Chương 71: 2.29 Last Live - Brandy Senki (2:49)

THREAD: I'm back USER: Z3ke [Read Before Posting - Updated Guidelines] GravemindLegacy (MOD) Before this thread proceeds, I will remind everyone of the adjustments to how participation will work moving forward. The Primary system remains in place, but it will no longer operate unchecked. A Proctor role will be introduced, where their sole responsibility is risk management and survival of Z3ke. They may override or challenge a Primary if a suggestion is clearly reckless or made in bad faith.

Deliberate sabotage, misrepresenting risk, and attempting to engineer a failure will not be tolerated. Criticism of the story is allowed, but personal attacks against the author are not. Lastly, there will be a baseline level of respect for the narrative framework Zeke is using. You do not need to believe it is real. You do not need to engage with it in good faith. You simply need to respect the RP. If you cannot follow those guidelines, do not post in this thread.

Z3ke (Original Poster) Like the thread title says, I'm back. PaperSnakes Oh shit. Hambone Hey. Welcome back man. Good to see you posting again. SoftLocked. Yea. Same here. Wasn't sure if we'd hear from you again. SpicyShoyu Knew he'd be back. You can't quit us Zeke. We're like heroin. Once you're hooked… you're hooked for life. MushroomCleric Told you all my jokes would summon him back eventually. You're all welcome. Z3ke (Original Poster) Yea.

So I'm guessing that everyone here is waiting to hear about the Witness Chambers and how I managed to get there, what I found, and how I got out despite the fact that it was supposed to be a sealed room that would lead to a slow death. Everything that I wrote in my last update stands… up to the point where I told you all to go fuck your own faces. I really did travel with Patch down into the Under-MIZ. He really did guide us through the Crushed Skirt and I didn't see anything dangerous along the way.

We really did find that broken down building and we entered to see a graffiti'd illusory wall. And we really did travel through the stone hallway which led to a massive empty circular room with a giant stone dais/plinth thingy in the middle. All of that is entirely accurate, so if you need a refresher you can go back and reread that part. I'll pick everything up from there. SignalLoss Wait…

before you go any further into the adventure, didn't you literally say that you weren't going to share what happened with the forum? That was the whole point of your last post. You were keeping that info to yourself as payback for Binary trying to trap you in that room. It's not that I'm complaining, and I would looove to hear about how you busted out of that room - I've been thinking of very little else for the past couple days - but… what changed?

Sure, Binary's been banned from this thread for a bit, and a ton of people have been bitching about him constantly. Everyone is all up in arms about what he did, especially when he was complaining about you abusing canon but it turns out that you didn't mess with canon. But you know his ban is only temporary, and he can still read everything that's written here. So… how are you getting your revenge on Binary now? EdinboroughArchivist DOOD! SHUT UP!! Seriously. Don't remind him about that.

We're all trying to pretend that it didn't happen and hoping that Z3ke has forgotten his promise. We want him dropping info on the Witness Chambers, not screaming at Binary. InkWell ^ Edinborough Please go on Zeke. You were about to drop some more lore for us. Z3ke (Original Poster) I did say that I was keeping it to myself because I wanted Binary to be wondering about it for years. I meant it at the time too, but I honestly just don't care anymore. You can either listen or not, it doesn't really matter to me.

DeconstructedAntlers Hold on. Before you get into all that, we actually do need to address something that happened with Binary. He brought something up before he got himself banned, and it's been sitting in the back of a lot of people's minds. Why are you using the name of a real missing person in your fic? Binary linked the missing persons report during his villain monologue. It's real and it's about a bartender out of New York by the name of Ezekial Mercer.

He's got all the same info that you posted on your story, and he's been missing for weeks. What the hell man? LIke, I get that you're committed to the RP and everything, and this forum has agreed to not push back on all of that, but using a real missing person crosses a line for a lot of people. ClickWhirr Yea. I'm backing up Deconstructed here. I know a few people on this forum have talked about how it could all be a coincidence and everything, but that doesn't really track here.

You could have made up any name, but instead you used one tied to an active missing persons case. Ezekial Mercer isn't all that common. OldManKiyote It could just be a coincidence. Not every name is unique. ClickWhirr Really? How many Ezekial's do you know? Not only that, but an Ezekial who is a bartender from New York, at the very bar that Z3ke said he was from? Either that's a MASSIVE coincidence, or Zeke pulled info from an actual missing persons report and used it in his fic. I'm with Deconstructed here.

As much as I want to know about the Witness Chambers and everything, we need to talk about this first. PaperSnakes Can we all NOT jump on him the literal second he comes back to the forum? My man here has just showed up again after going radio silent for a while and you're hitting him with this? GravemindLegacy (MOD) DeconstructedAntlers, have you not read the new rules for posting in this thread? There is a baseline level of respect for Zeke's chosen form of narration.

He is RPing, and you don't have to agree with it but you still need to respect it. DeconstructedAntlers It's a valid question. And I don't have a problem with RP. I'm not like Binary trying to come in here and say that Zeke is shitting on canon and lore. I don't care about the whole fanfic angle. What I'm saying is that if he wanted to RP, why would he choose the name of a missing person? SignalLoss We've been waiting days for his update though.

And, not to be that guy, but if he is going to leave again after cursing out this forum, I'd rather not waste the chance to hear what happened in the chambers. We can circle back to the other stuff at a later time. SoftLocked Yea. Zeke, you don't have to answer that missing persons stuff right now if you don't want to. InkWell I think the bigger thing is the plothole that's been bugging me.

If we're going along with the whole "Zeke's been isekai'd" angle, then how come you haven't tried to reach out to anyone back home? Someone earlier in the thread - or maybe it was in another thread I was checking out yesterday - said that one of the first things they'd do if they got isekai'd would be to message people on the forum and get them to check up on their cat. So… how come you haven't done any of that? Caboodle I was actually thinking the exact same thing.

Even if people weren't going to believe me about being isekai'd, I'd at least try to convince someone. Jarettelee ^Inkwell Honestly, it might sound weird to say this, but Zeke hasn't been acting crazy ENOUGH if he legitimately wanted us to believe that he's been transported to another world. He hasn't done a single thing a dedicated role player wouldn't do, even now. Mithras131 Nothing we've been given empirically from Zeke has shown that his situation is true to life.

There are a certain number of corroborating facts that make things look weird at a circumstantial level. However, under the premise that we live in an infinite universe and we are limited only by our understanding of that universe, I have to admit that I would only be able to accept Zeke's premise beyond RP purposes if you were able to give irrefutable evidence. If this really were Zeke, would he want his family on the forum to watch him flounder about and nearly die?

There are a lot of questions here and a lot of points for investigation, but at the end of the day it will all, for good or bad, come down to how much Zeke is willing to engage and willing to divulge in order to prove his premise. C0da_Creator You know, thinking on it, even if Zeke could talk to his family, they'd probably think he's gone nuts rather than that he's been isekai'd. Unless he truly has a strong relationship with him to the point where they 100% believe him.

BaryBybax If I got isekai'd into the Fracture-verse, I'd be having WAY more fun with it. Like, I know enough about the systems and the mechanics of all the games so I could speedrun getting OP. If you hit the right locations, farm the right encounters, and stack the right skills, you'd be so ridiculously powerful that you could do anything. But even then, if I had access to this forum I'd still be trying to reach out to people back home. That's always been my pet peeve with isekai stories.

The MC always just accepts their new life so quickly. They don't think about their friends or family, and they don't even try to find a way back home. It's like they just quickly get obsessed with gathering power and building a waifu harem, and completely forget about what they'd just left behind. ClickWhirr YES! Even if it doesn't work, you still try to get a message out. The fact that he hasn't been begging Grave, Mushroom, or whoever to pass along a message is kind of weird.

DeconstructedAntlers It ties directly into the missing persons thing too. If he's using a real identity, then it's fair to ask why he's not behaving like a person who has actually disappeared and left his life behind. Z3ke (Original Poster) The reason I haven't asked anyone to reach out to people, is because there's no one to reach out to. Can we drop this and get back to you all helping me navigate this world in return for me writing up my adventures? I'm not interested in diving into my messy personal life.

SignalLoss The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Wait. Wait. Wait. What do you mean there's no one to reach out to? Z3ke (Original Poster) I mean exactly that. My dad died a few years ago from a heart attack or a stroke. I didn't ask the doctors what it was. One minute he had just come back home, and the next we're rushing him to the hospital but it was too late. My mom passed a few years after that from cancer. So no, there's no family sitting around waiting for me to check in.

Are you all satisfied now? SoftLocked Sorry for your loss. That's rough. But what about friends and coworkers? That report mentioned people asking about you. Wouldn't you want to tell them that you're okay? Z3ke (Original Poster) I'm not going to give you all a full autobiography. I'm not going to sit here and write out a David Copperfield thing and go "I was born here, I grew up here, here's every relationship that I've ever had." I said what I said. There's no one sitting around waiting for me. End of discussion.

DeconstructedAntlers Except it's not the end of the discussion, because it doesn't explain why your name lines up perfectly with a real missing person. StoryLeech Jeezus. Can we just go one day without everyone trying to derail a thread? We already agreed to roll with Zeke's premise of being isekai'd. Whether you believe it or not doesn't matter. Just engage with him and let him tell his story. Z3ke (Original Poster) I'm not using the name Zeke Mercer. That's my name. I told everyone that a hundred times before.

I've tried telling you all that this isn't a game to me. I've tried telling you all that I'm really stuck in this godforsaken world. I've tried explaining that I don't know how I got here and I don't know how to get back to New York. It's not my fault that none of you believe me. Frankly, I've given up trying to convince you all of anything. I know that none of you are going to believe that I got isekai'd. This is the internet, and why would you believe anything you read on the internet?

Ask yourself what it would take for you to believe that someone got ripped out of their world and dropped into another one. Would it require pictures? That can be AI. Would it require telling you personal anecdotes? That can come from anywhere. How about the layout for my apartment? I'm sure that, since I haven't paid rent for the past few months the landlord has tossed all my shit out and has rented it out to someone else. I lived in Brooklyn.

My apartment was this shitty little shoebox on the second floor of a walkup. When you opened the door, you couldn't open it all the way because the fridge was in the way. That's how small my apartment was. When you walked into my apartment, there was a toilet to the right. The door kept locking on itself because the lock was a shitty one, and so I'd need to use a knife from the kitchen to jimmy it open. To the left was the kitchen with a stove and a sink. There were some cabinets up top.

Across from the stove was my fridge and a microwave. Facing the kitchen, to the left was a small room where my shower was. That's right, my apartment was so shit that I didn't have a toilet and shower in the same room. They were split because whoever designed the place was a garbage architect. Once you got out of the kitchen you had a main living room with two windows that overlooked the street. To the right was the tiniest bedroom you could ever imagine.

It wasn't even large enough to put a bed, so I had to have my closet in that room along with a tiny ass desk with a computer on it. Just off the living room was a miniature alcove that I was, somehow, able to smuggle a bed inside. That's where I slept. But none of those details will help you believe that I've been actually isekai'd. I mean, I could have taken a look at that apartment last week, right? I could have been tracking where Ezekial Mercer lived and found that info pretty easily.

So, what details could I conceivably give you to prove that it was me AND that I'm not on Earth anymore? There's nothing I can do. You wouldn't, for a single second, believe that it's true. And I don't blame you, because it's an absolutely certifiably insane concept. I've been isekai'd into another world and I barely believe it. The only thing that proves to me that it's real is that it's currently happening to me. So no, I'm done trying to convince anyone of anything.

None of you believe me and I'm done beating my head against that particular wall, because it doesn't really change anything. I'm still stuck in this world. I'm still forced to deal with dangerous situations. I'm still forced to interact with this forum because you all are my best shot at somehow getting out of this world and heading back to NYC. InnerMarrow Okay. That answers why you haven't had Grave or someone contact your parents. But what about extended family? Don't you have uncles, aunts, or cousins?

How about friends growing up? Back when you started this story you mentioned that a friend of yours loved the Fracture-verse. YOu even said that he was the one who helped you fix your computer when you were younger. If this is all real, then there's no way that someone like that isn't on this forum. He could corroborate your story. Z3ke (Original Poster) You really all want to do this right now? You all want to dig around in my life like this? Fine.

But this is the last time I'm dragging this part of my life out in the open for people who are just going to pick at it like it's another puzzle to solve. I don't have friends anymore because they don't want anything to do with me. MushroomCleric?? What do you mean by that? Z3ke (Original Poster) Again, I mean exactly what I said. They don't want to talk with me anymore. They don't want to hang out with me. They don't want to share their life with me. For most of my life I've struggled with depression.

Before any of you say anything, it's not just being sad. It's a lifelong thing that started when I was a kid and never really left me. I knew something was wrong back in elementary school. I didn't have a name for it or anything and I didn't understand what was wrong with me. I'd look at all the other kids who were laughing and running around and being excited about everything, and I just couldn't match it. There was this… weight that was sitting on my chest ALL THE GODDAMN TIME.

It was this heavy blanket that was suffocating me and I couldn't throw it off no matter how hard I tried. It wasn't a constant thing. It came and went from time to time, but it was there enough that it shaped who I was. I tried telling my parents about it. I mean, that's what you do as a kid right? You've got a problem and you go to the two people who are put there in the world to solve your problems because you can't yet. I didn't have words for what it was, but I tried telling them. They brushed it off.

They told me I wasn't depressed, it was just hormones. Or it was sadness. Everyone feels like that sometimes. They didn't want to deal with it, so they decided that it wasn't real and that… stuck with me. My parents were the first people in this world supposed to take care of me. They were who I was supposed to listen to and rely on. I'm not blaming them or anything. I… kinda understand what they did. I mean, nobody wants to deal with a depressed kid. It's a real downer.

I learned pretty quickly that there are parts of me that people just don't want to deal with. And because of that, I learned how to hide my depression. If I wanted friends, I had to hide who I was. If I wanted people to like me, I knew that there was a small piece of me that I couldn't show anyone. Middle school came around and it got worse, but I hid it well. High School came around and it stuck around for most of it, and I kept hiding it. I became really good at hiding it.

I smiled and laughed and joked around and was the class clown. I acted like everything was fine and life was grand and I didn't have a care in the world. And sometimes, I became so good at hiding it and pretending it wasn't there that I was able to convince myself that I wasn't depressed. I was able to push back the darkness. For a day or a week or a month or a year. But every now and then, like clockwork, that depression crept back into my life.

It was the same weight and the same sadness and the same feeling like something was trying to drag me down into the depths and keep me there. The best way I can describe it is that depression is like a… shadow. There's another version of me that lives there. And he's a worse version of me. He's an asshole. He's an asshole who just wants me alone and quiet and wants me to stop trying. And whenever he shows up, it's a fight. Every. Single. Goddamn. Time.

And the whole time that I'm fighting him, there's this stupid, desperate hope in the back of my head that maybe, just maybe, someone will notice this battle going on just beneath the surface. Maybe someone will finally help me. Maybe someone will finally care. Maybe someone will give me a weapon or a tool or anything that I can use to fight back with. But what happens if I try and talk about it? People would look at me like I was broken. They'd think I was defective.

They'd see me as a problem and a huge mess that they don't want to deal with. So, eventually, I stopped trying to get that help. Instead, it was me and this shadow Zeke, duking it out. I'm fighting him and he's just whispering truths in my ear like "look at that, nobody is coming to rescue you. Nobody is coming to save you. Nobody is coming to help you." Anyways, I got good at managing it. Kinda. One of the best ways to counter the depression is to force myself to make plans earlier in the week.

I knew that by the time Friday came around, I wouldn't want to leave my room and hang out with friends. I wouldn't want to do anything except for just lay there and stare up at the ceiling. But if I had plans, if I had things people expected me to do, then I'd be forced to drag myself outside. That's what I did. I looked for ways to force myself to keep moving and to not let that… thing… win. I had friends. I mean, I wasn't completely alone. But at the same time, they never really knew the real me.

They just knew the version of Zeke that I let them see. I knew that if I dropped my walls and showed them who I really was, they'd run screaming for the hills. They wouldn't want to deal with what I was anymore than my parents did. Then, about two years ago, it got so much worse. It was like everything that I'd been dealing with my entire life up to that point was just a warm-up act. There was this week where I didn't go to work. It's not that I called out sick or made any excuses. I just stopped showing up.

I stayed in bed for seven days straight. I think I was out of bed for a grand total of thirty minutes during that entire week. And it was really just to get up and go to the bathroom and then head back to bed. I couldn't move and I couldn't think and I didn't answer texts or make plans or anything. All I did was lay there and stare at the wall, or shift and stare up at the ceiling. At some point during that week, something in me just… broke. I was tired. More tired than I'd ever been in my entire life.

I was tired of fighting and I was tired of pretending everything was okay and I was tired of dealing with that shadowy asshole version of me that never shuts up and never goes away. I decided that I was done. I was going to go somewhere quiet and out of the way, and I was just going to end it. There wasn't going to be any drama and no big scene. It was just going to be… done. After I made that decision I was probably the happiest I'd ever been. No. Not happy.

It was more like I was finally putting this massive weight down and I could stretch and plan and… I don't know. Just be for a little while. I'd made my decision and I had a plan and it wasn't some spur-of-the-moment thing. I'd been thinking about it for a long time. Way longer than I'd like to admit. The whole thing felt inevitable, like I'd been headed towards it for years. I didn't leave a note and I didn't tell anyone. But I did have two really close friends that I'd known for a while.

They must have known something was off. Maybe it was how I'd been acting that week or maybe they just got lucky and I was unlucky. I don't know. All I know is that my phone wouldn't stop buzzing. They called and they texted and they messaged. At first I just ignored them. Then I tried to play it straight, telling them I was just hanging around town and doing whatever. I mean, my plan was just to disappear quietly with no mess. But they didn't stop. They were relentless and trying to pull me back.

Eventually, I cracked and I figured that I'd give it one last shot. One last hail mary. I wanted to know what would happen if I told them the truth. What would happen if I let down the mask and showed them who I really was for once. So I answered their messages and I told them everything. It wasn't the whole watered-down version of "hey, I'm kinda feeling like shit lately." I told them EVERYTHING. I told them about the depression and how it's been a constant, every-day thing for me.

I told them about how I hid it since I was a kid. I told them about shadow Zeke and how he never really goes away. I told them that he was back and it was so much worse this time. I told them I was tired and I didn't want to fight it anymore and that I just wanted to be done with it all. They responded exactly like how you'd expect. They said all the things that people say in these kinds of situations.

They told me I had so much to live for and that it gets better and that they care about me and that I wasn't alone. Let me let you all in on a little secret, if you ever find yourself in this kind of situation. If you're dealing with someone who's been struggling with depression for years… those words don't land the way everyone thinks they do. They're useless platitudes. I know that you don't mean them. You know that you don't mean them. Everyone knows that you don't mean them. The words are useless.

I mean, I get why you're saying them. Because… what else would you say? What truth can you say in that moment? There's nothing you can tell that person because in their head there's this other voice that has been there longer than you. And it's a louder voice and a more convincing voice and it knows exactly what to say because it knows exactly what needs to be said. So while they were trying to pull me back, shadow Zeke was right there going "see? They don't get it. They don't get you. They can't help you.

What do you think is going to happen when this is all over? You think they're still going to be there for you?" They escalated and called the cops. I'm honestly still kinda pissed about that. I mean, sure, if you think someone's trying to disappear, it's probably the right move. But still… The cops tracked me down and did a wellness check but, here's the thing about spending your life hiding how you feel. You get really good at it. I'm a fucking oscar winning actor when it comes to that.

I smiled and joked and told the cops that everything was fine. I told them that I don't know why my friends would think I was trying to kill myself. I had just been venting to them that I'd had a rough week. Never in all that time did I say I wanted to end it. Never in all that time did I express any suicidal tendencies. And the cops believed it. Or they didn't and just didn't want to deal with it. So they left. For a split second there was this weird thought buzzing around in my head. Maybe things could be okay.

I mean, my friends obviously cared enough to sic the cops on me right? They cared enough to really push that hard and not let go. They knew now. They knew who I was and they knew about shadow Zeke and they knew all the things I'd been forced to hide for the entirety of my life. And yet they still cared enough to act. I thought that might mean something. Maybe I wasn't as alone as I thought. So I tried to reach out to them after the cops left.

I tried talking with them and telling them that, no I wasn't okay but I'd be willing to try and get better again. I was willing to continue fighting. But that's when everything fell apart. My two "friends" were completely freaked out. They were panicking and freaked. They told me that they needed time and space. They said that they had to "think things through." The same people who had just told me that they'd always be there for me… were now telling me to back the fuck off. I get it. I really do.

I don't like dealing with shadow Zeke but I have to because he's always there. They knew him for a good twenty to thirty minutes, and they decided that they really didn't want to deal with him. I will say this though, when someone finally opens up after years of hiding and fighting something like that alone for so long… it doesn't feel great when the two people who were supposed to be there for them decide to step away. Anyways, that's when it clicked for me. Shadow Zeke had been right the whole time.

The only thing that really knew the real me is the thing that I've been fighting my entire life. Everyone else just gets the mask. The few people I've tried to take that mask off for have gotten to see what was underneath, and they always just decide to walk away. It's been over a year since I've talked to them. I've given them space and they've… taken that space. I haven't heard from them. No texts. No messages. No "hope you're feeling better." Ever since then I've just been going through the motions.

I work, I eat, I sleep, I repeat. I smile when it's expected of me and laugh when it's expected of me and commiserate with everyone when they tell me their problems. Now you all keep pushing me, keep asking why I haven't reached out to anyone back home and why I'm not trying to send a message to anyone or prove that I'm okay. That's why. There's no one waiting for that message. There's no one that I can send a message to that would care. Now… are we done with this? Can we please get back to the Witness Chambers?