Have you ever felt like everything conspires against you? That no matter how hard you try, it's never enough, as if you're running on a treadmill that speeds up with every step? That there's a persistent shadow hovering over you, a dark cloud that seems to follow you even on the sunniest days? Well, I know that feeling in my own skin. Maybe better than anyone.
The tragedy I call "my life" began when I was eleven years old, when my parents died in a car accident. Some bastard truck driver fell asleep at the wheel and crossed into the opposite lane, crashing head-on into their car. They told me it was instant. I don't know how many days I cried after two police officers came to my door with the news. The memories from that time are scattered fragments, blurry smears. What remained etched, however, was the silence that came afterward — a dense, oppressive emptiness that spread through the house like invisible gas, taking everything for itself.
My parents had no siblings, and all of my grandparents, both maternal and paternal, had already left this world, making me an orphan, a loose piece with no net to catch me.
By an irony of fate, they had taken out a relatively generous life insurance policy. Enough money to ensure I wouldn't go hungry for several years and to ensure that I'd have some chance at a future. But to my misfortune, the money was deposited into a court-frozen account, inaccessible until the day I turned eighteen.
And that's when my bad luck decided to dig its claws in even deeper. The director of the care institution I was sent to was the brother of a powerful judge. The two of them engineered a scheme that, to this day, I don't know exactly how they pulled off.
I was led into a dark room, where I signed papers filled with technical terms that no eleven-year-old boy could possibly understand. A man in an expensive suit, with a rehearsed smile and empty eyes, told me it was all for my own good. That the money would be used to pay for my stay, my food, my clothes—everything I needed. I believed him.
In a short time, my entire inheritance was transferred to the institution's coffers. All of it. Every single cent. No exceptions.
For years, I lived under the illusion that it was fair. "It's for my upkeep," I kept telling myself, trying to find some logic in it. The realization only hit me when I turned fifteen and understood that it was a public institution… in other words, the place that housed me already received government money to cover exactly those expenses.
The discovery left me desperate and then furious. I considered confronting the director, but one glance at myself in the mirror was enough to abandon the idea. I mean, I was skinny as a broomstick — I'd obviously get my ass kicked if it came to a fight.
Go to the police? I actually laughed when that possibility crossed my mind. The police system in my country was just as rotten with corruption as everything else. And even if, by some miracle, it wasn't—what would happen? The man's brother was a judge. And judges never act alone. That definitely involved more people; it was something bigger — maybe an entire network siphoning funds from insurance policies.
Yeah, I think my situation was pretty fucking clear: if I opened my mouth, I was fucked. I'd most likely end up dead. And no one would miss me. They'd come up with a convenient story, like a troubled, rebellious orphan who decided to run away.
So I started doing the only thing that was still within my reach: studying. I studied as if my life depended on it — because it literally did. I devoted hour after hour without stopping, with the sole objective of getting into a prestigious university and then finding a decent job for myself.
I obviously couldn't afford it, so my focus was on getting a scholarship.
Luckily, there was a university in my city that offered a scholarship program perfect for me, even including housing. The problem was that there were only ten spots per year. Even so, that was enough for me. I just needed to study hard enough to get a high score.
And so I studied. I studied so much that every friend I'd made over the years eventually drifted away. But I was fine with that. As long as I got into the university, I could make all the friends I wanted, make up for all the fun I'd missed, and have plenty of casual hookups… looking back now, all I can do is laugh at how naïve I was.
You've probably heard that cliché saying, "Persistence is the path to success." Well, let me tell you: it's the biggest load of bullshit ever invented. Don't get me wrong — being persistent certainly puts you ahead of the common rabble out there. But no, that's not the key to success.
Definitely not.
Because there's a massive abyss between effort and innate genius, an insurmountable mountain, an invisible and absolute ceiling, reserved for those who are born special. That is the real passport to success. And I, my friends, am definitely not a genius, nor do I have talent or any special aptitude.
Even with all the effort I put in — the lonely days, the sleepless nights, my almost sick obsession with approval… I didn't make it. My ranking on the entrance exam was fiftieth. Fiftieth place. A miserable, pathetic, perfectly round number fifty. My competitors were absurdly more intelligent than me
I thought about applying for scholarships at other universities, but they were all far away, and I had no means of moving.
At that point, I was truly miserable. There were only six months left before I reached adulthood and got kicked out of the institution, effectively becoming homeless. With little choice and completely desperate, I dropped out of studying and started working part-time jobs in supermarkets, warehouses, and stores. The kind of manual labor that demanded more endurance than skill.
After that, I slowly sank into depression and found an escape route in food, anime, manga, and fanfics.
And that's when the addiction began. At first, it was just a way to kill time, to fill the empty hours after exhausting workdays. I read anything that showed up — poorly written stories, predictable clichés — but they pulled me out of the real world for a few minutes. It felt good not to be me, even if only for a second.
It turned into a habit — then a necessity. And I clung to it. I read more and more. I kept tabs open while I ate, while I worked, while I pretended to exist. I spent hours immersed in worlds where ordinary people woke up with secret talents, hidden inheritances, magical systems that made effort worthwhile. Worlds where someone looked at the protagonist and said, "You are special."
I gained a lot of weight over the years, which made it very hard to keep working, because I'd get out of breath quickly after any physical effort. Thankfully, I found a job that allowed me to work from home. From then on, I practically never left my chair, except to eat, sleep, and use the bathroom.
My life shrank into a loop: work, consume stories, eat frozen food, consume stories. The line between the worlds of anime, manga, fanfics, and my own reality began to blur. Sometimes I wished so badly that one of those transmigration or "isekai" stories was real — that a truck would run over me and I'd wake up in another world, with another life, with a system or abilities that made me special. Something. Anything.
Until one night, my eyes burning from reading so much, an idea appeared in my head: "What if I wrote my own story?" The question echoed in my mind like an invitation I liked very much. But I didn't have the confidence to write something entirely original, so I decided to start with a fanfiction — and I chose Harry Potter.
***
[HP: The Heir of the End of the Worlds]
Description: Arthur, a young French wizard, sees his world turned upside down when his parents are brutally murdered by Muggles. Blinded by rage and grief, he comes to believe that coexistence between wizards and non-magical people is an illusion doomed to fail. Convinced that a war between the two worlds is inevitable, Arthur swears to eradicate the Muggle race from the face of the Earth before it destroys his own.
Rating: 4.6 (625 ratings)
Views: 8.3M
Words: 500K
***
Incredibly enough, it was a success. Sure, it was a cliché story about an overpowered villain protagonist, but what could I do? As long as people were enjoying it, it was fine, right?
At first, I treated everything as a pastime. But later on, as more and more people started reading—and I timidly began earning a bit of money through Patreon—a fire that had long since been extinguished reignited inside me. It was strange to feel that again: a sense of purpose, a reason to wake up. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wasn't just surviving. I was creating something.
But over time, as my second and third fanfics were published, I realized that something inside me was beginning to wither. It wasn't the writing itself—the words still flowed, the plots still came together. It was the why. I had started writing for myself, to escape. Now I was writing for them, to feed a machine of expectations. And little by little, I drifted away from what had made me love it in the first place.
My readers, for example, loved fanservice and harems. To me, however, they were extremely uncomfortable concepts. The harem part was uncomfortable because I felt it reduced female characters to submissive caricatures, stripped of their own will. What kind of woman would willingly accept sharing her partner with others? It was a dynamic that didn't fit in my head, nor in my heart. As for fanservice… well, it was especially torturous for a virgin like me to write. I had to resort to the internet to try to write scenes of sexual tension, but they always came out mechanical.
These were concessions that chipped away at my authenticity—and with it, my passion.
The worst part? Even doing exactly what they asked for, the criticisms kept increasing more and more…
And here I was today, staring at my laptop.
Click! Click! Click! Click! Click!
The monotonous sound of the keyboard was the only noise in the room, punctuating the emptiness. The same boring pattern repeated like any other day. I wrote the last sentence of the chapter, pressed "save," and after a brief hesitation, clicked "publish."
"Haaa..." I let out a long, tired sigh, raising my eyes to the stained ceiling. How long could I keep this up? The pressure for new chapters, the invisible weight of millions of eyes—it was eating me alive.
Shaking my head bitterly, I opened the comment section of my Harry Potter fanfic. I had released a new chapter after two weeks without updates, so I was pretty curious to see what the audience thought.
***
Noobmaster69: AI-written fanfic detected.
Quagmire34: Where's the loli witch? This story needs one.
PigSlayerShaolin: Too much dragging, not enough action. Author's stalling.
Subaru71077: I feel like the quality dropped a lot. And the updates are getting slower and slower. Disappointed.
TruckDriver: @Subaru71077 Agreed. It had potential, now it's this.
Ghost_5679: Thanks for the chapter!
MakimasPuppy: Dropped it.
RedDragon: Where are the hot scenes? You're leaving us dry.
GoddessOfAllExistence: You need to release more chapters. Now.
***
BAM!
Slamming my fist on the desk, I yelled at the computer, "What the fuck is this! What do you mean my writing is getting worse and that it's AI?! Do you have any idea how much time I spend in front of this computer to write a decent chapter?! And what the fuck is a loli witch?!"
Shutting the laptop hard, I tried to force myself to calm down. "I… I'm tired of this!" Getting up at the speed of a hippopotamus, I walked to the kitchen, which was practically part of the living room. The apartment I lived in was tiny.
Once there, I went to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of water; the cold liquid would help calm me down. As I filled a glass, my eyes drifted toward the laptop. As much as I hated the idea, I really couldn't stand writing anymore.
With the glass full, I brought it to my mouth while making a decision: I would stop writing.
***
[2 days later]
GoddessOfAllExistence: Heeey. Where are you?! I want more chapters!
***
[One week later]
GoddessOfAllExistence: You are really pissing me off, human.
***
[Two weeks later]
GoddessOfAllExistence: MORECHAPTERSMORECHAPTERSMORECHAPTERSMORECHAPTERS.
***
[1 month later]
GoddessOfAllExistence: Alright... I'll give you one more chance.
***
Almost two months had passed since I stopped writing. My life, in some ways, had even improved — less pressure, less anxiety. But the message inbox on my author profile always had a red notification. Always from the same person.
I'd had obsessive readers before. People who asked for spoilers, threatened to drop the story if a couple didn't end up together, or sent insane theories. But nothing compared to the sinister persistence of "GoddessOfAllExistence." The messages never stopped. They were daily. Sometimes, several in the same day.
I ignored them at first. Then I blocked the user. The next day, a new account appeared: "GoddessOfAllExistence2." I blocked it again. Then came "CosmicAvenger." After that, "AllSeeingEye."
And the messages became progressively harsher, filled with insults and curses. The last message I received, however, was the one that froze my blood:
AllSeeingEye: You think you can just leave my story unfinished? Get ready. You're going to pay for this.
I stared at the laptop screen for several minutes, my heart pounding hard against my chest. Was that a threat? Of course it was a threat. I should go to the police as soon as possible. But would they take this seriously?
An anonymous message, from a fake account called "AllSeeingEye," sent to an amateur fanfic writer. It sounded almost comical. I imagined the bored look of a police officer listening to my story, then half-smiling. He would say it was just a troll, some unemployed person, and that I should just disconnect from the internet for a while.
"Actually... that's a good idea—guh… Aaah!"
Just as I was about to close the laptop and follow the advice I had given myself, a sudden pain struck my chest, right over my heart.
Clutching my chest, I dropped to my knees on the floor. Gasping, I tried to grab my phone from the table, but my body no longer obeyed me. A total weakness flooded every muscle and bone in my body, as if someone had pulled the plug on my life force.
I collapsed sideways onto the floor, my vision darkened at the edges, the world turning into a blurred tunnel. A metallic taste filled my mouth.
What the fuck was happening to me? A heart attack? Seriously? Was that the final irony? After everything, was this how my miserable story was going to end? Alone on the floor of a tiny apartment, a victim of my own body.
'Makes sense… it makes perfect sense,' I thought, with one last flicker of lucidity before the entire world went black.
***
Did you enjoy it? If so, give my other two fanfics a chance as well: "Stranger Things: The Number Seven" and "BNHA: God of Explosions"
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, images or songs featured in this fic. Additionally, I do not claim ownership of any products or properties mentioned in this novel. This work is entirely fanfic.