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Squall was the first person who ever introduced me to Final Fantasy. That moment changed everything. It’s also how I ended up with my alias in Charmander’s 31 Pokémon Chatroom—he gave me the name Rinoa Heartilly. I didn’t know who she was, what she looked like, or how she acted. But I was thirteen, and I accepted the role without question. It was the beginning of something—an identity, a connection, maybe even a kind of escape. However, it seems I was actually Squall all along. 

Hall of Fame

Found some old stuff from it.

Back then, I was living in a Section 8 apartment complex. Most of my days were spent indoors, glued to the computer. My mom and stepdad had me watch the house while they took my little brother to Chuck E. Cheese’s—one of the few places he could run around and just be a kid without danger. Outside our home, the world felt like a warzone. School was the only other safe zone for him, and even that was pushing it. 

Our home and the schools we bounced between had become toxic—literally. My brother was severely allergic to black mold. That’s why we kept moving, chasing safety that never seemed to last. Every place we landed felt more like survival than stability. He was constantly on the edge of death. None of the buildings were ever new, which meant mold was a given—every single one of them carried it like a permanent scar.

But if you rewind even further—before the internet, before chatrooms—I was pretty normal, at least by most standards. That was before the world around me started chipping away at me, one comment, one dismissal at a time. I might put more later. Writing is my therapy.

My earliest childhood memory is of Dana—the most popular girl in our class. She embodied the beauty standard of that time: blonde hair, blue eyes, and long, straight locks that seemed to flow effortlessly. I remember being drawn to that image, not out of jealousy, but out of a quiet desire to fit in. I wanted straight hair too—not because I disliked mine, but because I didn’t understand why it was different.

Back then, I didn’t even know what different races were. When classmates asked me what I was, I’d say “tan,” genuinely believing the sun had simply darkened my skin from playing outside. I had no concept of identity beyond that. There were no other Black students in my school, and no Black families in my neighborhood. The only other Black person I’d ever seen was my brother. Looking back, it’s wild to think how much of my self-perception was shaped by what I didn’t see—and what I didn’t know. 

I might’ve gotten carried away writing this—blame the edibles. But for whatever reason, this mystical butterfly-fairy-like girl named Dana was determined to be my friend. My friend. Me—the frizzy-haired ghost of a girl who barely spoke, who floated through school unnoticed and untouched.

I don’t remember when it started, but one day she just began sitting next to me at lunch. Every Friday, like clockwork, she’d offer me a slice of pizza. And every Friday, I’d reject it. No words. Just silence and distance.

But then came a Friday that felt different. Dana looked...off. Her usual glow dimmed, her eyes heavy. She slammed the slice down in front of me before sitting, no smile, no words. I didn’t know how to turn her down this time. Something about her expression made me feel guilty—like rejecting her would be rejecting something more than just food.

So I tore off the crust and handed it back. The only thing I said was, “This doesn’t mean we’re friends, now. Okay?”

Even through her tears, she started smiling—then laughing. It was the kind of laugh that didn’t match the moment, like her sadness had cracked open something strange and tender. I just sat there, stunned, watching her cry and laugh at the same time, unsure if she was breaking or healing right in front of me.

Randomly, on edibles... Save the Best for Last by Vanessa Williams suddenly played in my mind like a forgotten memory resurfacing. That song was my quiet tradition—every birthday, without fail. It held a kind of sacred hope. For fifteen years, I spoke to him online, weaving connections through screens and time zones. And every time that song played, I imagined the moment he’d finally step into my world, not as pixels or words, but as someone real. Somehow, that melody made the wait feel like fate. 

The story with him was strange from the start. For reasons I never fully understood, he kept approaching me under fake aliases—each time trying to get close, each time vanishing the moment I caught on. Then he'd try again. And again. It felt like a cycle with no resolution, just echoes of something unfinished. Yet, he told everybody, I was the one who was doing it. 

I could only guess at his motives. Maybe guilt. Maybe regret. Especially for how he betrayed me—not in real life, but in the roleplay world where everything felt just as real. I had turned my back on my chat family, some of the fiercest fighters in chars, just to stand beside him. I chose him. And in the end, he left me behind without a word.

Worse still, when he walked away, everyone else followed. Like I’d been exiled for loving the wrong person too deeply. I still can't tell if I was drawn to the character—or to the person behind it. Back then, the lines blurred so easily. Was it the way they played the role, or something deeper that slipped through in between the dialogue? I honestly don’t know. Maybe I never did. Where did Squall begin—and where did Duralath end? I still can't trace the boundary. Was it the first message, the first alias, the first betrayal? Or did he never truly begin at all, just flicker in and out of my imagination? 

For some reason, the kid in the blue house just came to mind. He was a neighbor from years ago—awkward, quiet, but oddly drawn to me. Every time we crossed paths, he’d ask simple things, like how old I was or what I liked to do. But by the second week, his questions shifted. They got deeper. One day, he looked at me and asked, “How do you do it?” I blinked. “Do what?” He hesitated, then said, “How do you handle all the depression?” I didn’t know what to say. I just looked at him.

He looked at me, eyes heavy with something unspoken, and said, “You’re always smiling. Always laughing like nothing touches you—even when those girls over there snicker and call you ‘Fuzzy Wuzzy’ because of your hair, and an ugly black duckling because of your skin.”

I remember... glancing at him, then at the sidewalk, then back again, saying, “I’m not here to feel anything, I’m just here for my brother.” 

He said he wished he could be like me—just show up, smile, and pretend everything was fine. But he was tired. Tired of the constant fighting at home, the shouting that never seemed to end. That’s when he told me the truth. He said he’d been thinking about ending his life. For months, he’d been practicing how to tie a noose. He’d even tested the strength of his ceiling fan, just to see if it could hold his weight. 

That’s when he started asking me what I believed happened after death. I gave him the truth—flat and unfiltered. Told him I didn’t care if there was something or nothing. It never mattered to me. He looked at me for a long moment, then asked, “Would you want to try?” I didn’t understand at first. He said that if he ever decided to leave this world, he’d reach out to me first. I asked, “Aren’t there more important people you’d want to say goodbye to?” He shook his head. “No,” he said. “Just you.”

I don’t believe in anything spiritual—not ghosts, not signs, not the afterlife. But I still can’t explain that night. I woke up suddenly, not from a dream, but from a voice. It wasn’t around me. It wasn’t in the room. It was inside my head—clear, calm, and unmistakably his. He said, “Don’t be upset. I’m a lot happier now. And I’ll be rooting for you.” Then silence. I lay there in the dark, heart pounding, trying to make sense of something I don’t even believe in. 

I spent the next two days staring out the window, waiting—hoping—for something to happen. But nothing did. No signs. No warnings. Just silence.

On the third day, everything changed.

His family found him hanging from the ceiling fan. Just like he said he would. The neighborhood buzzed with whispers—apparently, they called for an ambulance, even though it was far too late. He’d already been gone for two days.

Yeeeep.. I still don't know what to say about that. I’ve never told anyone this before—not a single soul. It sounds crazy, I know. But it’s stayed with me all this time, like a secret too heavy to carry and too strange to say out loud.

The guilt stayed with me for years. I kept replaying everything, wondering if I could’ve said more, done something—anything—to change the outcome. But the truth is, when someone is determined to leave, when they’ve made up their mind and built a world around that decision… Can anyone really stop them? I still don’t know. All I know is, I wish I could’ve reached him before the silence did.

But honestly, I don’t know. I was only fifteen. And my priorities weren’t like most kids my age. While others were thinking about dances, grades, or who liked who, mine were simple and heavy: Protect Aaron. Don’t piss off Grandma. Don’t give Mom another reason to worry. Later on: proving Jason is a liar. I was just trying to hold everything together the best way I knew how.

Clio - Faces...sounds insane while high. It’s like those old boom box days—when you’d pop in a CD, and right in the middle of your favorite song, it would skip. Just that little jolt, like reality hiccuped. Oh my god, two edibles are so nice. The whole left side of my body feels numb. 

I've had two recurring dreams for years, but one stands out in its intensity. In it, someone breaks into the house and murders me—brutally—with a handweight. I’m never in my body when it happens. Instead, I’m hovering above, watching it unfold like an out-of-body experience, paralyzed and powerless to intervene.

The strangest part? The scene never fully plays out. It always cuts off before the end. But each time I dream it, I see a little more—like the nightmare is revealing itself piece by piece, slowly stitching together a story I’m not sure I want to understand.

I had those dreams for fifteen years—relentless, haunting, always the same. Each time, I woke up gripped by the fear that one day they might come true. That the nightmare wasn’t just a dream, but a warning.

But something shifted. Somewhere along the way, I stopped caring. The fear lost its grip on me. And in that indifference, I found something unexpected: freedom. It was like shedding a weight I didn’t realize I’d been carrying for so long. And they stopped. 

Man, music sounds so much cooler. 

Sweet Tea shaking her leg... didn't want to explain it. You know that what a feeling song from flashdance? No? Yeah? I can't have it all. (Pockets always got wipe.)  Now I'm dancing for my life. Lmao. Was a joke I did towards unscripted admins... dunno if they ever got it. lol I'm such a FUCKING GENIUS. HI5. Damn I'm high. 

I suddenly remembered someone named Swan. Lance, who once emailed me. I’m not sure why it’s resurfacing now—his name had slipped into the shadows of my memory. That’s when the voices began. They crept in quietly at first, like whispers behind closed doors. But soon, they were everywhere, every hour. I couldn’t tell if they were mine or something else entirely. All I knew was they never stopped. Never rested. That day, the world felt so loud and unbearable, I found myself staring at the road, wondering if silence lived on the other side. It was the night I was diagnosed with a concussion —the aftermath of a boy down the street slamming my head into the concrete repeatedly in front of the bus driver and everybody else... because I refused to date him... The police even threatened to arrest me. And now apparently I'm a lesbian?  I didn’t know who Lance was or how he even found me. But in that message, he claimed he’d discovered my name encoded in the Bible. He said it was surrounded by the phrase “dreams of death twice.”

According to him, I was destined to become a teacher for a new generation. I didn’t understand what any of it meant. What unsettled me most wasn’t the cryptic prophecy—it was how he knew things about me that no one should’ve known.  He told me my life mattered too much to be wasted. Said my name meant the Manifestation of God. After a few replies, his email no longer existed. Looking back, it still feels surreal. Sometimes I wonder if it even happened at all. I held onto those emails for years, clinging to proof that it wasn’t just in my head. Eventually, I deleted them, convincing myself I must’ve imagined it. Maybe I was just losing it so much from living on the internet. 

That’s when I started noticing the voices. They weren’t cruel or threatening—just... intrusive. Mostly, they repeated my name over and over, like they were trying to grab my attention. The more I tried to ignore them, the louder they became, like a radio I couldn’t turn off.

Music became my refuge. It was the one thing that could drown them out, at least for a while. I’d lose myself in the sound, and everything else would fade. But after my second concussion, even that escape started to slip away. And yeah, it was from somebody attacking me again, but at school. I remember passing out at school, and nobody did anything. I don't remember crawling or how I got to the spot where I was. I just knew my head hurt a lot. 

I started hearing music—melodies from songs I’d never heard before, like they were playing straight from my mind. One of the hardest ones to track down was Summer in the City by The Lovin’ Spoonful. It stuck with me for ages before I finally figured out what it was.

I remember being a kid and asking my mom for You've Lost That Lovin' Feeling. She gave me the Hall & Oates version, and I was like, “No, that’s not the right one!” And honestly, how would I even know that? I’d never heard the original before. Thinking back on it now, it’s kind of wild—and funny. The version I was searching for was by The Righteous Brothers. That was the one echoing in my head.

I started making my own beats, and over time, it became a habit. Sometimes I catch myself making random noises out of nowhere—little rhythms or sounds I create almost unconsciously. I didn’t even realize I was doing it until someone pointed it out during a college class.