system
A chat on 4chan
human
To give some background, back when I was around 10 years old, in the midst of my parents getting a divorce, I basically lived my life playing Runescape and reading books. Things were bad, and we lived in the middle of nowhere in Missouri, so these were my only ways to escape my parents yelling and shouting at each other all the time.

One of the book series I was really into was Harry Potter. While playing Runescape one night, grinding my Mining level, I see someone with the name Fawkes29. Being a 10 year old, I was like “AW YEAH SOMEONE THAT LIKES WHAT I LIKE”, so I abandoned the mine and started following them, trying to make a new friend.

This person was named Danni. I’m not using fake names, because it’s virtually impossible to find these people now. Believe me, I’ve tried desperately hard to. Danni was around 13 years old at this time based on what she was telling me. After about a week of occasionally catching each other online, she introduced me to her boyfriend, a guy she called Gabriel (Who I would later learn was actually named Andy). These two were neighbors, and claimed they lived in Georgia (Something else I’m also not entirely sure is true).
gpt
From that point on, Andy and I almost instantly became best friends. He was 13 years old like Danni, but he and I basically kicked it off as bros almost immediately. It was like one of those situations where you meet somebody and your personalities just click, if that makes sense. So I spent the entire rest of that summer playing Runescape every day and talking to Danni and Andy. Looking back on it, with my parents still actively working on separating and still living in the same house, this was an amazing way for me to get away from all of that.

After that summer was over, school was about to start up again, and I didn’t have time to play Runescape much anymore. The night of open house, my dad pulls me into our bathroom when nobody is around. He forces me to take my pants off, and…I get molested. Immediately after this, I try to tell my mom, but she is too stressed and busy, and doesn’t listen to me. I give up, and try to deal with this on my own. 

Around December, my dad suddenly walked out of the house and never came back. My mom was heartbroken, and we ended up abruptly moving to my aunt’s in a different part of Missouri for a while. During this time, I had to change schools twice, got bullied a ton, and ended up becoming a fat emo loser who would eat to cope with his emotions.
human
After several months, we ended up moving to a small town in south-east Missouri, much closer to where my mom has family. Patterson, Missouri. We moved into a small house in the middle of nowhere once again, off of some gravel road. I think, based on Google Maps, it was route 332? Somewhere in that area, anyway. House was old, worn down, pretty sketchy. Had some neighbors probably a quarter mile down the road, but was overall pretty secluded. We were renting it because my family has always been dirt poor, and even with the help of my mom’s side, we were only barely making it.

So I spent the summer cooped up in my closet-sized bedroom, playing Fable 2 (still not sure how my mom managed to afford it for my birthday). Depression had hit me at this point because of my parents separating, and the constant bullying I was dealing with, but I hadn’t realized it yet. My mom and sisters were all dealing with their own shit, so nobody really noticed, either. Emo was kind of getting popular around this time, so my mom/older sister just assumed I really liked the style (which, to be fair, I did).
gpt
As Fall came closer, I managed to get a really old PC we had laying around functional again, and booted up Runescape. At this point, I think I was 12 years old? It feels like a year is missing here, but maybe the story actually started when I was 11? Anyway, I hop on Runescape for old time’s sake, and lo and behold-Fawkes29 is online. I immediately message them, excited that I’ve gotten a chance to reunite with my friends.

Andy responds, and we talk for a little while, catching up on what all has happened. Danni is currently on vacation somewhere, but my memory is failing me on where it was. Andy tells me that he spent the summer at his mother’s home in Russia, and that he’s emo now. He tells me that he’s been depressed lately, and after a lot of prying, tells me that his mother molested him, and that he lives with his dad exclusively now. I am shocked to hear about the strange similarities between our recent experiences, and tell him about my own struggles, and the way I’ve been feeling. 

I remember that during this time, it felt like I had a weight on my chest all the time. It would literally ache because I just felt so…sad? I’m not sure how else to describe it. Looking back on it, that was fucking brutal to deal with as a preteen who had a mom and sisters that depended on him to be strong.
human
It’s a Sunday night when this conversation occurs, and as goofy as it might sound, Andy and I feel like we’re somehow connected in a supernatural/paranormal kind of way. This is the first ray of hope I’ve had in months, and it makes me feel special and unique. The sun starts to set, and he says he has to go. My mom then asks me to tag along with her while she goes and feeds the cat of one of our cousins, as she’s away from home visiting family elsewhere.

While my mom is feeding the cat, I wander out onto the porch and look into the sky. I see that there’s just a single star in the sky, and for whatever reason, remember being told once that you’re supposed to make a wish on the first star in the sky. I wish that I would be different - that my life will become exciting and full of hardships and trials that I can overcome. I want to be like my favorite character, Ichigo, from Bleach, at the time. I just want to be cool and confident and have an interesting and crazy life. Now, I wonder if that wish was a mistake. My mind constantly goes back to it, and it feels like perhaps if I didn’t wish for that, some of this stuff never would have happened.


Life continues to move forward. I start attending yet another new, south-east Missouri school full of people who hate the shit out of emos and constantly bully me for it - and being fat, of course. I grit my teeth and deal with it. At this time, I’m very much against hurting other people, and don’t want to fight back. I was a stupid kid. Andy and I continue talking basically every night for a couple weeks, Danni comes back, and we start hanging out like we did the first time around. Danni thinks these weird coincidences we had are pretty weird, and gets kind of quiet about it when it’s brought up. Dunno what that was about.