Worthless

A young plump man was sitting on his reclining, obviously expensive chair, in front of his much more expensive computer, inside his extravagant bedroom. It was evident that this plump man was rich as heck!

The plump man played around with this chair as if it was the best thing in the world. He twisted around and around and adjusted the chair up and down.

After playing with his chair, he put his right hand on the mouse, and his left hand on the WASD keys. Just as he launched his favorite game, the CPU exploded.

Ring, ring!

Then, the alarm on his phone rang. It was time for school for Zhou Lei. He opened his eyes abruptly, grabbed his phone, and turned off the alarm.

After doing that, he got up from his squeaky bed, and quickly looked at his computer, just for comparison to the one he saw in his dreams.

"Oh wait, I don't have one."

Zhou Lei's family was only a middle-class one, composed of four family members. As such, the whole family shared one computer, which was already old and outdated, still having Windows XP installed on it.

He looked around his room, subconsciously comparing it to the one he saw in his dreams. This one was only about 5 sq. m. whereas the room he saw in his dreams was as large as his entire house!

Even though an alarm rang, there was still half an hour before it was time to go to school at 8:00 am, thus Zhou Lei... went back to bed.

Ring, ring!

The alarm on his phone rang again. Zhou Lei knew what time the alarm would go off since he was the one who set it on his phone. Although only a middle-class family, they still managed to afford at least a touchscreen phone for everyone.

This Zhou Lei set five minutes of silence before an alarm would ring again so that he wouldn't oversleep. Unfortunately, that is what happened.

Even though there were numerous alarms that were set on Zhou Lei's phone, his sleepiness actually managed to overcome these alarms, only giving in after the last one rang!

This last alarm was set by Zhou Lei only as a reminder to hurry up while he was getting ready. Who knew that this alarm would be used to wake Zhou Lei up now?

Zhou Lei sat straight and looked at his phone with great worry. The time read 8:01 am.

"Eigh–8:01 am?! What the hell!"

Zhou Lei felt enraged as he saw the time on his phone, but he knew that he couldn't blame anyone but himself. And his phone, for not being loud enough. And his mom, for not waking him up, apparently. And his dad, and his sister... basically, he blamed everybody that lived inside this house.

"As for going to school? Forget it, I'm going to be late anyways. I don't want to be ridiculed by my classmates as I go in... I'm already ridiculed enough...

Tomorrow? No, they'll just ridicule me for not going to school today. There's also the matter of the homework today... I can't ask on social media, they'll... ridicule me..."

As a plump man, Zhou Lei was an easy target for bullies. Naturally, he developed anxiety and became distrustful of others. There was once a time when he was an unprecedented genius, but over time, he grew fatter and fatter.

This fat made him a primary target for bullies, and in the process he grew lazier and lazier, leading to him getting bullied more. Now, he was thinking of dropping out...

"No, I must not let down my parents... so I'll go to school!... tomorrow."

.....

Zhou Zhenya woke up from her slumber... if one could even call it that. This little girl was the busiest one in her house.

After waking up, her appearance was messy. Frizzy black hair surrounded her face, which bothered her. She brushed it aside, and inadvertently revealed her average looks, heavily weighed down by the massive dark circles on her eyes.

Groaning, her body wanted to go back to bed, but her mind did not allow her to sleep longer. Laying on her bed and closing her eyes made her think of the various implications and consequences that might happen if she were to stay there idly.

"The lunch won't get made... scolding from parents... late in school... scolding from the teacher... brother doesn't wake up on time... scolding from him..."

It seemed that this Zhou Zhenya was tired of her life with no time for herself. Every action that she slacked off from resulted in a scolding from someone.

Just that... she recalled the last one.

"Wait, what time is it?"

Her body usually automatically woke up at around 7:00 am in the morning, but this time, she could not hear the incessant noises of the roosters that usually lasted until 7:30 am.

She became suspicious. Are the roosters dead? Did they get cooked already? Her suspicions were easy to prove as the roosters lived just across the street.

She climbed up on her bed to get a boost and wiped the dust off of the usually unused windows. She then tried to open them, only to find out again the reason why she didn't use these windows.

The metal that was holding the windows were extremely rusty. One could hear a creaking sound coming from Zhou Zhenya opening this window with great force.

Finally opening the windows, Zhou Zhenya wiped the sweat off of her forehead in relief. She looked through the window.

Upon confirming that the roosters are, indeed, still alive, she realized just how much time she wasted by trying to open this old window.

"How stupid I am! I could have just checked my phone."

Zhou Zhenya sighed as she thought she wasn't getting enough credit for all the work she's done. As she opened her phone, the glaring brightness revealed the time, 9:47 am.

"Oh, I'm almost late for lunch!"

In her panic, she had completely forgotten about her fat brother.

.....

Zhou Lei continued to lay on his bed through the day, wondering what's in store for him tomorrow. As he imagined it, his face darkened.

He started muttering curses and swear words directed to everyone he knew, especially himself. He knew every single one of his problems ultimately rooted from him himself, and he couldn't blame others for that.

Instead of daydreaming, Zhou Lei listened carefully outside the door to his room, waiting for his family members to go away already.

Since no one came to check on him, he felt a little hurt, but it was to be expected. After all, they should think that he was at school already, it didn't make sense for them to go to his room just to check.

Wait, it made absolute sense! They were just either too lazy to do that or they have just forgotten about him as a whole. He doesn't really do anything important around the house.

After his parents leave, the last one was Zhou Zhenya, his sister. She was always so hardworking, preparing lunch for the three of them, her two parents and herself... Wait! There's something wrong here... It should be four, right? I'm dreaming, right?

Am I that worthless, for you to simply forget about me all of a sudden?

.....

Somewhere, in the far future...

A scientist was humming while tinkering... with a human brain. The owner of the brain was still alive, but he was unconscious. It seems like the brain was obtained by illegal means...

"Hmm~ there we go!"

After fiddling with the brain, the scientist got bored. Walking back to her black chair, she started to twist the chair while trying to think of an idea. Eventually, she got bored of that as well, mainly because she felt nauseous.

The scientist placed her hand on her forehead. Suddenly, she exclaimed, "I got it!"