Time Has Passed

-Ron's POV-

I had gone on many adventures in the past. Throughout high school, I was known as a hero. I had saved many worlds and continued to do so. I just kept going on more and more adventures, helping way more people out. Here I am now, still saving worlds. Okay, I lied. I'm not really saving worlds anymore. I'm no hero. I don't have the right to call myself one anymore.

After dealing with that 'Author' crap, I went on a few more adventures with several people I had previously worked with. However, after a while things had changed. I'm no longer going on any of those quests. I've been struggling to get things to work out in my own world. The thing is, being a hero that saves different worlds isn't really acceptable as a job where I'm from.

Heck, most people here wouldn't even believe me if I told them I did those things. I find it strange how my name was known by many in other worlds, but here I was a complete nobody. I was worthless. All I could do was focus on my personal life. I went to college for a bit but things continued to not work out. I learned by attending classes that your best is never enough.

No matter how much effort I put into it, I just continued to fail. My parents just kept getting pissed off at me even though I was struggling. They all have continued to ignore how I feel. They didn't give a shit that their son was having a difficult time. Since college wasn't working out, I was pretty close to just giving up on it entirely.

Getting real work has been a struggle too. No matter how many job applications I sent in, nobody would hire me. It was very rare that I'd ever hear back from anyone and if I did, it would just be for an interview that wouldn't go anywhere. So, what have I been doing? From time to time, I would write some stuff. The only money I ever made was through donations and it's very little.

If only I could get a real, proper job! But nope, here I am stuck at home because nobody will hire me. Because of this, my parents thought I wasn't even trying to get a job even though I was doing the best I could. It's not like I wanted to live in their basement forever. It's not my fault society is a bunch of bullshit. And it's not my fault high school doesn't actually prepare people for what comes after.

Things have changed so much since then. I don't have all the same friends I used to either. A lot of them I just never talked to again. We didn't get into any fights or anything. It's just we simply stopped seeing each other and since we never exchanged contact information, we can't really talk to each other. I've been feeling too down because of everything to even go on adventures.

Jon and the others have actually tried to contact me on numerous occasions, but I've just continued to ignore them. Being in the state I was in, I just didn't want to see anybody. I didn't want them to see the mess that I had become. Before, I was a hero and then I had become a loser that would never go anywhere. Why did things have to change like this?

Most days were full of me just lazing around. I did some work on some of the projects I mentioned earlier from time to time, but due to how I had been feeling, it was pretty difficult to find the motivation to do any of that. It even got to a point where I felt too lazy to shave, so I often had neck-beards. I was never a fan of shaving in the first place, but there was one point that I could get myself to do it every week.

"I'm going to bed now." said my brother, Justin as I was sitting in my bed, playing an MMO with the lights to our room off.

"Give me a second." I responded, "I can't pause right now."

"You've got five minutes." he said.

"I'll leave after the mission's over." I replied.

"Don't take too long." he said, hopping into his own bed.

I just continued playing until I was able to stop. After that, I just headed for another room in the basement of our house. I turned the lamp in the corner of the room on and then set myself up with some anime. This was how I would often spend my nights. I'd do something in the room I shared with my brother and then he'd kick me out. At that point, I'd either watch anime in this room or mess around on my other computer.

Time went by pretty quickly. Without even realizing it, the clock had reached midnight. This was a pretty bad habit of mine. I was never good at going to bed at a decent time, but it's not like it really mattered because even when I did, I still couldn't get up in the morning. I just stared at the ceiling in the room that had never been finished.

"What am I going to do?" I said to myself, "Will things change? Or will they stay the same forever?"