JBMod

Ah yes, the early 2000s. While everyone else were making friends and following their dreams, I just stayed inside all day. Part of the reason why was due to my family and I no longer being on what you would call "good terms"... or any terms to be exact. In addition to that, I didn't have many friends since most of my interactions with other human beings were through my signature money-doubling scams on Runescape, spamming "BLAM THIS CRAP" on well-done Newgrounds animations harassing people on the chan boards about their opinion of sailor moon waifus that contradicted mine.

Yes, you can already infer my olden archetypal personality: a tactless, obese, and odorous nerdish loser with "no bitches" who dawdles around his computer for the sole purpose of causing needless mischief to the detriment of others who just want to kill time and have fun by innocuously surfing the web. In layman's terms, I was what you would call a "troll".

However, it is not all doom and gloom for me since I still managed to make one friend in high school, his name was Elliot... Elliot Vincent. He was a nerd like me, I first met him when one of those fucking shithead jocks was giving him a wedgie, I wanted to step in but I knew I would have been deader than my deadbeat parents (and no its not because i watched to sustain my concerning wedgie fetish) so I just abstained and acted like a poor prey powerlessly and hopelessly watching its brethren being devoured whole by its predator. It took a few minutes of name-calling and lunch-money-plundering for him to effortlessly cartwheel out of the scene with his dumbass sports team varsity jacket.

Since I wanted to compensate for my slothful approach to this situation, I decided to approach the victim and try to befriend him since we were not so different, him and I. I said "Damn, that was pretty se- I mean crazy, right?", to which he replied with "Don't worry, I don't need to hear them, I'm a highly trained professional!"

Something within my brain's neural structures snapped, I remember the exact phrase he said, it was from the last ever video game my dad ever played, it's the one he died to... you know, when someone (that isn't me it wasn't my fault it was 25 years ago It wasn't me I swear) pulled a shk shk, bang bang, if you know what I mean. "That's from S-Siren Bill, right?" I reciprocated, I wasn't sure if that was the right game but it was a shot in the dark (not like my dad, the light was on). "Silent Hi-? Uhh... no... it's from Half-Life, you know, the one game that came out a few years ago that was the talk of the town for us nerds and geeks?" Elliot answered. "Oh, haha", I awkwardly responded in order to cover up my guilt. "You know, I can show you the game in the computer lab if you want. I brought the disc with me." Vincent suggested. I accepted his offer, went to the lab, and watched him play the game. I noticed that he refused to use anything but the firearms, especially in the beginning where he dashed through the steel halls of Black Mesa without killing a single enemy until he got the Glock, he even shot crates in order to break them instead of swinging the crowbar at them. The only time I saw him actually use the crowbar is for puzzles. In addition to that, he played the game very seriously, didn't even react to any of my jokes, and, unlike me, doesn't like goofing around in the game. Despite me considering his gaming style to be quite eccentric and strange, we became the best of friends after that. We even exchanged our AOL credentials which allowed us to remain in contact even after I decided to shut myself in after graduation.

However, this story would be incomplete if I didn't mention a certain event that occurred a week before my graduation. That event was E3 2003. I was never very interested in these events but Elliot, who I haven't seen in three weeks due to our final exams, bought me a ticket to LA to go to the convention to observe the plethora of new games that will grace our synaptic receptors. Luckily, we both lived near Los Angeles so we did not need to book a flight. After a bit of painstaking driving and absolute fear of getting pulled over by pigs for not attaining a driver's license, I finally arrived at the event. I was looking for him, pushing and shoving a swarm of people out of my way akin to a safari traveler slicing through weeds and tall grass with their machete in order for the explorer to pass through.

After 10 minutes of searching, I could not locate him, as I reached into my pocket for my flip-phone to call him, I could feel a hand gently touch my right shoulder. I jolted and subsequently turned around only to find a weird frail and pale boy with crooked teeth as if he was British and had an acne-like condition in which a million red dots riddled the sides of his face like an ant colony. However, one thing's for certain which is that he resembled "...Elliot?", I said in astonishment. "Y-yeah it's... it's me, Jack.", he replied. "W-W-W-W-What the hell happened to your face, dude?!", I tried to ask loudly. "None of your damn business.", he irritatedly replied. "Come on, bro, I'm your friend, you can tell me anything". I responded, desperate for an answer. "I-I... I think I failed my exams... I did so fucking terribly... I think the bullying got so much under my skin that I couldn't focus on anything anymore... I got so depressed about it that I r-resorted to..." Elliot stopped. "Y-you know what nevermind lets go check out these venues, man!", Elliot said with an alarmingly quick shift in tone. And so we did just that.

After not being so impressed by some of the venues we later decided to check the one of Valve, we stood there for a few minutes until a certain announcement shook the foundation of both of our beings. The announcement of Half-life 2. As the ever-callous and monotone GMan spoke, I could hear my AOL message reception notification incessantly play at a high velocity. I looked to my right to find Elliot overjoyed and I found his happiness to be contagious. Sometime during the announcement, Gabe Newell, president of Valve, displayed a tech demo that showed a certain gun that allowed the usage of throwing items at enemies or even enemies at enemies, that was the Physgun, or physics gun if you will. I found this feature to be very amusing as well as a selling point of the game, unfortunately, the feeling was not mutual for Elliot.

He whispered to me about his annoyance and disgruntlement for the Physgun since he only liked to use firearms as well as the gun being an "immersion breaker" or something. I replied with a counter-argument, that being if there was a chance it was in the main storyline of the game he could simply not use it. What he said to me as a response shocked me and every fiber of my being... it was... some vulgar, vulgar obscenities. I was scared so I quietly yelled "WHAT BRO WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT", I could feel the judgment of some bystanders' eyes turning to us. He continued to shout swear words at me as psychological warfare which contrasted my efforts to stop him from doing so, this back and forth later turned into a Mortal Kombat fight between him and me until it was broken by Sir Newell himself who sent guards to kindly escort us out of the convention. "What the fuck could have caused this reaction from him??" I asked myself.

We both parted ways and didn't speak to each other since then. Well, we didn't talk until graduation... well I was graduating, he wasn't. His intuition was right, he got straight Fs which is extremely unexpected for him since he always got As and Bs. Oh well. While I was being handed my diploma, I heard a loud "WOOOOOO" coming from the audience, I looked around to see the source of that noise, turned out to be none other than a cheerful Elliot, which left me perplexed since I thought we left off on terrible terms.

At the end of the ceremony, he approached me; I noticed that he was in a worse state than before, since all of his facial discrepancies have been amplified to the maximum. Turns out, he just wanted to apologize to me... Ok, I guess? He then told me that he did not feel to pressed about not graduating since he told me, with air quotes, that he started a family business and confidently proclaimed that it will make him more successful than, in his words, "anything a stupid diploma can bring to the table". I subsequently told him, as banter with an old friend, to show and not tell which let out a small chuckle on my end. However, Elliot did not find that as amusing as I did, hell he suddenly wasn't even paying attention, he just stared into space as if he was frozen in time. In a state of confusion, I grabbed his shoulders then vigorously shook him in order to snap him out of his sudden reasonless trance. After I did that, he just looked to his left and then to his right in a frantic manner which was followed by him running away as if he saw some unbelievable horrors before him. Strange. VERY strange. I decided to think nothing of it and just continued on my merry way. We had an after party after all. And I refused to go because I went home and hopped on Second Life to check on my russian girlfriend (ex now) whose name i couldnt pronounce.

However, the engaging conversation about my credit card information with her distracted me from a concern ive had throughout the past week... I have no professional prospects. Hell, I remembered the time I worked at a Dairy Queen led me to become the instigator of all three Shufflebottom Family Incidents of 1999, 2001 and 2002 all because i mistook a kid's vanilla ice cream for a special "Premium Rose gold Ice Cream Max Plus X" which resulted in her giving me 1045 dollars more than what the ice cream she had was actually worth. So yeah. I had no practical, theoretical or any comprehension skills. Then I remembered what Elliot told me a few hours prior... something about a family business. And I thought try my luck with that.

I hit Elliot up on his AOL account about an opportunity of him granting me a job at his family business and after a little bit of waiting, he accepted and gave me an address to go to, the address being [REDACTED], he told me to go there next thing in the morning, and so I agreed and subsequently head to bed next to my sailor moon plushie. But