Four years, five months. I joined a random twitch stream. The streamer was entertaining, the community was nice, so I joined the discord server.
Four years, four months. I became friends with two people in that discord server. You and your sister. We made a minecraft realm, sat in voice chat and played our own separate games, but enjoyed each other’s company.
Three years, five months. Your sister started college and got too busy to game as often as us. We became good friends. We sat in voice chat for hours talking about life, family, goals, futures, the world. Sometimes we sat in silence. We were friends.
Three years, two months . We were still friends, but closer. We were siblings, platonic soulmates. Your sister was still busy, but had a more flexible schedule, so the minecraft realm returned. Her girlfriend was the fourth member. We had our town, they had theirs. We were happy.
Two years, seven months. We were both doing well in life. You were working on game development, I was an affiliate on twitch. Small goals in the grand scheme of life, but huge in the moment. We sat in voice chat and I talked about my future and how I envisioned my channel would grow, and you were silent but supportive.
Two years, four months. We were still friends. We sat in voice chat, you did your thing, I did mine. We talked a lot that day. We talked about forming our own beliefs, what makes a good person, what love truly is, what family should be, and so much more. It was a good talk.
One year, two months. I joined voice chat and waited. I messaged you and you didn’t respond. It got late, so I went to bed.
One year, one month. All of us were together again in the minecraft realm. Me, you, your sister, her girlfriend. You wanted to finish our town. We did. You wanted to try to fight the ender dragon. We definitely tried, even though we gave up in the end. We connected the towns with a path (decorated beautifully, if I do say so myself) and a river running next to it. Everything was done. We sat in voice chat and talked, all of us. We were together. We were happy.
One year. You had been quiet. I assumed you were busy with the holidays. Last we talked, your sister had said she was visiting home for Christmas. Family time. Your family was always so close.
January 1st, 2025. A rough day for me. I messaged our group chat, wanting some company, not really expecting a response on new year’s day.
January 5th, 2025. I messaged again, wishing everyone a happy holidays and spamming the chat with memes.
January 17th, 2025. You were gone. I was on the minecraft realm that day. I don’t remember what I did. It was supposed to be an insignificant day.
January 21st, 2025. Your sister’s girlfriend messaged me and told me what had happened. You had taken your own life. My friend. My brother. My soulmate.
I haven’t heard from them since. I don’t blame them, I’m not upset. I hope they’re doing okay. I hope your sister is still doing well in school. I hope your parents are in good health.
I wish we had talked more. I wish things could have been different. I wish friendships like this made sense. I wish I knew what to do with this grief. I wish it made sense to feel genuine loss for someone I’ve never actually met.
And I really fucking wish I hadn’t given up on beating the ender dragon that day.













