support him.
And they did.
At least, they did for a while.
Then everything changed.
Alex's fingers paused over the keyboard, his mind wandering to the day that shattered everything.
It wasn't a big event.
It wasn't an epic loss in a tournament.
It was a glitch—a literal, technical bug—that cost him everything.
The final tournament.
It should've been his crowning achievement.
The one where he finally took the top spot in the biggest eSports competition of the year.
But the universe—or maybe the game developers—had other plans.
The final match had gone perfectly at first.
The enemy team was on their last legs, and Alex was about to land the final blow.
And then… the glitch happened.
A simple bug.
The game froze for just a moment.
It was a small thing at first, something he could've easily worked around.
But then it escalated.
His character, stuck in a corner, froze mid-move.
The timer continued ticking, and when the game unpaused, he was dead.
A glitch had caused him to lose.
It wasn't his fault. He knew that.
Everyone knew that.
But the accusations were relentless.
"Alex Kane cheated. He knew about the glitch and took advantage of it."
The accusations didn't stop.
The community turned on him.
His teammates turned on him.
His sponsors—the ones who had once showered him with money and free products—cut ties immediately.
His career?
Gone.
"It wasn't even my fault," Alex whispered aloud, as if he could somehow go back and undo it.
The guilt still lingered.
And it wasn't just about losing a tournament—it was about losing everything.
Alex had been a part of the online gaming world for so long that it had become his identity.
When that was ripped away from him, he didn't know who he was anymore.
The depression sank in.
He couldn't stream like before.
He couldn't face the camera.
Every time he sat down to play a game, it felt hollow.
Alex reached for his soda and took a sip, trying to avoid thinking about it for just a moment longer.
It wasn't just the fall of his career that haunted him.
It was the tragedy that followed.
After the scandal, his relationship with his parents began to deteriorate.
They had always been supportive, even if they didn't fully understand him.
But after the crash of his career, their disappointment was palpable.
"You should have been more careful," his father had said one night. "This isn't just a game, Alex. It's your future."
His mother, usually more understanding, had simply cried. "We did everything to help you, but you kept choosing this path..."
Alex could still hear their voices, those words—sharp, biting—echoing in his mind.
But it wasn't just their disappointment that hurt.
It was the distance.
The emotional distance that crept between them after everything went south.
And then, not long after the scandal, his parents were gone.
It wasn't a car crash or a sudden illness.
It was a house fire.
It happened in the middle of the night.
A faulty wire.
An accidental spark.
The whole house had gone up in flames before the fire department could even get there.
He never got to say goodbye.
He didn't even have a chance to apologize for the way things had been.
For the fights, for the resentment.
By the time Alex arrived at the hospital, it was too late.
His parents were gone, reduced to ashes.
All that was left was the haunting memory of the last time he had seen them, eyes full of disappointment and concern.
'I should've been there,' Alex thought bitterly, his heart heavy. 'I should've told them I loved them one more time. I should've made things right…'
The guilt was suffocating.
The silence that followed their death was deafening.
The house felt empty without them.
The house that once felt like home now felt like a tomb.
The fame? The games? The world of online eSports? It all felt like it had happened to someone else.
And now here he was.
Alone.
Stuck in his messy apartment, buried under layers of failed projects, forgotten dreams, and endless streams of mind-numbing content.
'I could have been something.
I could have been more.
But now?
Now, I'm just another guy who sits in his room, talking to himself and pretending to be a 'pro' gamer.'
He ran his hands through his messy hair, exhaling deeply.
He'd been to therapy after the incident.
He had tried to move on.
But every day was a reminder that life had a way of throwing you into a corner, forcing you to face things you couldn't change.
He clicked through the game loading screen one more time, mindlessly selecting random settings.
"So, what now?" Alex sighed, glancing around his cluttered room.
The once-thriving gamer, the former champion, was now a shell of himself. "This is my life now. A never-ending loop of bad decisions, bad games, and a whole lot of bad memes."
And that's when the screen flickered.
The walls around him blinked, like a poorly-rendered game world.
The lights above him flickered.
He squinted, thinking it was just a malfunction. But then—a low hum filled the air.
It was the start of something Alex couldn't have possibly predicted.
**********
Well, this is the first SCI-FI/Fantasy Novel I create. And also don't worry(To my old readers from my different books), i'll not dropped any of them. Basically I am a extra theme novel author. This is my first time writing this kind of theme