Mark White.

"Mis…..ite...er whi...MISTER WHITE!!!!

A loud shout shattered the comforting darkness, forcefully pulling Mark back to the real world. He jumped to his feet and tore his eyes open, the dark circles around them telling the story of quite a few sleepless nights.

Panic set in when he failed to recognize anything in the blurry scene. Thankfully his sight soon cleared, and when it did, the first thing he saw was a furious face glaring at him.

"Wai-... Wha-... Where am I!!?"

This wasn't his room. His apartment wasn't so spacious, nor did it host so many people before. He didn't remember having a whiteboard either, and he wouldn't forget buying so many tables.

His exhausted mind was struggling to make sense of the situation, and just when he began to understand the angry voice returned.

"Calculus, Mr. White." Said an old man, his bloodshot eyes staring down with contempt. "You are in Calculus. The first lecture of the day. The same one you slept through since the start of the semester!"

Things were already bad but the youth decided to spill fuel on the raging flames.

"Sorry, professor." He smiled wryly and took off his noise-canceling earbuds. "It seems I've dozed off."

[■■■■■■■■■■■■-]

The old man was fuming, his face tomato red as he struggled to control his anger. He did try to be understanding the first time, and the second, but the continuous disrespect was something no one could take for so long. He was done tolerating that kind of behavior.

"If you aren't going to listen then there is no need for you to be here!" He pointed toward the door and yelled. "Please leave at once!"

"But my credit-"

"Don't bother. You won't be getting any!"

Mark stared at the enraged professor. The other students waited for him to beg for forgiveness, but instead, the youth picked up his bag and headed straight to the exit.

"Bed Marks is at it again." One of the students said.

"What's wrong with him?" Someone said. 

"Never seen someone that tired before." Another added. 

"Damn." Another followed. "Guess he isn't waiting for graduation to pay back those loans."

"Bro is hustling." One of them was full of admiration.

"He should just sell crystal meth." The one beside him said jokingly.

"Who knows? Maybe he's up cooking all night."

The murmurs didn't even register in Mark's mind as he left the lecture hall. Once outside, he stretched his limbs and took a deep breath.

A gust of wind blew by sending chills all over his body. It was yet another reminder that the year was nearing its end.

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Ignoring the chilly wind, Mark put his earbuds back on and took out his phone, chose a playlist, then hit the play button. The music started a second later and his mind became clear.

"They're getting louder…"

Looking at his relaxed and blissful expression, one might think he's listening to some calm classical piece. But that couldn't be farther from the truth. His main playlist consisted of the most chaotic heavy metal ever produced.

After a moment of deliberation, Mark decided to end the day there, agreeing with the calculus professor that there was no point in him attending when he wasn't going to pay attention either way.

'Damn it… I haven't slept like that in ages…'

[■■■■■■■■■■■■-]

For Mark, staying up was a struggle, but getting some sleep was on a whole other level. The short nap just now was the best he had in a long while and that teacher had to go and ruin it. Now he felt worse than before; too tired to do anything while unable to sleep as well.

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A short train ride and he was already back at his single-bedroom apartment. He made sure to stop by the nearby convenience store first to pick up some energy drinks and something to eat.

He didn't have much of an appetite, but experience taught him that adding a bad diet to his lack of sleep would accelerate the deterioration of his body.

There was also the fact that he might forget to eat anything for the rest of the day so it was better to swallow something even if he had to force himself.

Despite his messy appearance, Mark was a pretty good cook. Knowing how to prepare healthy meals was one of the conditions his mother had for allowing him to live on his own and he cleared that challenge with a perfect score.

Today was chicken day so the dish he prepared was grilled chicken caprese. The aroma of the dish dispelled any notion that he might've botched it.

His meal wouldn't be ready without a video to go with. He placed his phone on the holder and quickly found one then grabbed his knife and fork.

"Hm?" He squinted at the screen while chewing some chicken. "A new bio-weapon?"

Many would've shied away from watching the gruesome news while eating but Mark didn't mind too much. Now that he was past the legal age, he had to keep an eye out for signs of the war resuming. His chronic insomnia might be enough to disqualify him from the draft, but he didn't know for sure.

[■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■—]

A sharp pain struck his head causing him to drop his fork. Instead of picking it up he quickly snatched his phone and put the music back on. Only when the electric guitar started and the screaming followed did he feel the pain fade away.

"Damn it…" he heaved a long sigh and relaxed in his seat. "Guess I don't have much time left…"

Tossing the fork he dropped into the sink, Mark got himself a new one and wolfed down the rest of his food. Doing the dishes was his least favorite task but he knew he couldn't risk his mother seeing them if she happened to drop by unannounced.

Once that was done, he went to his room right after and stared at the bed for a while. The temptation to lie down was very strong, but it all went away when he opened a can of Beast energy drink.

Ding!

The sound of a notification interrupted his music. Raising an eyebrow, Mark checked his phone and found a message from a familiar contact.

[Kobayashi: We got another review!]

The last word made Mark choke on his drink. He quickly rushed to his desk and started his computer. A few clicks later he was looking at his Dream page, excitement clear on his face. His smile soon faded.

"

Mixed

5.7 hrs on record

EROGE_ENJOYER123 | 233 products in account | 340 reviews

Posted on 10/06/2065

Direct from Dream.

Characters are well designed, gameplay is decent, and the quality is pretty good for something made by a one man team. I enjoyed most of my time playing it, but if I have a problem with this game then it would be the terrible and completely unnecessary dating sim part.

I saw the maid harem and thought "hell yeah!". Never expected it to be such a waste of time. The experience isn't rewarding at all!

I don't want to shit on someone doing all of this alone but… the dev should've hired someone who actually knows his stuff. That or he should just stick to the main plot.

I hear he's working on an update so I hope he fixes things.

I wouldn't recommend this to anyone who enjoys dating sims.

"

[■■■■■■■■■■■■-]

With each word he read, Mark felt blood rush to his head. He almost broke into a fit of rage but caught himself at the last moment, stepped away from the desk, and did some breathing exercises.

"Nope. I'm not gonna lose it over one review..."

He quickly closed the browser and moved on to something else.

Mark has a hobby. It started as a way to pass some time during his sleepless nights but after the first year, it became his go-to method to keep his sanity intact. Back when he was fifteen, he decided to give game development a try after happening on an indie devlog.

Speed forward a few years and it became something bordering on obsession, taking time from his other hobbies and influencing the way he operated his schedule.

About a year ago, Mark released his first complete game to the world. The title was Maids VS Apocalypse, an anime-style turn-based RPG with some base-building and dating sim elements.

Looking at the title alone was enough to tell what it was about. The player is trying to survive the apocalypse with the help of his maids. He goes around killing the monsters destroying the world, gathering resources and materials to expand the base, and by doing so he gains the ability to hire more maids to help him survive.

The concept was very simple and far from original. Mark simply took the usual survival games and added maids to them, which should've been quite the upgrade if that's all he did.

Being the weeb he was, Mark couldn't help adding the dating sim mechanic to the mix. After all, what is the point of making his own waifu game if he couldn't romance any of the heroines?

"If only it was that easy…"

[■■■■■■■■■■■■-]

The headache chased away any idle thoughts and Mark went back to focusing on his work. Today was going to be quite busy as he planned to put the final touches on the update he had been working on for the past few months; he would be adding a new maid to the game along with the continuation of the main story.

The items on his to-do list were checked one after the other. By the time he was done with the final checks it was already 18:56. He made sure to save everything and stood up to stretch his body.

To celebrate a job well done, he decided to take a short walk to the convenience store and get himself something other than energy drinks to drink.

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"Maybe I should get some cake too…"

The quick trip was rather peaceful, but as he made his way back to the apartment, Mark couldn't stop himself from thinking about the review he got earlier that day. The worst part about it was that he couldn't argue the points it stated. Even he thinks that the dating aspect of his game was far from the best.

'What the hell do they expect from me?'

Mark discovered very early on that his writing skills were lacking in the romance department. He was decent with everything else, but when it came to intimate relationships, the fact that he didn't know what he was doing became clear to anyone with two eyes.

[■■■■■■■■■■■■-]

"I mean, I know what it feels like to be in love, but…" he muttered to himself while closing the door. "Making someone fall in love with me? I have no idea how to do that."

He simply didn't understand the rules of real-life romance and that translated to his project. There are countless moves and patterns to choose from but most of them lead to a dead end. Not only were the conditions for success randomized, but meeting them didn't guarantee it.

"The hell do you mean it's not rewarding?" He spoke to no one in particular.

When he was back at his desk, the first thing to catch his attention was the picture displayed on one of the monitors. It was the character design for the new maid, a girl named Lara Becker. She had long silver hair tied into a pair of twintails. Her proportions were quite normal, with a slender body and a medium-sized chest. Her red eyes seemed unfriendly and sharp, fitting for a dhampir who went through a lot.

"Lara, huh…" he began going through the outline of her story in his mind, fueling the stress he felt about the update.

As expected, the pacing was all over the place, and the silver-haired maid was a bit difficult to conquer despite joining the game later on.

Mark was once again reminded of his inability to develop the relationship with the heroines in a good way and that caused his motivation to plummet in an instant.

"Haa… what should I do?" He folded his arms on the desk and rested his head on them.

The maids in the game were designed based on his preferences so obviously he felt a certain level of attraction to them. Imagining how they would act when in love was easy enough, but writing the parts that would lead to that always eluded him.

He contemplated delaying the update until he made some revisions to the story, and as he did, he once again went through the script in his head and tried to think of ways to improve it.

After a few minutes, a familiar question popped up in his mind. If Lara was real, how would he go about making her fall in love with him?

"... Hm?"

Just then, Mark noticed something strange. The room was quiet, eerily so. He didn't understand what was going on at first, but then he realized that the music had stopped at some point.

He once again forgot to put the playlist on shuffle and the last song finished while he was deep in thought.

Letting out a sigh, he reached for his phone and was about to press the play button.

However, at that exact moment, his vision suddenly turned blurry and he felt himself losing balance, falling off his chair and onto the floor.

At first, he thought the lack of sleep was finally catching up to him, but a moment later he was shown that things weren't so simple.

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The voices in his head turned from annoying whispers to unbearable screams, like the wails of thousands of demented demons being tortured in the fires of hell. Mark lost the ability to think.

He clutched his head and started clawing at it wanting to remove the countless needles stabbed directly into his brain.

He screamed and screamed, but no voice seemed to come out of his mouth. The pain was unbearable, and as if to protect himself from it, Mark's entire body shut down, his eyes going white as he finally passed out.