Systematic Survival

1 - Beta Tester

In a dark room somewhere in the world, a young man yawned and rubbed his eyes. A bright blue glow from his PC screen illuminated his tired face and drooping eyes.

On the screen in front of him was a game called Hierarchy Online. He had stayed up the past 2 nights after its launch, playing nonstop.

The reason he was so relentless was because he wanted to reach the top 10 leaderboard. He had thought it would be easy since he waited for it to release and was one of the first players to get to the 3rd area, but there were too many skilled rankers.

His rank seemed to always hover between rank 50 and rank 20. He was incredibly frustrated by the fact that 20 other players had somehow figured out a better way to grind and stay ahead of him.

He just had no clue what they were doing differently, since he had been playing with no breaks, besides eating and using the restroom.

'Damn, no lifers!'

He muttered to himself, he had also been only playing this game for 2 days and doing nothing else. But the irony fell short on him as he was incredibly exhausted.

He stared at his character on the screen with a blank, hopeless expression. In the games he usually played, he always made his characters buff, attractive, and heroic in appearance. Very much unlike his actual appearance. But everyone did it, so he didn't feel bad.

As he looked at the character, he felt jealousy. In real life, he was just scrawny, pale, and looked like a shriveled grape. He had no social skills whatsoever and had never talked to a girl in his life, besides his mom and little sister. What made it even sadder is he was 18 now. He couldn't just wallow in self-pity, he needed to work, so he could eat, and not die.

He had always gotten B's in high school, so that was at least something he could be proud of. But he hated how, even in the one thing he excelled in, he still wasn't the best.

'Couldn't I have at least tried harder in school? Maybe I wouldn't be in this situation if I did.'

He tried to focus on the game, but it was just too much. It wasn't worth the effort trying to get into the top 10, since there were so many tryhards in this game. He hit Alt+F4 and shut down the game. It was much more satisfying to do it that way, instead of just pressing quit.

He sighed, trying to push any negative thoughts he had to the side. He had to get up early for work so he at least wanted to enjoy something before sleeping.

He glanced at a birthday card that was on his desk. It read:

"Happy Birthday Matt! We hope you are doing well, we miss you! We included $50 for you, in case you need it. Love you!"

As he stared at it, he just felt awful. He regretted the way he left home, but he had a long and complicated relationship with his family. Their acting so nice just made him feel like a shitty person.

He closed the card so that he couldn't see the message anymore. His eyes were drooping more and he felt like shit. He really wanted to sleep, but he was so unsatisfied by his last experience, he needed to at least have some fun first. Or else he'd have nightmares or fever dreams.

He wanted to find a game that could at least bring him a bit of joy, so he started searching online to see if he could find anything. Even a puzzle game, he didn't care. He just needed dopamine right now. He chugged some soda and started his quest for a new game.

As he scrolled through the search results, Matt couldn't find anything that looked fun and was free. He couldn't afford to burn more money on a game right now. And he especially didn't want to do that for a game that might be trash.