The Widow and the Gamers

I was left in a darkness I couldn’t find a way out of. Never did I imagine that something like this would happen. Who would think they would become a widow in their thirties with two kids, no job, and three dogs? It happened so quickly no one could comprehend that he was gone. Darkness was around everyone I saw. It was all I felt. Months and months went by as the kids and I picked up the pieces that were our lives. Depression came and went as the grieving became easier. Friends and some family helped whenever they could, the major ones being my neighbors freshly married T-bow and Charlize (better known as Charlie) and my other neighbor Karl. They were the biggest rocks I could ever ask for. Spring brought the halfway point, six months of my husband being gone. Things were going ok considering we were down a family member. We were getting by money-wise by me writing commissions on different sites for people. No matter what I was lonely though, spending most days on my laptop writing while listening to YouTube, kids at school, and only the dogs to keep me company. Fanfiction has always been my specialty when writing. It was always nice to escape from the real world once in a while. Reading, writing, and even watching or reading the original material was the only escape I’ve had at this point. Being busy with people wasn’t my deal, but I have tried to visit with friends whenever possible. They were the only ones I could see and not feel panicked. I wasn’t losing my mind, but sometimes I wonder if I will at some point. I began talking to myr family more and creating bonds with some others. It helps me keep sane, just not happy or less lonely. Being with someone for over 10 years makes it hard to be in a house without them. I began juggling a lot of things, making sure the kids were doing well mentally and physically and making sure school was going well. Writing was becoming profitable and making enough to keep the lights on. But I was still so lonely. The loneliness wasn’t leaving no matter what I did. Then, my kids Z (Zachariah) and Dan (Daniel) started showing me some of the content that they watched on YouTube. Not wanting to discourage them from bonding, I watched the videos, although they were not things I normally liked. Them being 11 (Dan) and 14 (Z) were of course getting into the gaming world like most kids their age. Some crafting game was their biggest one along with some other fighting types. The crafting game could be fun to watch at times. A couple of people were ok enough for me to watch with them, but it was boring most of the time. So reading and writing was done while we sat in the living room watching these guys build things like houses and stuff. After a few days of trying to find something that would interest me, they almost gave up, until they found something similar to an interest of mine, murder mysteries. The kids hadn’t been watching this guy long but knew of him because of other content he created. I only knew him by his name, Liam, but found that he was hilarious to watch and it was ok for the kids to watch. Once I had finished watching all of the murder mystery videos on his channel, the kids pointed me in the direction of others who played in his videos. This brought me into a world I never thought I would be in again; gamers. This is where my life would change forever. I binge-watched all the players I could as I was doing everyday tasks. The ones I found myself following faithfully were crossandbone, damionthedevil, crafterbro, Liam, Donnie, XTHEmuffinmanX, and Peekaboo. Soon I realized that this was just like any other fandom, so I began looking around the writing sites to see if people were writing stories or not. There were a few, but it was apparent that they were not popular in the fanfiction world. This disappointed me greatly. Reading through all the stories I could find, I decided to put them on my list for people to request a story. It may have been a long shot, but I figured it could open a door for others. —--------------------------------------- It took almost two months, but someone asked for a story. I was beyond excited that one of the YouTube gamers was requested. Until I read the person wanted me to write a reader insert with crafterbro that would be romantic. I had strict rules that I followed. In the fiction world, it felt like anything written, manga, movies, book series, they were all able to be rewritten. These were all fake, so everyone is fair game. What the original author wrote for a romantic couple didn't matter. Real-life people though, that is different. They had real lives that they lived every day and no one needed to make it harder. I am a firm believer that you never screw up someone's relationship. So I politely told the requester that this was not something I did explaining in depth why. The reader understood completely and wrote that they would get back to me when they found another person. As I waited for the email, I found I couldn’t forget what the requester wrote down for the subject. Going to sleep that night, I dreamed of the subject. It was quite an adult dream and the man featured in it was crossandbones. When the dream ended, I woke up startled that the dream even happened. Without thinking twice, I grabbed my laptop and began typing before I forgot what happened. Quickly checking it for errors and misspellings, I posted it to a few of the writing sites and went back to sleep. The next morning after I sent the kids to school and settled the dogs. I then sat down to check my emails as I ate breakfast. One of the fiction sites had sent an email about the status of the new story. I was confused and went to the site to see what was posted. When I saw the outline of the story, I almost screamed. Somehow it had already been read nearly 100 times, liked almost 50 times, and had almost 10 comments. I have never had a story blow up so quickly in my whole writing career. I didn’t know that this one story was more life-changing than I could ever imagine.