Chapter 10 - Into Dust
I LEFT THEmeeting shortly after I completed my address, but not before it was decided as a group that we were from that point, with Jazz’s blessing, to be known as The Aurora Council. The amount of social influence each of us held was considerable and Jazz agreed that it was probably best for us to discuss the use of that sway as a team when it came to instances like the hack. Because of my initiative and willingness to address the situation live before every player currently online, it was agreed by the other four that I would be appointed the Chairwoman. When put to a vote, the first we’d ever held as The Aurora Council, I was the lone dissenting voice.
I exited the meeting shortly after becoming the Chairwoman and walked down the hall, my hands shaking after speaking to everyone. My speech lasted a good 6 minutes. I looked down at my hands for a moment and stared at my palms, a light coating of sweat having formed inside them. I spoke from the heart and tried my best to reassure everyone that the data itself had not yet been exposed so we were all fine for the moment. Still, I advised them to take all precautions they felt were necessary to protect themselves and ensure their safety. With every step I took, more and more messages marked as urgent showed up in my inbox and before I knew it, the count had reached well over 4 thousand and was continuing to climb.
“Ana,” Jazz said to me through my HUD, his voice startling me. “Thank you for doing that. You didn’t have to.” I responded to him by thinking, refusing to move my mouth anymore than I already had.
“Someone had to do something,” I said, my steps carrying me back toward the waiting area where Reyna was waiting. “I can’t just stand by and watch people have a melt down.”
“An admirable quality,” he said to me, perhaps attempting to calm me down. Although I couldn’t see it, I knew he was reading my vitals and could tell my heart was pounding. “You did what none of the others could.”
“That doesn’t make me special if that’s what you’re getting at.” I was direct with him and wanted him to know I didn’t think of myself as better than any of the other council members. “I’m just doing what needed to be done.”
“I wish there was more I could do for you all,” Jazz said, a sense of failure in his voice.
“There is,” I said as I stopped walking for a moment.
“Tell me,” he said. “How can I make things easier for you?” I knew exactly what I wanted to say to him.
“Never hide stuff like this from me again,” I said, keeping my thoughts calm and direct. “I get you all were trying to protect me, but things like this…you have to let me know. Don’t let me be the odd one out.”
“Your new position demands I be as forthcoming with you as possible,” he replied. “I’ve conferred with members of the development team and they all agree the formation of a council in game was the right move. It will give players a sense of order. Sometimes having a leader or group of leaders to look to can help maintain order.”
“This still feels wrong,” I said as I started walking again. “I feel like I’ve taken on a new job, only I’m not getting paid.”
“I can ask about possible a gold transfer for you,” Jazz offered.
“Come on,” I said. “You can see my gold balance. Do you really think I need more? I have a hard time spending it as it is. I’m at the point where I am basically giving it away. Besides, a job like this…I’d want real world money.”
“Point taken,” Jazz said. “Still, I will make sure the developers know all that you are trying to do for everyone here in Aurora and see if there’s something more they can do for you.” With that, Jazz left my HUD and I finished making my way back over to Reyna who was standing in the same area I left her, rubbing her hands together nervously.
“What the hell is happening?” she said to me as I walked back into the room where she was waiting. She was hoping for answers as was everyone else there. All of them were looking at me, having just watched my message to the entire populace of the game. Within minutes, the video was already being uploaded to real world sites such as Youtube, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok. The forums were ablaze with talks of class action lawsuits and additional data leaks.
Masses of players who were off line decided to log on, hoping to get more information on what was happening inside the game world that they may have been missing from the outside. The servers could handle the mass logins, but the amount of chatter in the online text chat rooms and even in various hot spot locations was increasing at a rate even the developers may not have seen coming. Their inability to assuage the concerns of the players was becoming more and more apparent with each new conversation.
I stopped in front of Reyna and looked her over, he face filled with fear over the possibility of her real life identity being exposed. I could tell this was weighing on her heavily. She was scared. The others in the room with us were scared as well. I could sense they all wanted to approach me to ask questions but didn’t, instead choosing to leave me be for the moment. They knew I knew as little as they did and my message was more about trying to maintain calm than anything else.
“Who of your friends are on?” I asked Reyna. “Is Shazzy still around?”
“He should be,” she said to me.
“OK,” I said as I looked back to her. “Listen to me. I need you to go to Shazzy and just hangout with him and his friends. Where ever they are, go to them and stay there for the time being.”
“Why?” she asked. “What about you? Where are you going?”
“ I have something I need to look into,” I said back to her.
“Ana,” she said, her eyes getting glassy. Reyna was definitely worried about everything that was happening. “Let me come with you. Maybe I can help.”
“No,” I said, putting my hands on her shoulders. “I have to handle this on my own and I don’t want to draw you into something that you have nothing to do with. When you get to Shazzy, do what you can to distract yourself. Don’t just sit there and let the anxiety build up.”
“What’s going to happen?” Reyna said. “Ana, I’m scared. What if they find out about you. About me!” Reyna was holding back tears. I was beginning to wonder if sending her away was the right call, but I knew I had to. “This is all so screwed up!”
“You’re going to be fine,” I said, pulling Reyna to me and hugging her. It was the first time in 18 months that I’d had Reyna in my arms and I was so distracted that I was unable to enjoy it as much as I felt I should. “Reyna, go. Find Shazz and go to him. Now.” Reyna paused for a moment and looked me over, unsure of what it was I was planning. “When I can, I’ll come find you.”
“Let me add you back!” she said, going into her HUD and sending me a friend request which I quickly accepted. “Please don’t do anything insane.”
“I won’t,” I said. “I promise as soon as I get some things done, I’ll come find you.” I looked away from Reyna and back into the room to see that more people had made their way into the small waiting area of the top floor of Cris’s brothel. A lot of the girls had come up, wanting to see if they could talk to her to find out if she knew anything else that wasn’t in the statement or that I hadn’t covered. Given their in game positions as escorts, I imagined a lot of them had something to lose should their in game avatars be tied to their real life identities. Reyna was afraid because of the types of things she had done in her in game life, including her affinity for race play and other wild role play sessions. Cris and Caster were in the same boat as I was, although Jazz had made it very clear that I was the primary target for any troll or obsessed fan or player looking to find out our real life identities. It had finally started sinking in that I could potentially be in serious danger.
I kept my cool as I scanned the room and the more people came into it, the more it felt as if chaos could erupt at any moment. Cris and the others had finally made their way out and she immediately approached the girls so she could speak with them. Giff walked by me and only offered a nod, seeing that I was with Reyna and probably thinking I was speaking with her and didn’t want to be interrupted. Caster walked out and headed straight to the bar. He took a bottle of whiskey right off the shelf, opened it, and took a swig straight away. Mustafa, who didn’t come across to me as being scared for himself, walked over to Cris to see if he could offer them any sort of solace. I could feel the pressure in the room building slowly, but I did my best to keep my wits about me.
After sending Reyna away to stay with Shazzy, I looked around one more time, my heart starting to beat faster and faster as it had when I was addressing everyone. I knew what was happening and I was afraid if I didn’t teleport away soon enough, I might have a panic attack right there in front of everyone. I’d managed to keep myself together through the meeting and through the game-wide live stream, but I couldn’t keep it up much longer. With only a moment of thought in front of me, I closed my eyes and thought of the most peaceful place in the game that I could and instantly teleported there.
I was never much of a room builder. Most of my time in Aurora was spent socializing or meeting with individuals that were in need of my help in some way. I’d gotten so used to either being out in the world or spending time with someone that I’d almost forgotten the inner peace I could find from simply being alone. After Reyna left and after a few very public meltdowns, I felt it best to stick to myself during at least a few hours of my nightly gaming sessions while I wasn’t out being promiscuous to deal with the pain. To do this, I started fiddling around with the in game building system.
Included with the game was a way to create your very own rooms using a vast number of items that were provided by the developers. Not only did I have those items at my disposal, there were also pre-built rooms, furniture, and other items that were created by players themselves that were purchaseable through a cash shop for either gold or real world currency.
I had no idea what I was doing when I first got started so I just created a very basic space and used all of the included items that were available to me as part of the game. In a way, it was therapeutic because while I was building and figuring out better ways to build, I often found myself in a trance-like state. While in building mode, I was able to manipulate items in any way I wanted. I could change their shapes, colors, hardness, and move them at will. At one point, I remember simply having fun by taking things like couches and refrigerators and just tossing them around in the air and stopping them mid-fight with a flick of my wrist. Over time, I disciplined myself to the point where I was able to manipulate and move them around simply by thinking about it. Before I knew it, I’d managed to create a fairly nice looking room where the weather was always chilly and the skies always clear so I could look up to the stars.
Sometimes I would log in and go directly to the room I’d made. There wasn’t much to it, but I’d created it as an outside space similar to a park. Within my park, I placed a pond complete with ducks and geese similar to ones I’d seen out in the world before. By the pond I’d placed several benches as well as trees, shrubbery, and other natural adornments. I made sure to minimize any artificial light, having just a few places where I could turn on lights in case I ever decided to have someone over so they could enjoy the space with me. In one spot in particular, I placed what was basically an over-sized bed, complete with pillows and blankets where I could lie down and get the best look at the night sky which was real world accurate and moved with the rotation of the Earth based on a preset location.
I was happy with my little space and when friends started asking me where I was spending all my time, I told them that I had taken to building to try and keep myself busy and not think too much about the real world or my most recent in game problems. Because of this, word spread and I started to receive vouchers from various other builders that allowed me to obtain some of their own materials and custom objects. Each day I would log in, a few more items were there available for me to use so for a time, I built in that space every day and made the area a sort of cubby hole for my mental health. Every time I was out in Aurora and I began to feel overwhelmed or simply needed a break, I would quietly make myself unsearchable and sneak off to my haven.
One day a particular supporter of mine gifted me something I’d never thought of placing in my world until I saw it - a lotus flower, complete with lily pads. I ended up placing several of them in the pond I’d set out and made them various colors. I made some purple of course as well as blue, red, and even set out a golden lotus. I enjoyed the flower so much I made sure to thank the creator personally.
Due to the problems I was facing on this day, the day the hack was announced, I felt the need to visit my creation. I teleported in and went straight to a wooden bench by the pond where several NPC ducks had gathered and were nesting under a nearby bush. I sat down and almost immediately felt tears in my eyes. I was losing control. I took several deep breaths and tried my best to calm myself, but it was no use. I covered my face with my hands and cried, tears streaming through my fingers and soaking my palms within seconds. The light sounds of the crickets chirping and the chilly, nighttime breeze did nothing to settle me. It was all just too much and I was coming apart.
I slid down off the bench and onto the moist grass below. I ended up on my back, pulled my hands from my face and cried out to no one in particular. All of the things that had been weighing on my heart for the last three years were apparently coming back to get me all in one night. Reyna’s untimely return as well as the hack which could expose me and everyone else in Aurora were just too much. I’d had horrible problems with people looking for me in the real world in the past when I used to stream games online, before Aurora was around. One day a regular viewer had gifted me a small amount of money through my donations page and I thanked him accordingly by mentioning his name and gift while I was streaming. This wasn’t good enough for him though.
He started to become much more aggressive, asking me for personal information not only during my streams, but also on my various social media platforms. It had gotten so bad that I had to publicly ask him to stop during one of my live streams, but he was unrelenting. Before I knew it, he’d managed to get my personal cell phone number as well as my home address. Driving several hundred miles from another state, this man ended up at my door, banging on it while I panicked and called the police. I had no idea what he was planning to do to me had he managed to either get into my place or if he had happened to catch me out in public. The scare was enough to get me to not only move, but to completely leave the state and relocate to another part of the country. Since then, I’d been living in a large Brownstone which had a security door. The neighborhood, while not overly expensive, was gated and there was even a security guard on duty 24 hours a day.
While it was definitely safer than where I had been, I knew a single security guy and a locked door could only do so much. Any lunatic who’d set his mind on finding me may not care too much about a guard and a simple wooden barrier. My fear this time was the sheer amount of people I had unwillingly and unwittingly attracted to me. I knew I was popular, but not to the extent that Jazz had told me. I knew there were those that talked about me negatively, but I didn’t know to what degree it all went. I often ignored it and whenever I was in a room and trolls started giving me problems, the room owner would usually warn or remove them before it became a much more serious issue.
Given my popularity in the game and outside of it, the chances of someone taking my personal information and coming to find me in the real world were far greater than before. While I’d taken proper precautions with the information I would give out to those in Aurora, I never thought that I would get as popular as I did nor did I figure in a potential leaking of my personal information that included my name, home address, and phone number.
I cried from worry and uncertainty as I stared up into the night sky, several thousand twinkling stars raining their faint light down upon me. What would often comfort me and relax me didn’t seem to be helping much. I was far too stressed out and all I could do was just cry it out and hope that I could settle myself down afterward. I’d managed to start doing what I would normally do and started looking for all of the various constellations. I went through the most popular. As I located Orion’s Belt and the Big Dipper, I traced their outlines with my fingers.
Through the cloud of uncertainty, I found my mind exploring several old memories that have haunted me, some for only a few days or weeks, others for years, and still more from the time I was a child. I remembered the pain of my father leaving me when I was little, claiming that there was no way I was his. He’d left after I was only a few days old, but would sometimes come by to visit my much older brothers whom he’d raised for the most part. I was the “Second Life,” unexpected daughter he’d never planned for nor wanted. When she revealed that she was pregnant with me, my father, according to my mother, asked her to have an abortion as he had no interest in bringing another child into the world. At one point both during her pregnancy and even years after I was born, my father accused my mother of having an affair which led to her pregnancy with me.
After he left, my mother sued for child support because my dad had refused to pay, still hanging onto the belief that I wasn’t his. This battle between the two of them ultimately forced the judge overseeing the child support case to formally request a DNA test. After initially refusing to take it, the judge ordered him to and it was done. It came as no surprise that I was in fact his biological daughter, the test coming back with a 100% match. There was no scientific doubt that I was his, but no test would convince him otherwise.
Still, through the years when he would come by the apartment me, my brothers, and my mom had to move into after he left, he often refused to interact with me. He would spend time with my older brothers or as he would come to call them, his “real” kids. I would spy on him while he visited with them from the hallway, watching them joke and laugh about things they did with my father when they were younger. I remember wondering to myself if I would ever be able to create memories with my dad at some point in the future. Maybe when he’d realize he was wrong about me and finally see that I was his. Maybe he’d finally accept me as his own. That same day, being only 7 years old, I watched my father as he said goodbye to my brothers. Without thinking, I ran after him as he walked out the front door to his car. I grabbed onto his hand and felt the band of his wristwatch in my palm. He turned to me and once he realized who it was, pulled away and rebuffed my attempt at affection.
“Get away from me,” he said, a look of disgust coming over his face. I remember looking him in the eyes, the disdain and unease readily apparent. He looked at me as if I were some small animal that were looking to him for a bit of food. The whole time after he pulled away from me, I could see my arm stretched out to him and felt the burning need for him to reach back. Time stopped for me, but I could still feel the warm breeze of a South Texas autumn against my face. The sun was already setting and the neighborhood dogs who often barked and yelped as people came and went through the parking lot of our apartment seemed to go quiet and that’s when he said the words that have stuck with me for my entire life: “You should have died at birth.”
I watched him as he turned back around and walked toward his car, his steps angry and resentful. I watched his green dress shirt, unbuttoned, sway with the breeze, and his black dress slacks which were too tight for his legs hugged his waist a little too tightly. He opened the door to his black sedan which looked as if it has been in a minor fender bender from the damage to the front bumper. He stepped in and fell into the driver’s seat, not caring to fasten his seat belt. The engine roared to life as he turned the key and angrily put the car into reverse. After almost hitting the car next to him from reversing out, he put the car in drive and with a light screeching of the front tires, tore out of the parking lot, turned into the street, and was gone.
I stood there a moment trying to figure out what had just happened. I wasn’t sure at first what it all meant. I just remember feeling a dark and remorseful sadness take over my heart. I felt as if maybe I wasn’t supposed to be there at that moment and that maybe I should, if possible, simply disappear - turn into dust. I’d never heard him speak that way to my brothers ever in my short life. What had I done to him to make him so angry? Why would he never come to me and spend time? Why was I always ignored? Why did he feel such hatred toward me? What did I ever do to him to make him say such things to me? Why? Why? Why!
I shook my head and tried my best to push that pain back down inside me as I continued to lie there in the grass. I couldn’t let it cloud my head. I’d always had problems with invasive thoughts eating away at me, ever since I was struck by a car when I was 10. I was playing with some other children there in that same apartment complex that seriously needed to repair and repave the parking lot. During a game of tag, one of my friends ran out into the parking lot and behind a car. I never saw them turn to hide behind the rear of that vehicle. Instead, I ran straight out into the lot and the driver who hit me didn’t even realize what had happened until he heard a loud thud.
I felt pain unlike anything I’d ever felt up to that point in my life. I remember being face down on the pavement and loose gravel sticking to my hands and face. The first time I tried to turn over I found that my arm wasn’t working as it normally should. It felt wobbly and disjointed as if something had broken inside of it. The second time I tried I succeeded, using my other arm to force myself to turn over. I remember looking up and seeing the clouds in the sky and the sun far too my left, it’s light painting the clouds various sheds of purple, red, and gold. I could feel something wet coming from my forehead and dripping down to the pavement. I could hear yelling and screaming and the warmth from the still hot parking lot began to burn the backs of my arms and legs.
I felt the blood from another wound slowly drip down into my eye, causing me to feel as if I were going blind or crazy. I could hear my friends calling out my brother’s name and him racing to me. I could hear him screaming, but could not tell what he was saying. I remember looking at him and him looking back at me with tears in his eyes, it being the first time in my life I’d seem him cry. I remember the siren of the ambulance and the screeching brakes from the police cars as they each arrived, the entire time concentrating so much on my breathing that I couldn’t say a word to anyone. I remember the gurney and the smell of the ambulance and the murmur of the nurses and doctors talking to my mother as I was wheeled into the emergency room. I remember the needle stick from the IV and the tightness of the neck brace that had been placed on me. I remember the pain from having my arm reset and the coldness of the bars around my hospital bed I was in for a week. I could not remember the car or the color or the driver or the way in which I had ended up in this position. Only later after I had started to recover did my friends tell me all about it and what had occurred that day.
A broken arm, a major concussion, 2 broken ribs, massive bruising, burns and cuts and bleeding from all over my body were what one could see from the outside. Since then I have had problems controlling my emotions at times. There are days when I cannot concentrate and even simple things like cooking breakfast or taking out the trash can cause my mind to go to dark places for no apparent reason. I have also had trouble with missing time and mood swings, both of which still effect my day to day life.
The only way I know how to manage it all is through keeping myself busy, giving myself something to do, to focus on. I often work myself ragged to the point of pure exhaustion so my mind doesn’t wander too far. As long as I have something to keep my attention, I am able to function without much issue. If I am left alone and able to work on something, I can often fall into a state of hyper-fixation where my only goal will soon become completing that task. If I am forcefully pulled away from it, I almost immediately switch into another mood or physically force people away from me. When I am like this, I do not like to be bothered and I will not give people any sort of sway over my actions. In other words, no one will be able to stop me once I start something. I cannot make myself stop and I will not stop even if I am actively harming myself.
I sat up from the wet grass and refused to let myself think about ex husband Will, his actions, while forgiven, still having an effect on how I interact with the world. Since I left him, I had actively kept myself from letting anyone get too close to me. When we first got together, I trusted him fully and with all my being, but he ultimately turned out to be a monster covered up with a handsome face and sexy arms. I’d made up my mind that I could never let anyone get that close to me again. I’d made the mistake of going back to Will only for me to regret it years later. I’d wasted time with him, time I wished I could get back. I’d promised myself to never fall for such tricks again. I wanted that life lesson to stay with me, regardless of the pain behind it. No one had been able to get close…until Reyna came along.
After each trauma, I found myself becoming more and more uneasy with how the world worked and by the people in it. Having spoken with thousands of players in the game, I’d come to find that almost all of us tend to start out life as I imagined we all did. I started out fairly happy and content with my life or at least the life that my mother showed me. She often worked and was away from home during the day so it was up to my brothers to help raise me. Far too many days were simply me with my brothers and often times their friends, listening to music, playing video games, and being taught how to make fart noises with my armpit. I enjoyed those days and each one made me feel closer to my much older brothers.
My oldest was 12 years my senior and the other was 10 years older than I was. I was very much the baby, but ever since I could remember my brothers just treated me as their equal. They never really babied me, but they also never harmed me in any way other than occasionally body slamming me onto my bed when I was little which I absolutely loved. With no father to really speak of and my mother all too often working her fingers to the bone to keep us afloat, my home life was me and at least one of my two brothers at almost all times. There were times, especially after I turned ten, where it was just me at home alone. By the time I was 12, my brothers had moved out to start their own lives so I would often come home to an empty apartment where most of my time was spent watching movies on cable television and becoming more familiar with Yahoo.com and the various games and chat rooms they had available where grown men often asked me for my personal information.
Even on the weekends my mother would go to her boyfriend’s house and stay with him until Sunday afternoon when she’d finally come home and cook us both dinner. It was really the only quality time I spent with her. Even during the week, by the time she got home she was often too tired from her work to really spend much time with me other than making sure I was fed and to check if I needed anything like new clothes, shoes, or if something was going on at school. We did spend some evenings watching the occasional television show together so we did bond some. My brothers would still come by from time to time to check up on me and see if I was doing alright and if I needed anything. I was given chances to go spend weekends with them at their places, but I always refused, instead opting to either hangout with my friends in the neighborhood on my own or mess around on the internet in more chat rooms.
My mother did eventually marry her boyfriend when I was 17. I was quite happy for her as I knew he had a very good job as an engineer and worked for a local firm making excellent money. He wasn’t rich by the strictest of definitions, but he easily made more than 4 times what my mother had made in her retail job. I believe most people would say he was “well off.” He was very good with money, carrying almost no debt and often paid for large purchases, even his new cars, with cash. He hated paying interest on something when he didn’t have to, the lone exception being the house he bought just before he and my mother were married.
Just before the wedding, my mother and I moved in to that house with him and one of his daughters, a girl named Sabrina. I was glad that I was able to have my own room where I could have my own space to relax, study, and play my computer games. Although I had a Sony Playstation 2, I didn’t play it all that often and it was really only used when my brothers would visit so they could play the few games I had on it like Grand Theft Auto III and Bulletstorm. Most of my gaming was done on my PC which I’d come to love since I was first given one when I was 12.
Sabrina, my new step sister, was alright. She was polite and courteous to me and we kept things quite civil between us. We didn’t have all that much in common as she was very much a bookworm and I was more social, both in school and after. While I have never thought of myself as an extrovert, I did enjoy having the company of others around as long as the groups weren’t all that big. Even then, I usually stayed quiet while the others talked and I listened, only chiming in when I felt I was needed. Unfortunately, my fairly decent time living with my mom, step dad, and step sister would com to a tumultuous end.
After graduating high school, I stayed in their home for a short time while I figured out my next move. I had strongly thought of going to college, but also wanted to either work or just take some time off to travel some with my friends. The longer I stayed though the more my stepfather seemed to turn on me. We had never been close up to that point, but he was at least decent with me. Not overly nice, but also not an ass. As each day came and went though, I could tell he didn’t want me around. My mother was always kind and welcoming of me, but my stepfather could become domineering when he wanted to and eventually, that was how he was to me.
One day while I was in my room on the computer, my mother came to me and asked about some sort of drafting tool that had gone missing from my stepfather’s drafting table. The table was in a den area where I almost never went because it was a lot of his belonging and also doubled as a workspace for him and my mom. My mother probed me for a couple of minutes, asking me over and over about this tool. With each question, I assured her I never went into their den, choosing to stick mostly to my bedroom and the kitchen when I was feeling hungry. I never even stayed in the living room for any period of time longer than about 15 minutes.
From my bedroom, I could hear my stepfather getting angry about the missing item, saying over and over that he knew it had to be me that took it, claiming that maybe I’d sold it to get a little money since I wasn’t working at the time. With every line that came from his mouth, I could hear my mother talking to him, trying to calm him and reassuring him that there was no way I would have taken it. I was never a thief and had never had a reason to steal from anyone. My mother and I were never rich when it was just me and her living in that old apartment, but we had enough and I was rarely left wanting for something that I needed.
The next day after I’d grown tired of my stepfather’s ranting about his missing item, I was about to leave for my friend’s house to visit her when my mother once again came to my door. There she stood in front of me, holding the missing tool. As I had figured, I had never seen such a thing before. It looked to be some sort of measuring and drawing tool an engineer might use while drawing up plans. Holding it in front of me, my mother apologized to me for my stepfather, saying he wanted me to know he was sorry for accusing me of the alleged theft. I closed the door after she walked away, sat down on my bed, and cried.
This man who I felt I barely knew had it in his head that I had moved into this house with him and my mom and that I could even contemplate stealing from them. It hurt me in a way I’d not felt in some time. Not since my father had made it clear that he never wanted me had I felt such hurt and rejection. What made it even worse is that he didn’t even have the guts to come to me himself and apologize. He made my mother do it for him. It was that day that I knew I wasn’t going to be there much longer.
I lost almost all respect I had for my stepfather that day and even after the “theft” had been cleared up and I was found innocent, he still looked at me with a suspicious eye. Not once had I shown any sort of ill intent in his house, but I could tell I was not wanted there. Through his cold reactions to my words and presence, I knew he wanted me gone. Seeing him react with his daughter Sabrina showed me that he could be a kind and loving man, a real dad, but as with my blood father, he never wanted me.
I was a few months into being 19 when I had made the decision to leave. I told my mother and she understood why I wanted to. I knew I had no real place to go but I couldn’t stay there any longer. My mother came into my room the night I was to leave. She told me she loved me, handed me ten dollars, and left me there. She wasn’t cold or unloving in any way. In fact, she got more emotional than I did, shedding a few tears for me. I knew she didn’t want me to leave, but I knew I couldn’t stay. I didn’t want to risk causing any strain on a marriage I know she deserved. My mother had worked so hard to keep me fed and clothed, virtually raising me on her own so I wanted her marriage to work. I wanted her to be happy. I didn’t want her to have to worry about getting all the bills paid and having to work overtime just to make end’s meet.
I called my friend who came to pick me up and ended up at their place with their folks for the next few nights. Knowing I couldn’t stay, I went to another friend’s place and from there yet another. After 10 days of this and not wanting to put anyone else in an awkward position, I made the decision to not call on one of my friends to provide me with a place to sleep. Unfamiliar with any of the homeless shelters in the city I was in, I ended up sleeping under a highway overpass for the next two nights before I had to visit a Starbucks to get my phone charged. As I was there, my friend called to check on me and I told them where I had been. Shocked, she told her mother what I had resorted to and her mom took the phone from her and spoke to me directly. She asked where I was which I told her and within 20 minutes, I was in the back of their SUV heading back to their place.
It was insisted that I stay with them and not just for a night or two, but to live. While not a proper tongue lashing, my friend’s mother whom I came to know simply as Shannon, got after me for not calling and telling them what I had to resort to. She knew how dangerous it could be in the city for homeless folks, and it was even worse for homeless women.
For the next two months, I stayed there with my friend, her mom slowly becoming a 2nd mother to be, going so far as to buy me necessities such as deodorant, tampons, toothpaste, and even the occasional piece of clothing. Shannon looked at me as she looked at my friend, her own daughter. She wanted me to feel loved and welcomed and I did. Because of this, I felt a strong urge stop my self-loathing and finally head out and find work.
The first few days at my fast food job were hectic and the training was terrible. Because I was “pretty” and “men liked looking” at me, I was made to work that counter taking orders where my trainer was about as helpful as a pocket full of unpaid bills. After fumbling my way through a few strange weeks in the job, I had finally managed to get used to just how busy it was all the time, my shift starting at 6am and lasting until about 2pm. I hated coming home smelling of French fries and hamburgers, but it was a job and it brought in some much needed money. I always made sure to give some to Shannon when I could and she was grateful for it.
Before long, I grew tired of the hectic schedule and wanted out of the fast food business completely. I was sick of the insanely busy hours I was asked to work and I was tired of the men staring at me while I was trying to take their order. One day after an exceptionally busy day at work, I sat down and began complaining to my friend about how much I hated my job. As luck would have it, she’d spoken to a girl that she and I went to high school with, but I was not personally friends with. She’d managed to find a solid job making really good money while only working 2 to 4 days a week. Piquing my interest, I asked more about the job and even called the girl to ask more about it. That job…was exotic dancing.
Within 2 days I had quit my “McJob” and started serving drinks as a waiter in a place called The Scarlett Rose, a local strip club. While I was not asked to dress as skimpy as some of the dancers, I was encouraged to play up my looks so I could earn tips from the patrons. While I’d asked about dancing, one of the club owners said it was best that I start as a simple server since I was so young and new to the business. He wanted to give me time to learn more about how everything worked and to feel comfortable with it. The money I made as a server was fine, about as much as I made taking orders and smelling like someone’s lunch, but I worked fewer hours which was a welcome change. I did still have men staring at me in this new line of work but, if I played my cards right, I could make some respectable money from it.
After 4 months of serving, I asked if I could start working the floor of the club, offering dances to the men there and since we’d recently lost a couple of girls. I was allowed to come in on Mondays so I could get more accustomed to my new role as a dancer. The first few dances were nerve wracking, but before I knew it I was comfortable with approaching men and talking to them as if they were the most important person in the world. With my first earnings from serving drinks, I’d invested in buying myself new clothes to accentuate my figure and give the patrons something more to look at, and it paid off. While I had been making more money than I did serving working only Monday through Wednesday, I then asked to be put own the schedule for Fridays and Saturdays - the money days.
Once I was allowed to work on the weekends and on paydays for a lot of the local roughneck oil workers, I was making more money than I knew what to do with. My confidence had grown to the point where I felt I could walk up to anyone in the club and get them to give me $20 for a quick private dance. I was never the star attraction, but I knew that I still had something to offer and offer it I did. Shannon had been aware of my new line of work and only asked that I be careful and make sure that I was never too far from one of the bouncers in the club or from other girls in case a patron got too aggressive with me. In my time there, only 2 men had ever gotten too handsy with me and the bouncers made sure to let them know to keep their hands off because if they didn’t they’d be shown the door.
Eventually I moved out on my own and moved into an apartment with a roommate that I knew from my time working my fast food job. Rent was always paid as were the rest of my bills and I still had plenty of money to spare. I’d finally bought a car and had more shoes and clothes than I knew what to do with which led to my roommate often asking me to lend some of them to her so they could go clubbing.
I was still dancing when I met Will, the man I would eventually marry. As a precaution, I didn’t tell him what I did for a living for the first 3 weeks that I knew him, knowing that while most guys say they can handle having someone who sits on other men’s laps for a living, the jealousy does eventually come out. Once I felt comfortable enough with him, I told him about my work and why I liked doing it. He seemed to take it all really well and was supportive of me doing it. Little did I know that support he showed did eventually give way to jealousy, almost to the point of murder.
I sat up and turned my body, leaning my back against the bench and thought more about what I could do. I wasn’t sure what if anything could be done to stop any of this, but I still felt that need to look further into it all. I’d heard murmurs of people talking about things like computer hacking in certain rooms, especially in the ones where all the trolls and real life “incels” would hang out. Unfortunately for them, a lot of those incel tendencies and behaviors would carry over into their in game personalities which caused them to have the same problems in Aurora that they had in the real world. People often rejected them because of how passive aggressive they could be and eventually they’d have nowhere else to go except to the only people that would have them - other incels.
Within these in game incel groups, people from various backgrounds would gather and talk about all the things they hated about others. From former military to unemployed losers, conspiracy theorists to some computer nerds with little to no social skills, they all liked to gather in certain rooms in the game and they’d discuss a lot of the other players, especially women up to and including myself and Cris. Some of their discussions would eventually reach me and I was often disgusted by the things they’d say about me or things they would want to do to me.
They knew all about who I was in Aurora and they’d gotten the idea in their head that I was hiding something, some deep dark secret and they had made it their goal to uncover it. I usually paid this kind of talk no mind. I had tried speaking to some of them before, extending an olive branch, but it was quickly swatted away. Instead of them sitting and talking with me, I was ridiculed, called a sellout and a fake, and often threatened with anything from physical violence to sexual assault. I knew in game they couldn’t really hurt me if they tried anything such as that, but the fact that they even considered it bothered me and made me wonder about their state of mind. Why did they feel the need to try and tear me down, even after I had gone out of my way to be kind to them? I’d always treated everyone with decency and respect, but they didn’t care about all that. I’d figured that they saw me as something or someone that never should have risen to the level I was at and all they wanted was to see me fall. It was this thought that stuck in my mind and it was then I realized that it was probably one of them that had crossed the line and possibly hacked into database and stolen everyone’s personal information.
I knew they had hackers in their midst as they would often gloat about how good they were and about some of the places they had hacked before. Some of this had even been previously confirmed to me by “White Hat” hackers, programmers that only did hacking, or as they prefer to sometimes call it, Cracking, for legitimate business purposes. The troll hackers, also know as “Black Hats” didn’t care about right or wrong and would often just hack or crack into a system or company intranet for fun. Sometimes they did do it with a particular goal in mind - stealing as much data as they could to try and secure some sort of payment for the promise of never releasing the data. The same thing had been offered too the Dev team, but they declined to pay it.
What if one of the players or maybe even a small group of players in the game had actually decided to try and hack the developer? What if they went in and grabbed all the information they could with the sole purpose of exposing all the players in the game and linking them to their avatars? What if the demand for money was just a smoke screen or a swing for the fences sort of deal? One might also think that if they released the data, surely they would be exposing all the trolls and hackers as well so why do it. Maybe the reason they weren’t worried about that was because they were the ones who controlled the data and could release only the portions they wanted others to see…such as my data and Cris’s data and a few other select players that they felt needed to be knocked down. It was with this realization that I knew what I had to do.