"FUCK"

Bitter words were typed by themselves, shaking hands did not obey, while the tears of the person behind the screen dripped straight onto the keyboard keys. A lump in the throat blocked the air, and salty drops blurred the vision.

This can't be true! So I assured myself, looking at the NPC in the game that my best friend had left me as a parting gift. Brandon's last chat, proof that he wasn't just a long dream that I had woken up from.

The weight of this event rested on my shoulders, leaving me incapacitated. My thoughts were jumbled, and my actions seemed meaningless after the loss of my main goal. I didn't have enough time. I could have had enough time, but I didn't have enough... What? Time? Courage?

And now my friend is dead, forever. I would never see him again. But the nightmares would haunt me for the rest of my life. I wished it was just a nightmare, a bedtime story. But it was a bitter reality that I couldn't escape.

I didn't know how much time had passed, but I finally made the decision to do something that can't be fixed. But I didn't care anymore. A warm, encouraging breeze blew across my legs, pushing me forward. Not a moment had passed before my body was already falling from a height down. To the long-awaited peace.

Pain. Darkness. And then came peace, free from investigations, fear and grief. Is this the end?

But before peace could fill my body, I saw it. Brandon was standing nearby, towering over me, surrounded by endless expanses of... paradise? It was him, the one I thought I would never see again. The one I thought I had lost.

The words stuck like a fish bone in my throat.