Because I haven't changed.

People never change.

...

I picture a thirty year old Anon. Still living in the same shitty apartment in Skin Row baiting retards on a Chechen pork brining forum. Still playing vidya on a next-gen, second hand Xrox. Still living on the same shitty military pension. Still doing fuck all in life. Just waiting to drop dead someday or to let a car do that deed for him.

Eh. Doesn't sound too bad.

...

By night time, I swallow the rest of the poor excuse for pizza and sit down in front of the PC to see if I can entertain myself. The task itself becoming more of a chore by the day. A quick look through the internet once again brings forth the dismal state of entertainment in CURRENT_YEAR. Turning society into a mass of low-intelligence dopamine junkies wasn't the best outcome for continued innovation in this sector.

Still, I grit my teeth and look for something to watch. Had nothing better to do, after all. Hollywood finding more and more interesting ways to make the blandest capeshit and recycle old titles didn't interest me, and Youtube didn't seem to be much better today either. I think of pirating some new indie game, but then decide that it's not worth the bandwidth.

After a few minutes of mindless clicking, I find myself back on to a very familiar website. One of the only constants in my life for more than half a decade.

Despite it being about nobodies putting up text on a webpage, it continued to provide me with some sense of faux homeliness and comfort over the years when nothing else did, as sad as it sounds. Its a place where I'm always welcome, despite everything. Though it kind of sucks that this is pretty much the only way I'm able to have a conversation nowadays.

Browsing through threads on /v/ and /a/, I click on some that seemed to arouse mild interest out of the sea of underage newfag threads. Interest that quickly died out as I reached the bottom of each one. I try to post something or send out a reply, but each time I find that I just don't have anything to say. It's a pattern that's been going on for a few years now. Allowing millenials to procreate was surely a mistake, but it's moreso that I just can't be bothered about anything anymore. Years of toiling on that ship did nothing but numb my ability to give a shit even further, for better or for worse.

After about a half an hour of back and forth, I throw in the towel. The PC is subsequently shut off as I no longer had a use for it today.

The black monitor mirrors my bald head, now devoid of whatever little hope it had all those years ago.

Oh well. That's life for ya.

...

Something's different today. A pack of smokes lied on my bed to puff on for the rest of the night. There were also two cans of nice beer that I bought on the way back as a special treat. Yet, I'm still sitting on this chair, perfectly still without an inch of movement.

I sustain an unbroken eye-contact with my head through the monitor.

How long has it been? Minutes? Hours?

Slowly, thoughts that I assumed to have done away with long ago start emerging from the recesses of my mind again. 

I could've gone to college.
I could've gotten a degree and become a wage cuck. Maybe even a reasonably wealthy one.
I could've met new people and made friends.
I could've not flunked out of high school.
I could've not stopped going to school just because I ruined the first relationship I ever had.
Maybe I'd be doing something with my life by now.

"Just never meant to amount to anything or do anything important."

Ha.

Soon enough, realization washes over me. This entire time, I was ruminating on what I saw this afternoon. Something I've been actively trying to wipe from my memory in a vain effort to maintain the status quo of my mental state. 

...

Having lost hope for just burying it with everything else, I decide to readdress the elephant in the room.

Fang. I could have been better to Fang. Probably.

...

Fuck.

I thought I managed to make peace with the fact that we weren't for each other. I was the one who was holding her and her talent back just to keep her tied to myself, wasn't I? Her family and her friends were infinitely more able to help her with her issues than some loser skinnie that just happened to appear in front of them one day.

I've tried to move on. Accepting my mistakes and hoping that both of us will be would put the whole shitshow in the past. After all, we were just some dumb teenagers knowing jack shit about how the real world works. We'd eventually find our places in the machine just like everybody else did. We'd all live on, with mostly average lives.

Wiping out Fang from memory was a slow process, unfortunately. Years of hard labor on top of that godforsaken ship and pathetically jacking it intensely to truckloads of chinese cartoon porn seemed to have done the trick. Almost.

But here it comes, washing away all of that coomer programming to be the forefront of my thoughts once again, rent free.

And once again, like clockwork, I'm reminded of that night on the beach.

Deep down, I knew that I meant what I said that day in my drunken stupor. Well, most of it. Those fundamental disagreements I had with her that I dismissed as mild annoyances were something that I should have addressed then and there. Nodding my head along to her words only served to stew my grievances as time went by, making me respect her less and less. Keeping up that facade my wasn't something I could have done my whole life. I knew that would have had to confront her about it sooner or later.

Didn't think I would do it in the worst possible way, though.

If only I talked to her more, been a little bit more honest with her, maybe we could have separated on better terms. Maybe she wouldn't have been the wreck she is today.

The image of her in the restaurant appears in front of me once again. That bony, lifeless winged reptile holding onto that bass, seemingly just for continued subsistence instead of her love for music. Dreams long gone from those eyes, now probably running on fumes coming from what amounted to be some semblance of hope. Hope that one day she'll make it big.

I had a hand in breaking those dreams. Maybe.

"Trish was right about you"

What DID I do anyway? I'd been a horrible boyfriend and she broke up with me, so I hid myself to stop harming her anymore. She would've gone back to her life with Trish, Reed, her family and everyone else that cares about her. She'd hone her talent along with the band and then finally start making a name for herself. Or, I don't know, maybe go to college for some liberal arts degree. She had the money and smarts for it, right?

Except none of that happened.

Of all places, she's now in Skin Row.

How?

How did I, the literal nobody that knew her only for a few months, fucking up a relationship with her could possibly lead to things ending up this bad? It doesn't make any sense. She had issues, but she had EVERYTHING going for her.

Would she still have ended up like this if we never met? By the looks of it, she'd have become one of those unhinged women that dwell in university campuses while 69'ing with Trish in a dorm room or something.

Woah! Hey now Anon. Look who's talking here. Aren't you the same loser that decided to change schools because everyone found out about his anime waifu photoshops and couldn't handle the bullying?

...

I should apologize to her. Or talk. If I'm the reason she's there today, then that's the least I should be doing.

Maybe I'm being selfish here, trying to get rid of my restlessness and guilt as quickly as possible but lord knows I'll have to do it someday. What's the worst that could happen? Maybe she'll start screaming at me and push me into a scuffle. Maybe her dad or brother will show up to take a shot at me. Who knows.

I'd been taking beatings nearly everyday for a couple of years. It's toughened me up enough. What's a few more punches? It'll be worth closing the book on this part of my life. Maybe for her as well.

I check my phone. It's 2:06 AM.

I'll think of something tomorrow.

[POST-NOTES]
Hi. Don't know where I'm going with this, but it's fun to think and write these things out. I sort of wanted to focus on "worldbuilding" and how Anon and Fang would realistically act given the type of people they are in Ending 2.