…

Ok. Finished. I uploaded it and people can get it for free or whatever they want to pay, but any money goes to Child’s Play. I said if the song gets enough money donated to the charity, I’ll make a full album. I doubt that’ll happen.

…

I can’t believe it! So many downloads already! I think it’s gone viral! Not everyone is paying for it, but enough people are that the donations are racking up. I can’t believe it… something I made is helping people. I’m not saving the world, but… it’s something. It’s good. It’s quite around here, too. Max isn’t saying much today.

…

It’s after midnight now and I’m still awake. Something has happened… people like my track. I got an email and checked the page again. It’s had a couple of hundred downloads already and there are a few comments asking who the artist was and if there were more by the same person.

…

Some comments were abusive, but I’m not going to let trolls get me down. People like my work! Some even say I should charge for it. I don’t know about that, but that gave me an idea. I saw a poster at the trade-in shop for, I don’t know, some gamer donation website. I’ll have to search for it online.

…

Ok, I found it. Child’s Play. Charity for giving games and stuff to sick kids. Maybe I could ask people to donate to that if they like my song. I’ll comment on the upload site and see what people think. It’s really scary, but exciting too.

NES was sparking and swearing at me. I told her to stop and when I went to pull her cord out of the wall she zapped me! I screamed and grabbed her, ripping her away from the wall. She screamed murder at me but the cord came flying out of the socket. The cord whipped at my legs and I fell over, dropping the machine. I got up and shoved NES into my backpack, threw the pack on and ran down the street.

It was dark by then but I made it to the trade-in shop just before it closed. I put NES down on the counter and told the guy I needed to trade her in. He looked at me strangely but he inspected the machine, plugged it in and tested it. I could hear her furious static in my ears, but he said it worked so he gave me some money. I didn’t count it. I just ran back home.

Back in my room I bared my teeth at Max and waved the handful of money at him, telling him NES was gone and not coming back. I listened to my track again and I don’t know why, but I uploaded it to the net. Nobody’s going to listen to it, but whatever. Now I can mark it as done, which is good because on my way home from the shop I had an idea for another track. I didn’t think I would do anything with it, but it was still in my head hours later, so I started working on it and kept going late into the night, falling asleep at my desk.

Max told me I should just get it over with before someone interrupted me again, like yesterday. I was sick of him. I went to the drawer with the knife and locked it, then hurled the key under my bed. I told Max that I didn’t need him and that I would smash him to bits if he didn’t shut up. He buzzed and whirred at me angrily for a while. He didn’t try to convince me to kill myself again, but he kept making threats every so often and so did NES. I worked on my music for the rest of the day and went to bed with my latest track playing in my headphones.

Part of a series of posts of Actual Play of the Hikikomori RPG. Click here for more info and an index.

Part of a series of posts of Actual Play of the Hikikomori RPG. Click here for more info and an index.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I threw open my desk drawers and grabbed my box cutter. I pushed the blade out of the sheath and sat there at my desk trembling with the knife above my wrist. I don’t know how long I sat there. In the end, I couldn’t do it. I hurled the knife into the corner of my room as the machines laughed at me, saying again how useless I was, I couldn’t even kill myself.

I ran away and before I knew it I was outside on the street. I peered around in the light. It was so bright. I wandered down the street to the shops. It was after lunch but before school got out. There weren’t many people around, thankfully. I bought some snacks and I couldn’t believe it but I found a Blip Festival 2008 disc in a trade-in game shop. I bought it and asked them how much I could get for trading in my NES and Betamax. They didn’t want the Betamax, but they said they would take the NES. It was weird walking around the shops, but it felt good and when I got home I told NES what she was worth. She didn’t say much after that. I listened to my new disc a couple of times through and fell asleep with my headphones on.