Nightmare

I don't understand but what's the point of understanding when you live a life of death and insanity?

I once thought that fiction was simply what it was but now I must question my sanity.

I was once a popular streamer who dedicated myself to doing challenges within video games as I found it quite fun.

I would speedrun the Souls-Borne franchise as well as doing soul level 1, blood level 4 on bloodborne, and the rest of the soul's games.

At first, I wasn't so popular and had a hard time getting a stable twenty viewers when I did my challenges but that changed once I started getting the world records posted online.

My twenty or so viewers began skyrocketing until I had thousands of fans watching my runs as I tried to beat my word records again and again.

I didn't do this for the donations as I've always been well off and I could safely say that after my parents died and left me with everything I could live the rest of my life worry-free.

So I naturally sent all the donations to charities as this was my way of saying thank you to my parents.

I'd like to tell myself that this action was another reason why I became so popular, I posted my confirmed donations on my social media and it helps spread my twitch channel.

I mean even other twitch influencers would talk about my actions which in turn spread my name more!

Sadly this day changed while I was streaming a world record attempt on bloodborne. I was fighting the Moon Presence when I suddenly had a thought in my mind back then.

I wondered what it would be like to become the Moon Presence and become practically a God of Madness.

That was the exact moment where I needed to begin questioning my sanity for YEARS!

In my perspective, I felt as everything slowed down which caused me to stare at my screen and at first didn't understand why it happened and continued to fight the boss.

Seconds later I felt my body freeze and I soon fell out of my chair as I quickly lost consciousness.

Strangely enough, I brought my webcam down with me as all my viewers watched my body spasming uncontrollably.

Naturally, my viewers thought I was playing another prank on them but I wish I could tell them I would never joke about someone or in this case me having a seizure.

Sadly I was alone at home so by the time my viewers realized that I wasn't joking and that this was happening for real it was already too late.

I believe I understand how I'm even able to remember this but now is not the time for it.

I woke up on a table in a dark room but the first this I noticed was the smell of blood... The next thing that I have noticed was the all too familiar design of the room after my eyes adjusted to the dark.

I wanted to deny the impossibility and insanity but I was in the same starting room of Bloodborne...

My mind at the time refused to accept the possibility so I naturally called out for someone but nobody answered.

With no other choice, I walked up to the door and opened it, and continued to call out for anyone.

I still look back when I was still normal as well as my foolishness.

Instead of someone answering my yelling with 'You have been pranked' or something similar, I was met with a large beast...

I still remember being ripped in half and watching the beast eat my lower body but that was the moment I thought I was dead only to find myself alive.

I wasn't in the room I woke up in but rather the front of a small house.

I finally knew I was somehow transported to bloodborne and that I was not apart of some sick prank someone wanted to put me through.

Even now I still don't understand why I am here.

Was this an act of a higher being? Then why me? I still remember being an honest and good guy...

All I knew at the time was that my only opportunity to return home was to complete the game. Maybe this was another reality? I still don't know even with what I am now...

So I grabbed my weapons provided by my small bony friends and then used my speedrun strategies.

Pure stupidity I might add, I was so stupid at that time.

I believe that with my 'gaming skills' with the added benefit of being immortal i could leave this nightmare rather quickly but I learned that I was pathetic back then.

I wasn't a hunter, I was a normal human who stayed at home and played video games for twelve hours a day as it was my career.

I died and then I died again and again and again to the point I don't even know how many times I've died in this nightmare of a place.

I think I still remember a quote from Albert Einstein, 'Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'

Did his quote mean that I already went insane during my first day? Well, it doesn't matter anymore anyway...

If if I did go insane that day I learned to adapt because if I didn't then I would die again.

Mother helped me quite a bit when I first met her when I was still pathetic. She helped by telling me what I should use my blood echoes on and for a time I focused on an Arcane Build.

It was fun to learn at that time but now it doesn't matter as I've transcended or so Mother calls it.

When I first met Mother she was just sitting outside the workshop and was truly a doll. I would poke her now and then but she just never responded but that changed once I've gained insight.

She was the same when I talked to her when I played Bloodborne but over time she became more... Alive? I don't know why but I started caller her Mother, was it the madness that was slowly consuming me?

Anyway, after I adapted to my environment and truly became a hunter, I had to become a psychopath and kill everything. I needed blood echoes to level up.

I know I keep saying 'I don't understand' but I just don't. I don't even remember how many things I've killed up until this point, from the mobs up till the Cleric Beast.

There I was truly terrified, at first, I could handle the monsters I came across but it is difficult to comprehend the madness when I first died to the beast.

Mother just cheered me up and it somehow worked at the time so I went back and died again and again and again.

My best ability at the time wasn't magic or being able to run. No, my best ability was to learn its patterns. Sure I knew it from my time when I only believe that this world was just a game but now it's different.

This is real and I had to learn its patterns by dying over and over until it became muscle memory.

I guess you could call it insanity when you have to kill yourself to learn and only to take a single step forwards.

I did manage to defeat the beast but it didn't end there, boss after boss I was ripped, stabbed, devoured, shot, Impaled, froze, electrocuted, beaten, and so on.

Eventually, I somehow made my way to the Moon Presence. Was it a God? A demon? I don't remember and I kept forgetting everything after each death at the time.

I do remember Mother telling me something during that time. She told me to stop resisting the hunger but I didn't understand at that time.

Once I battled the Moon Presence again I finally understood what Mother meant. I felt a hunger for the first time since I woke up here.

I don't remember what followed after the hunger as all I remember is blood and screaming while the rest was foggy.

What I do know is that Mother is next to me right now and asking me a question.

"You have transcended but what do you want now? Do you want to wake up from your nightmare or do you want to dream something anew? No matter what you choose you shall remain what you are..."

I suddenly remember my past life in clear detail. My loneliness along with my reason I truly started streaming. I wanted to escape reality, to a place where I don't need to remember my family and the pain that comes along with it.

I felt tired but I've already made my choice even before finding myself here.

"I... Want... To... Sleep..."