To win.
To triumph.
To stand victorious.
It was such a simple concept to understand, a concept expressible in such few words, and yet, the realization of it turned out to be exceedingly difficult.
Just who could’ve known?
That the price for it would be so high?
That the price for it would be out of reach?
Perhaps, someone wiser than he, perhaps someone who struggled more, or perhaps someone who was not born in the fairy tale that he was.
But for him, to whom everything had come so easily, the concept of a ‘price’ itself was incomprehensible.
In his youth, in those blissful days of innocence, when he yet walked those alabaster halls among liveried students, everything came by so easily.
At the slightest lift of a finger, the slightest step taken, the slightest push forward, the walls would come tumbling down, and victory would come, then the people would gather, and with faces full of smiles, they would clap and extol him, saying, “remarkable” or “brilliant” or “genius.”
With hearts full of love and care, they would shower him with such well-intentioned words, not knowing the poison that laced them.
Every word was a small dose that ever so slightly tested his resistance, but even a mere drop when trickled over a lifetime would erode rocks and shape the earth, so what more a mere child?
That’s why he too began to hope.
That’s why he too started to believe.
That perhaps, he was indeed special.
And he found himself up in the vast, blue sky.
With arms spread, the wind lifted him high.
Clouds of white floated by his side, while the earth dangled far below, and up above continued the vast expanse.
The world was his oyster.
He could land or remain or soar even higher.
But to someone special like him.
There were no three choices.
Only one.
And with his arms spread, he soared up high, pushing aside the curtains of blue and white to reveal the sun.
It was yellow and bright, blindingly so that the glare forced him to close his eyes, but still, he plodded on.
This was his birthright.
So up into the heavens did he fly.
For that jewel that shone brightly up high.
Until the world of blue all around turned black, and the lights that ever twinkled in the distance grew brighter.
Then the momentum he’d built paused, and the air that supported him choked.
One hand reached for his throat, while the other reached for the sun.
One inch, even just one inch further, he reached out, but there was no returning the momentum lost.
And slowly, ever so slowly, that hand reaching out began to fall, as too did he.
His birthright.
That bright yellow jewel, that shone there so gloriously up high, that seemed so close by.
It was now only getting further away, as though it had never been within reach.
Soon, the world turned blue again, clouds of white shooting past him, then hues of greens, yellows, and grays.
Before long, he was on his back, only able to look up at that vast blue sky.
Limply, his outstretched hand returned, his birthright nowhere in sight.
Well, it was fine, he reasoned to himself.
It was just one setback.
–That leap that would transform the carp into a dragon.
–That leap that would realize his birthright and prove him true.
He could just try it again.
Not just once, not just twice, many times.
But each time, he would fail.
And each time, he would stop lower than the last, the doubts in his heart echoing louder.
Before he knew it, he was wandering aimlessly in a world of gray.
Just where had he gone wrong?
When did the world lose its light?
How did he turn out like this?
But there could be no answer.
Not within that drab and gray world.
But then something twinkled, and he reached out for it.
It was a multiplayer game, the full dive sort.
It had two components to it, one was an arena, and the other was a VMMORPG.
The VMMORPG was fun, but it was the arena that drew his attention.
The arena equalized everything.
It was a world where only skill mattered.
Skill.
The sound of that word lit a spark on the smoldering flames within.
Perhaps, he thought. He might be able to taste that which he couldn’t before.
He didn’t set a high goal.
He wasn’t going to become pro.
He wasn’t going to sign up for any tourneys.
He would just compete with other casuals.
Yes, if it were against some casuals, surely, he could win.
Among the many game modes of the arena was a 1000-player royal rumble death match.
Each player had only one life, and the weapons available were limited to the cold weapons of old.
Players were free to ally with each other if they wanted, even queue up together some; however, only the last person standing would win.
A normal victory couldn’t satisfy him, so he set two conditions for himself. One, he couldn’t ally with anyone; two, he had to slay the most.
It wasn’t anything complicated.
Just the age-old question of defeating a thousand ducks, albeit in this case, a thousand noobs.
As someone who had tried to reach for the top at a field, surely, he could accomplish that much.
That was how it was supposed to be.
That was how it should’ve been.
So why, why?
Why did he lose?
An axe came off with his head.
A dagger pierced through his heart.
An arrow nicked him dead.
They tore him apart.
A dozen times did he die; no, a hundred, a thousand, and each time, he would put together the broken pieces of himself.
It was just the start, he told himself. It was normal to trip at first.
Rapidly he improved, but just as rapidly, he understood, the unbridgeable distance to his goal.
It wasn’t his fault, a voice told him. He wasn’t a gamer. He didn’t know anything when he came up with those conditions.
No one would fault him for backing out.
No one would know anyway.
Yet as rational as that was, another voice echoed.
Are you going to run away again?
When he turned to it, a boy was there.
It was him when he was younger.
The boy sat on the sofa with a placid expression.
The news was on, and all the rivals he’d fought were there.
He remembered them all, but not one remembered him.
Was he going to run away again?
Hands balled into a fist, shaking, he sighed.
Nothing would change from this.
The past was done.
There was nothing to gain.
But he couldn’t run away.
He had to fight.
For his sake.
So, the flails whipped, and the maces bashed; arrows rained, and javelins hailed.
Holes covered him from head to toe, his limbs crushed and bent, if not outright lost.
A thousand times did he die; no ten thousand, a hundred thousand, yet still, the end was nowhere in sight.
Please, just let me win! He prayed. It didn’t matter if it was by luck, or if it was against some scrubs, just let him win!
But those prayers fell on deaf ears.
With every death, the world would turn black, and that word would surface to mock him.
He had seen that screen so many times that he could see it when he closed his eyes.
Was he really so worthless?
Was he really so inept that he couldn’t even win against some casuals?
No, no, no, surely, he just had to pay the price.
So, he abandoned his job and poured all of his time into the game.
But still it was to no avail, so he upped the stakes again and ghosted everyone knew.
Yet still, defeat haunted him like a vengeful ghost.
Why?
Why couldn’t he win?
Was this really all he amounted to?
No. He couldn’t accept it.
So, his hair grew out, as did the shadows around his eyes.
The care message in games that triggered every 4 hours became a common reminder, and even the forceful ejection when playing for 12 hours straight became an impediment.
He knew those measures were put in place for the player’s wellbeing, but he needed to win.
And to win, he needed to play.
So, he modified his capsule to remove those safeguards, in the course of which, he realized he could remove the sensory limits too, so off with those too he did.
His wails of defeat turned into wails of pain.
His anguish upon death ceased to be a mere expression of failure and became throes of death.
Every wound that lacerated him burned.
Every limb lost made him convulse.
His capsule was a mess from all the liquids that sputtered out.
He would log in and hordes of players would attack him at once.
Swords would slash, axes chop, arrows rain, and javelins hail, and he would dodge, block, or receive with the least fatal part of his body as he fought.
Hundreds of thousands of deaths turned into millions, and before he knew it, his capsule had become unrecognizable.
A network of tubes connected to his body through the capsule to sustain him.
Truly, it was no longer apt to call his body a body but a mere connector that connected him to the Arena.
No longer able to move in the real, he had become a true resident of the Arena, and he stopped logging out altogether.
Millions of deaths had turned into tens of millions if not hundreds of millions, and years spent turned into decades; how many exactly, he no longer remembered.
Black smoke billowed and rivers of blood coursed from behind as he walked onward in a daze with a corpse in tow.
He had not been poisoned, he had not been so much as wounded, but his vision was a hazy mess.
How old was he now? He did not remember.
Really, he could not remember even his own name.
But it didn’t matter. Not anymore.
With that corpse in tow, he climbed up a mountain of corpses.
Step by step, he made his way up that festering path until at last he reached the apex where the sky and the mountain met.
With a casual toss, he threw aside the corpse to finish the pile, then he sat himself at the crown and watched as the sun sank into the horizon.
It was done.
A sea of 1000 players, but he alone stood victorious.
He slayed them all.
See? He wasn’t trash, after all.
He laughed as he fell onto his back.
Over a billion deaths, maybe even more; pain like no other, all of his wealth, his friends, his body, his parents, and even his name, but finally, it was over.
Limply, he reached for that sky dyed in hues of purple and orange.
From it dangled the sun.
It was as beautiful as ever.
Then just as limply, his hand fell back, and when his eyes closed at last, the curtains drew.
No names would be uttered.
No encore would be given.
Not an applause or a cheer.
There was no audience.
But, he did it.
He won.
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