1 Eric.

*TAP TAP TAP TAP*

*CLICK CLICK* *CLICK CLICK CLICK*

The sounds of a person mashing their keyboard and mouse echoed through the dirty and messy little apartment room.

In the corner, where the sound originated from, were a table, a gaming chair and a monstrous gaming rig, RGB and all.

On the gaming chair, was one man - Eric.

"Haha! Trash! Get fucked assholes!", Eric laughed hysterically after defeating his opponents in the game.

"Trash noobs... die!", His toxicity was very high. Although, he did have his limits - such as - he never once in his life said the n-word or any other racial slurs. He did make a few nazi jokes though, but it was all in the name of fun.

Eric was one of the greatest players in the hit game 'ORION', winning many competitions and even having a pretty substantial streaming career.

Although, none of this really bothered Eric too much. He was a loser. Didn't even have any ambitions.

With the money he earned, he bought the apartment and the gaming setup, and now he just lazes around all day, no-lifing ORION.

How did Eric get to such a low state of being?

The answer is simple - He was a victim of a disturbing and cruel act of bullying.

He had been beaten to near-death several times before. His dignity had been tarnished permanently with embarrassing pictures leaked to the internet.

On top of this, his parents had also started to avoid and discriminate against him. His elder brother and younger sister were much better looking as well as way more capable than him. His parents did not see any value in keeping him with them anymore. After all, he was the middle child as well as a nuisance to the family's name.

Eric had long-cut ties with everyone he knew of. He now had no friends, certainly no girlfriend and lived alone in seclusion.

---

After another 9 hours of continuous playing, Eric got hungry.

*YAAAWWWWNNNN*

Eric yawned and wondered what time it might have been.

'I wonder what time it is... I don't really have a sleep schedule, so I just go to sleep whenever I feel like it...', Eric thought before exiting the window of the game and looking at the time on his desktop.

'12:42 AM... It's midnight...', Eirc thought.

He stared at the screen and zoned out thinking.

'I'm kinda hungry... what should I eat? Should I order something?', he contemplated.

'I haven't gone outside in a while... should I try it out? It IS midnight, so no one I know should be outside...', he thought.

He never left his house in the morning. He was too scared to be spotted by someone who would recognise him.

This is probably a good time to describe Eric's figure - A 5'8, slim, almost malnourished-looking man with black hair and equally black eyes. His face didn't look too bad, but because he had basically no care for his face, it had become ugly to look at over time. A shame, but he could care less. In his mind, if he looked unrecognisable from his past self, it would be a great achievement, since nobody he knew could recognise him.

After careful thinking and strategising, he decided to go outside and take a walk to the convenience store nearby.

He put on his messy overcoat and trousers and left his room.

---

"Whhhoo... it's cold...", Eric shivered as the cold December breeze assaulted his face.

'Let's not stay out for too long... don't wanna catch a cold now...'

He climbed down the stairs and started walking down the road. His apartment was in a quiet place where not many people stayed in, because of the costly living.

Eric was by no means poor. In-fact, he was almost a millionaire. His streaming career and the strategy videos he had made a while ago had earned him quite a lot of revenue. And as he spends barely any of the money he earns, he ended up stockpiling more and more money, with which he eventually bought the apartment and can afford to live in that area.

"*Sigh... The real-life skybox is so boring... ORION has a much better one...", he muttered as he stared at the black sky with only a few stars visible.

The modern sky looked so lifeless to Eric. To him, it reflected his current lifestyle. Lifeless, repetitive and miserable. It once looked exciting and beautiful, but now... not even a hint of that remains...

'Let's stop with the depressing thoughts... I'm hungry, I must go to the store to eat...', Eric thought.

As he was walking with countless thoughts firing in his mind, he didn't even notice the speeding car that was heralding straight towards him.

A thousand kilos of steel, at approximately 60 km/hr, out of control and brakes failed.

*BEEEP BEEEEEP*

*CRASH! BOOM!*

The car crashed into Eric, instantly annihilating his lower body.

He didn't even know what just happened but could understand that time had run out for him. He was going to die any second now.

'Ah shit... a drunk driver...', Eric thought as his eyes slowly turned dim and life escaped his body.

'I wish... I could play some more ORION...', those were his last thoughts before dying.

--- an unknown amount of time later ---

*wooow* *woooow*

A small, luminous orb of blue light descended from the heavens. It fell slowly towards the ground and went through it like it was going through the air.

The orb made its way down a cave and entered a ruined dungeon.

The interior of the dungeon looked somewhat like a prison. There was also many torture equipment hanging from the ceiling, all of the rusted and broken beyond repair.

The place was covered in dust and filth. There were skeletons of what looked like humans, and even animals littered all across the floor with tattered clothes on the human skeletons.

Most of the skeletons had chains around their bony ankles and wrists, as well as collarbones.

The light seemed to look around this place for a bit before slowly floating towards one particular skeleton.

Its condition looked slightly better than the others, in the sense that most of its bones were intact and one could tell that whoever once owned this skeleton had quite the physique, at 6'2.

It was wearing what seemed to be robes of some kind, although they looked way beyond repair and their colour was completely gone.

The light made its way into the cerebrum of the skeleton and disappeared.

After a few minutes-

*shhh* *glint*

The skeleton's empty and hollow eye sockets suddenly got a small but bright-blue-coloured ethereal flame ignited inside it.

The skeleton's bony fingers and toes twitched and it turned its skull slightly.

'What happened?', thought Eric, who had now suddenly become a skeleton after dying.