I used to be an extroverted person, full of friends and always making new ones. But everything changed when I was 14, and I know what you must be thinking: "What happened? Was it just adolescence?" No, my friend, it wasn't that. It was something much worse. Something that… ruined my life.
It all started on November 15th, 2021. I was determined, there was no turning back. The warnings were everywhere: "Don't do this," "You're going to regret it," "We're telling you for your own safety." But I, stubborn as always, ignored them. And the pain came with an intensity I could never imagine.
With every second, a tightening sensation in my stomach consumed me. With every minute, a piece of my soul seemed to be ripped from me, mercilessly. And with every hour that passed, I felt my old self disappear, giving way to someone I could barely recognize. Depression engulfed me, an unrelenting desire to cry took over, and the wish to disappear became my constant companion.
After three days of skipping school, more specifically around 30 hours of play time, what seemed to be the end arrived. At sunset, that afternoon, only an empty shell remained, lying in bed, surrounded by a sea of tears. I had finished playing "Yosuga no Sora" with Textractor and Bing Translate.
Over four years have passed since that day. I became a closed-off person, shy, full of insecurities. As a male, I began developing a deep misandry, an irrational hatred for everything related to men. I distanced myself from everyone. My paranoia became so strong that I couldn't even trust my own family anymore. When it was time to take a shower, even when the hot water made my eyes burn, I couldn't close them. The feeling of being watched was unbearable. At night, I locked all the doors, pushed heavy chairs against them, as if that could protect me from something invisible, something I feared with all my might. I feared that while I slept, something would happen, something I couldn't control.
I couldn't take it anymore. So, I sought refuge, something that could give me some kind of relief. That's when I found the magical world of Yuri, with its cute girls, its sweet moments, and everything I longed for: something simple, something pure. I began to write stories, read yuri manga and VNs, immerse myself in a universe that made me forget the pain. I felt happy for the first time in years, happy for having freed myself from what had been eating me from the inside.
But happiness, as always, is fleeting. During one of my searches for Yuri fanart, I saw something. And not just anything, but a scene from it. The worst scene. And, like a sharp blade, all the memories of that day, of that pain, flooded my mind. Tears came, like an uncontrollable torrent, and a sharp pain in my chest almost led me to the brink of collapse. I ran and locked the door, turned off the lights, and lay down with my face in the pillow to muffle my screams of anguish. There, I stayed until dawn.
It was then that I realized… No matter what I do, no matter where I try to run, this visual novel will always, ALWAYS haunt me. Whether in the North Pole or the South Pole, heaven or hell, it will always be there, lurking, waiting for me to let my guard down to make me remember all the pain I felt years ago.