Escape Reality Ep 1

Everybody—children and even adults—is soo glued to a new game...

...it's called escaping reality...

Everybody has their own ways of escaping reality, whether it be through socializing, playing video games, or watching movies.

And I am Benedict Pendringuez, the game producer

"I guess we wouldn't worry about another year, Ben"

Philip Acierto, a product manager, is the one you see here. When I first started working here as an intern, he was initially a little haughty toward me; whenever he gets bored, he always orders me around. He had a better rank than I did before, however...

There was a situation where we had to to be in the same group when working on escaping reality.After a month of being published by our publisher, Seirra Cortes, it became a total bop, and my position changed from no-name intern to producer. After that, he treated me better and never ordered me around.

"Well, it's all thanks to you, to your hard work, and to our company's hard work. If you all hadn't 'cooperated," we would've lost an opportunity."

I was the one who gave the idea, and... To be precise, he didn't help at all; all he did was nag and drag our spirits down.

"Well, yeah, and you know, Ben, I just leveled up from 87 last night; if I put in more effort, I might be able to surpass Escaper101 one day," he blabbered while I was giving him an uninspiring look in my face.

"I love our little chit-chat, but it's time for me to work and also for you. Since I am still processing and need to work on some progress in the game, let's do it again next time, Mr. Aceirto."

"O-oh, I must have taken quite a bit of your time... I'm so sorry, Ben. Then until next time."

"Thank you, Mr. Aceirto."

But to tell the truth, it wasn't my idea when making the escaping reality; it was my younger sister's idea...

Beatrice, my younger sister, would sometimes blather on about her bizarre dreams and how she preferred her dreams to reality, but I was rather unconcerned about it and didn't pay attention to her because my hands were already occupied with work.

It has been eight years since our parents separated when I was still 18 and Beatrice was 12 years old.

Since then, my mother has raised us all by herself. To assist her, I have worked a variety of part-time jobs, and even my younger sister Beatrice has always accompanied her to sell side dishes after school.

She eventually stopped discussing her dreams, which I find annoying, and started studying right after she got home...

...I thought she has now realize the reason why she was born, instead of daydreaming all day.

I remember it clearly it was Saturday night and my pay day,

I was on my way home carrying a pack of delicious foods, "let's see we have Beatrice's favorite chicken and a month's worth of grocery"

I was so excited to open the door, then take off my shoes, I could still remember my mother's face that is so full of agony...

...Beatrice died while sleeping.

The truth is, she wasn't studying at all, but she was writing every single bit of her dreams...

She was bullied at school, and writing was her only means of escaping.

A month after Beatrice, my younger sister died.

My mother fell into an illness and died one month and two weeks after Beatrice died.

I stumbled into one of Beatrice's boxes as I was organizing their belongings because I had to move.

It has so many notebooks that I try to open one of them merely to find her writing about her dream every night. After shedding tears while reading her lovely, painful, humorous dreams, I found 10 huge notebooks at the bottom of the box.

The notebooks were identified by every chapter; for example, the green notebook was labeled that it was chapter one, and so on. There she wrote about a novel where the main character, Aida Bautil, a high school girl, was badly bullied at school and playing her favorite online game, escaping reality, was her only means of coping with the pain.

Then one day her favorite game became a reality.

I believed she just simply penned the novel because writing is her only means of coping with the agony. It was such a fantastic work that I still value and still read even now, and I almost assumed that a professional wrote it. But to think that my little sister did it, I was glad that at least she found consolation in this terrible world.

I was sitting in my office while reading the her novels because her novel is my consolation in this harsh world.

I have been reading this for years because her novel is my only means of escaping from reality.