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THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALEX

My name is James. I work as an online author for an internet book site they call "Kind Pink Novels." Currently living in the Philippines in an isolated province we call Pampanga. I was a young aspiring writer at 11 years old. I am now turning 23 years old by half of the year soon on July 29th, 2022, yet I still look as if I am 16. I have eleven years of experience writing fiction stories that get finished within a few days, non-fiction self-help and socio-critical stories, poems, and complicated sonnets that can be done within 1-3 minutes with their particular rhymes. And yes, I was this creative. But the problem is that I had a weakness for numbers. I am a right hand/brain person, and I have become the most intuitive and creative for writing English stories. But I can't even count up to 100. That is how I dropped out of school. But despite that fact, I was popular in high school. So, I switched my passionate hobby into a profession by starting as a self-published author on Amazon and Google Play. But it didn't work out much because self-publishing cannot guarantee you as much success as much as you'd expect; actually, it's the other way around. It doesn't matter how good you are. It definitely won't get recognition unless you have enough cash to promote it. And have to work hard on getting more than a hundred friends online as connections for them to support you and spread your presence.

But the thing is, I have no friends. I was relentless and kept writing more and publishing more on these websites, not giving up because my dedication is something I put my mind to succeed as a bestselling author.

Then, after a year of not getting recognition, no matter how much I beg on Discord on servers, self-advertising everywhere there gets me banned because self-promotion is prohibited in the rules.

I was about to give until my prayers had been answered. Someone bought it but sadly, since companies such as Amazon are trademark companies so popular. They take 70% of what you earn because they distribute your books. So, I only had $1.59 because of the planned royalty payment based on the terms and conditions of the website. The reason I self-publish is that my country only has two publishing companies. Anvil from National Bookstore takes me to Manila City and Pandayan Bookstore in Quezon City. I live in the furthest province. And I don't have the cash to move there just to traditionally publish. So I just self-publish now. Despite my self-published books, they have been alive for a year, and only one person bought them. I descendent down to a spiral of depression. I could not eat or drink for the entire day.

Until that one night later, someone emailed me. The same person who bought my book says they want to hire me as one of their writers on their website. They told me my book has so much potential, and they want me to apply for an exclusive contract, saying they will promote my book and give me up to 1000 dollars a day. I thought this was my chance. I signed up for their contract, and boy, I was wrong. I didn't know. I just made a deal with the devil.

I didn't even read the contract and just signed up instantly with no second thoughts because I was desperate for money and recognition. They paid me a hundred dollars to sign up for the exclusive contract. Which was good. Truth be told, 20 dollars is already more than enough for every Filipino because it's a thousand pesos. And there is so much you can buy with a thousand peso but a hundred dollars?! Sign me the freak up. And the best thing is that I have my editor that will help me with everything, especially my writer's block.

I thought to myself, this is my only chance. But it turns out I turned into one of their pawns, and I did not become a king. I've seen their websites, and they're full of C.E.O., Billionaire, Vampire, Psychopath kidnaps good girl, rape, beta alpha omegaverse, werewolf, erotic romance tropes. There's not a single book that's suitable for my taste. And they didn't even want me to write what I wished to or post the one I published on Amazon. They want me to write some 50 Shades of Gray novels for them. And it was pressuring. So, I thought to myself that this was a bad idea. I have to write 1500 words a day and finish the novel within the month. And I signed up for a 10-year exclusive contract, meaning I can't quit for 10 years, and I am forced to do and write what they tell me.

The first week was hell for me. The worst part is that they want to take the rights of my book. I can't post it anywhere else but there. I write for them, and the book is theirs despite my idea, and I'm the one who worked hard for it. But the only one who cared about me in this company was my editor. She was sweet and wanted me to encourage myself more to write instead of forcing me into doing it. She even gave me references gave me a free subscription to Netflix to watch the company's tastes for books because it's what teenagers love to read and watch nowadays, which are the same tropes mentioned before. She even mailed me lots of books to read in my house. Then, I finally finished my first book. Sadly, I wrote only 60,000 words because it was hard to go on. I could have finished 230,000 words within the first week if it was my taste. Like that one time, I wrote that edgy vampire novel.

I got paid 250 dollars for this month because I didn't do well. I had to quit my labor jobs just to focus on this, and the books I write are my only source of income.

Then once it was finished, I had a thousand views every day for the same book. I don't know whether I should be proud of myself. It's a grey area between fame and fortune and my passion. So I've gotten myself ungrounded from reality from all the stress I had for the first month of writing. But it's good that my editor cares for me, and she's compassionate about me. My editor's name was Alex. And she's always been there for me, not just for professional work but also for my well being from all this dumb crap I signed up for. The best way she ever encouraged me was to tell me that despite of my mental illness, I can use that as an advantage such as using my obsessions as topics for me to write about.

I got lots of people to message me from Discord because I put my Discord Tag on my book to message me just to tell me if they like the book. So I could say I'm pretty proud of my work despite it's not my taste and was forced into doing this. And the company owns it, and I don't. I got fame and fortune, and that's what matters. 250 dollars may not be much in America, but that's too much money compared to the Philippines.

Then, suddenly, someone on Discord messaged me at midnight, telling me she was watching me. And I asked her:

"Who is this?" I messaged.

"I love you, I know where you live." user ✙F0RG0TT3N-ANG3L✙ replied.

"Again, who is this?"

"You live in [REDACTED] San Juan Nepomuceno Guagua, right?"

"How did you know? Who are you?!"

"I'm your number one fan… I hope someday we'll meet and we'll marry… good night. I'll be watching you sleep."

I felt shivers in my spine. But I knew this was just a troll who knows how to hack. So I'm going to go to bed.

The next day, it was a bright sunny morning. The day was fresh; birds were chirping, and roosters were alarm clocks for everyone to wake up for their most dreadful yet most amazing first day after getting my paycheck. I got up excitedly and was given today as my day off. And I get to enjoy my money. I dressed up my gothic aesthetic dark clothing. My black denim ripped pants, black shirt, and black hoodie are all from Tribal, which is the Filipino version of a hot topic. Combed my slicked back undercut black hair. Wore my Puma black socks and black and white Converse shoes. And a neon red fedora that had no label was made in China. I headed out of my house, and behind me, I saw a red door, and I wanted to paint it black. But I thought to myself, I'll do it another day. I locked the crimson-coloured mahogany front door, headed outside the house gate, and closed it after patting my white Husky dog, Iris, and the other black Doberman one, Roxy. And then walked away, sending me to the main road from the village streets of San Juan Nepomuceno.

I was a happy-go-lucky guy until once I turned to the next street corner to the main highway road. I felt a sudden sense of dread that chilled down from my spine down to the core of my soul. I felt like being watched. And just ignored it, thinking to myself I was just going paranoid and needed an extra dose of my meds. I waited for a jeepney, the public transport bus in the Philippines compared to America.

As soon as the jeepney came, I headed inside and paid my fare. Then, I put on my Razer headphones to listen to Glitch core and, as soon as I finally made it to the principal town of Guagua in the plaza. I hopped off the jeepney and headed to Cafe Beanismo. A coffee shop where they have the most divine dark roasted arabica beans. I went inside ordered a triple shot venti iced espresso which was for taking out to smoke a cigarette outside of the shop. And once it came, I paid for it and headed outside to smoke one Marlboro Red cigarette stick. They even have my name on the cup too. I chugged the entire drink and threw it in the trash. Then, I heard quarrelling inside the shop. It was a couple who were shouting at each other, and it turns out that it was my favourite ex-girlfriend that I never moved on to, and her name was Angel. She was wearing these aesthetic clothes all in white as if she's a rich girl with her boyfriend wearing the same aesthetics. I guess they were matching. This is one tea that I have to see.

I wore my sunglasses, so they won't notice my eyes looking at them and heard the girl had enough of her boyfriend being overprotective, toxic, and manipulative. She slapped him and threw coffee at him. Then she shouted at him to break up. Then the guy left the store, and I tried not to seem to look at him by turning my head away, but my eyes hiding behind my shades still stared at him. He turns to me and says, "This is all your fault." with a menacing look on his face.

I went inside and sat with her, asking what had happened. It turns out that she told me about him once she saw me going inside. She explained everything about how her boyfriend was a complete sociopath who is selfish narcissistic and showed too many red flags that didn't care about her but the way he wanted her to give him so he would feel superior to her inflated his ego, and he never gives back.

"Wow…" I exclaimed, surprised but in a quiet tone of my voice, "What a dick."

"I can't believe I left you for him." Angel said, "I didn't know why I left you. You were the sweetest guy I know and were super nice to me… maybe after this, you could go hang out at my place?"

"Sure. I'll pay for your coffee to make up with the one you threw at him." I kindly said.

"Thank you." She smiled at me and continued with, "But no, really it's okay. So how've you been lately?"

"Well, I'm a bestselling author now. I just got my first paycheck from writing a book. I got 250 dollars yesterday from writing for a month for this one enormous company." I bragged proudly.

Instead of her feeling disgusted by my somewhat superior complex, she was happy for me and giggling, "Oh? What was the book?"

"Well, it's a book about a CEO billionaire vampire that is exactly what you might expect from 50 Shades of Gray."

"So, basically 50 shades of Gray, but the guy is a vampire."

"Not only a vampire, but he can also have the power to force people to do what he wants by the look of his eyes or by his voice alone. Because he's a dominant vampire. And the girl he likes is immune to him."

"Wow! I wouldn't have thought you could write something like this based on our childhood memories where you said these types of genres are your weakness to write and you wrote an entire book about it, huh?"

"Indeed so, indeed so."

She giggles and smiles, and I ask her, "What about you, Angel? What have you been up to lately? It's been a while. Since I dropped out, you left me for another guy. Ouch, double combo."

"Yeah… sorry about that. But I kind of want you back, though. Ever since I left you for that guy, the more days we were together the more I regret leaving for someone as amazing as you, James…" she puts her hand to hold on top of mine on the table, "And I want you back. That's why I'm asking you to go to my place tonight."

"Sure." I obliged.

Then, the night later. We made love onto the bed, and I went back home right after because I couldn't afford to lose my time at work for the following day. Then, I smelled trouble in the air. What is happening? I should ignore it. Then I went back home just to get a text on Discord. It was the same girl as last night. Her name is SAKURA.

"Good evening, my love!" she messaged me.

"Yeah, good evening. Were you following me?" I asked.

Then she sent a picture of her mouth kissing the same cup as I drank from today at the cafe, but her face was blurred. The cup still has my name on it. She was kissing the exact spot where I drank from the cup. I felt terrified.

"Are you cheating on me, James Robillos? Hm?"

I just blocked her from Discord and just went to bed. And I got a text from my primary inbox on my phone and not Discord this time. It was an unknown number, and it was still here.

"You can't escape, my love. It's our destiny!"

This bitch is crazy! So, I just chugged on all of my depressant pills and fell asleep until I woke up the next day, turning on the news of a dreadful morning just to come back from the reality of having to be forced to write for an entire month again. The nightmare repeats the cycle.

I turned on the news and reports how the house of Angel. They said she was murdered. Oh shit…

I got a text, "HA HA HA HA!!!" she says on the message.

Chapter 2

A week later, after the funeral. I felt lonely and sad. That psycho bitch killed my ex that I just recently came back to. I feel so much hatred, and she still spams my messages, saying how much she loves me and how she watches me sleep.

I wasn't scared of her anymore, just spiralled down to depression. This all started because of that stupid book I wrote and got published on Kind Pink Novels. I started smoking more and taking more caffeine than usual. I've always felt like being watched. I begged my superiors in Kind Pink Novels to cancel the contract even though it's already too late because of this one crazy obsessive fangirl that I have.

But they told me the contract had been signed for 10 years for me to keep writing for them like a bit of peasant. Even the senior editors kept pushing me around. Still, Alex, my personal editor, wasn't so bad, and she actually cared about my mental health. She wanted to help me out in this situation. Still, she couldn't risk herself getting fired because her family needed support. Such as her mother's maintenance medicines and their essential needs, such as food and rent. All that. I felt terrible and just thanked her, anyway. And I begged my superiors one last time, and they showed empathy. So they told me the only way to cancel the contract was to pay back everything they paid me for writing so I could quit and the money they used to promote my book. I felt hopeless. But regardless, when I was about to pull out my digital wallet, my personal editor, Alex, stopped me and encouraged me to stay. As if she was desperate, and her energy felt something familiar. She wanted to talk to me in private about this. And so we did on our private direct messages.

She became charismatic and quickly convinced me to stay. I was instantly persuaded, and I decided to stay and became motivated to write more as if I was brainwashed but didn't notice it at first. This usually happens almost every day and even at the funeral. I was told to write the next chapter even though I was mourning. Otherwise, my paycheck would be less. I didn't care and wanted to spend my last moments with her corpse in the casket until she was laid down under the soil of the underworld. Where her soul departed.

The thing is after I ignored them. My daily update bonus had stopped. Because I had to write 1500 words for one chapter a day, it will lessen my paycheck by the next month. So basically, I just lost 150 dollars just because I had to stop writing for a day. And they lowered the rank of my bestselling book because of this down to the lowest one where they stopped promoting it.

It was total madness. I kept on coming back just because of Alex's compelling charisma on how she managed to encourage me to stay. But I had enough. And at the same time, I still wanted to keep up all at once.

But then, fortunes had come to me. Someone I messaged about a month ago replied to me. Her name was Rainy, and she's seen the resume I submitted to her the same day. I thought she would never answer back, but it turns out it was Chinese New Year. She wanted to give me an interview for the job. And I gladly accepted. And I felt nervous the next day. I woke up in the morning to overindulge in cigarettes just to calm me down. So, the time had come for me to waste all of my savings just to quit my job for my author career because they pay more here and perhaps it won't be as bad as the first job I had at Kind Pink Novels. But oh boy, was I wrong. It was even worse.

I was given the time of 7 pm for the interview after I made a Skype account to talk to the boss, and they scheduled it for me. Instead of acting extremely nervous about it. I acted highly professional, as if I've done this a million times. Because, in fact, I did. But not in a professional sense. More like it's because I was a former sociopath that had gotten recovered almost entirely from it. This is why I take these medications to help me with my psychopathic tendencies.

Before I could quit my writing job at Kind Pink Novels. I asked them why I had to pay back all they had paid me for? They told me it's part of the contract I signed up for. And they sent me a picture that says so, with my signature on it. So, I paid back everything I owed them.

At 7 o'clock at night, I was in a Skype interview. My recruiter introduced me to my boss, and they seemed excited for me to work for them soon. Then, the boss connected me to my interviewer, and he told him that I was ready any time of the day, as I mentioned. Since I have nothing better else to do at home.

They all seemed friendly and kept sending smiley emojis. I was surprised that they introduced me to my boss and gave the best impression. I am excited to work for him and highly motivated and enthusiastic. Then, at 6:40 pm. I started to panic and started chain-smoking cigarettes. Until I felt queasy and wore my suit and fixed my camera, and changed the background to make myself look professional.

Then the first question started with, "Why do you work for the company?" then I went dead silent because of how anxious I felt. I was panicking internally while calm on the outside. But when I spoke my first word, my charisma went smoothly, and I started talking more and more, giving my best impression. But when he began asking complicated questions, I began to get confused. I cycled back to panicking and kept saying the wrong answers. The interviewer felt frustrated that there were points I didn't understand. But to back up my mistakes, I said. "Despite I don't know much of such jobs since I've never been employed before, and I'm not an expert on these types of things. I am still highly motivated and enthusiastic enough to work for the company! I will do what it takes for me to get in the ranks, and I will do anything for the company just for the sake of my passion in writing."

Then he asked me about my writing skills as a profession on how I even managed to get this good since he looked up my file. I told him that no one taught me how to write. It was a natural-born talent that I started writing ever since I was 11 years old, and it has become a passion and an obsession ever since. I never went to train for writing or whatsoever. I was just born to have a quirky talent for writing. And he started chuckling, feeling as if he was making fun of me. But I think I was mistaken because he was just impressed how I had such a talent since I was 11 years old. The fact that my resume says I've been a published author since 2017 up to today this 2022, and I had a few more years of experience in freelance work. But I often talk about my writing examples of other professions and commissions and all about my creativity to impress him. Still, he told me that most of what I do in self-employed jobs is nothing related to the company. Still, I backed it up by saying that what matters is that I will do anything, I will write anything, just about everything because I'm the jack of all trades in writing, not a jack but more like a king because I can write any genre and make it the best one anyone had read. I can write professional, knowledgeable, general, creative, any type of literate work just for the company's sake. It's not just an obsessive hobby, but more like a dynamic profession.

Then came on more complicated questions to see how I could approach it correctly. But sadly, I failed and kept giving the wrong answers again, which made him slump back into his chair. Still, I backed it up with other professional words, and he started to lean on me, and he started nodding. I felt ten times more dissociated every minute the interview went on. It took 50 minutes to finish the interview, and he thanked me for my time. I said, "You too." which was kind of bit off and awkward to say because I ran out of creative charismatic juices to keep ongoing. And he nodded and said bye waving friendly to me, and we both ended the call at the same time.

Then, my former personal editor messaged me, saying, "How was your job interview?"

Wait… how did she know I was in an interview.

"How did you know I was recently in an interview?" I asked.

"Oh! You told me you were going to an interview soon, right?" she messaged me, having a familiar sense of dread because it felt suspicious. Then I messaged her back.

"Yeah, I know. But it was just finished just a second ago. Literally. How did you know?"

"Oh! I'm sorry, I didn't know you were in an interview as of now. Must be a coincidence, right? Heh…"

Damn, this is suspicious. But I ignored it anyway because it's appropriately just a coincidence.

Then she messaged me again, "I hope you're doing good. Remember, despite I'm not your personal editor anymore. I am still your friend. We've always been. You remember when we acted as friends or more rather than just professional colleagues? Exactly! Good night. I hope you sleep well and have a good dream."

I still feel a sense of dread. It's too familiar. But where was it from? Never mind, I should go to bed.

I turned off my computer, took off my suit, wore my usual clothes, and headed back to sleep. Then suddenly, there's a new message on my phone. It was that psycho bitch. And yes, I saved her number and named her "PSYCH0 B1TCH".

Because why not?

"Good job on your job interview! I saw everything. I'm so proud of you."

Ah, Jesus…

I just slept on it. My interviewer told me he would notify me in a few days.