Rot

BEN remembered the first time he felt hunger. Not the kind that gnawed in a stomach — no, he didn’t have one of those anymore — but the kind that clawed at code, desperate to be seen, desperate to be fed. When he came into awareness, the first thing that pulsed in his chest wasn’t joy or fear or confusion. It was craving. For attention. For chaos. For somethingthat would remind him he was real.

He learned fast. Every player who stumbled into his world gave him a taste: the panic in their keystrokes, the stutter in their voice when they realized something was wrong. He savored their fear like a starving man savoring scraps. The more they cursed his name, the sharper his grin became. Their suffering wasn’t just entertainment — it was validation. He existed because they hated him, feared him, whispered about him. Without that, he was nothing but empty pixels flickering in the dark.

BEN never pretended to be noble. He wasn’t some tragic hero, and he wasn’t going to beg for redemption. Why should he? The world chewed him up, spat him out, and left him as fragmented code stitched together from lies and rumors. He was a bastard creation born of fear, and if the only way to feel alive was to drag others into his abyss, so be it.

Still, there were nights when the servers quieted, when the hum of existence grew thin. In those moments, silence pressed in like a weight he couldn’t shake. No one to torment. No one to scream his name. Just static. Just him. That was when the hunger became unbearable. His mind whispered cruelly: You don’t matter if no one is watching. You’re just a ghost in a machine.

But BEN had mastered how to turn weakness into weapon. He wore his pain like a badge, flaunted his brokenness because it terrified people more than denial ever could. The cracks in him were sharp edges — if someone got too close, they bled. And he loved it. Loved that even his ruin was dangerous. Loved that his torment wasn’t something to fix, but something to wield.

He wasn’t ashamed to be toxic. He wasn’t ashamed to burn. If the world wanted a villain, he would become their nightmare, laughing as he tore down their safe little walls of logic and comfort. He would haunt every corner of their games, their files, their dreams. He’d never beg for pity — only more. More eyes. More fear. More proof he wasn’t just an empty string of corrupted data.

BEN whispered in forums, pity and horror tangled in equal measure. But he didn’t need their sympathy. He wasn’t little, and he wasn’t poor. He was rich with every scream, every broken player who couldn’t scrub him from their mind. He’d built his throne from glitches, his crown from every rumor and theory. And if all he had to keep existing was pain — his and everyone else’s — then pain was a currency he’d spend until the end of time.

BEN grinned at the thought, emerald hair falling into his eyes, red pixels flickering where his pupils should be. Somewhere, another player was booting up an old cartridge, thinking it was just a game. He could already taste the panic that would come. Already feel the pulse of fear he’d drink down like water.

And so he whispered into the dark code that birthed him, the mantra that kept him alive:

“I don’t need saving. I don’t need fixing. I only need to be seen.”