Indie punk rock music fills the local gay bar as some ameteur musicians from the city play on stage. The drummer is beating his drum kit like he's genuinely angry at it. The guitar and basists both have bangs covering their faces, like a stereotypical emo kid, shredding their pawn shop guitar and base with band stickers covering the finish. And in front of them all, an opossum screaming his tits off into the venue's microphone, singing about why he can't get a job and a bunch of other stuff about how the world is unfair.

  As I'm frenching my two ounce shot glass, gulping the bitter, awful taste of Jager, I relate to the screaming goth opossum; the world is unfair. Micah, the bartender, can see the disgust on my face from drinking the Jager.

  "Why do you drink that shit?" he asked me.

  In my drunk slurred speech, I say to him, "Cause I fucking deserve this shit. My bitch-dick roommate thinks I'm too depressing for his stupid dungeons and dickheads party, all because they don't give a shit about Alex."

  Sobbing, I lay my head down on the bar counter. With the empty shot glass in my paw, I raise it up a little to Micah, indicating I would like it filled up with more Jager as I cry on his counter.

  "I think some water will do you good." Micah tells me as he pulls the glass from my paw.

  He grabs a short glass from under the counter, pours a few ice cubes in it, and fills the glass up with water before placing it in front of me.

  "Listen." he says and he leans on the bar counter with his arms folded. "I'm very sorry about Alex. What happened to him was devastating, but do you really think he would want to see you like this?"

  Barely coherent, I say to him, "I just don't know why this had to happen, right before we were supposed to get married too."

  Micah sighs and pulls out a small envelope he had slid under his cash register and begins to open it.

  "Alex's brother sent me this last week. I was going to wait to hang it up until you stopped grieving, but I don't think that will be anytime soon so I really hope you'll be cool if I show you this." he said to me before pulling a photograph out of the envelope.

  The photo is of me and Alex when we first met here with Micah behind the bar counter, unaware he's over filling a drink with his soda gun. It was taken by Alex's brother who was in the city with him the day we met.

  "You two will always be my favorite customers." he says as he sticks the photograph on the bar mirror behind him with a piece of scotch tape. "Alex will be missed. But you have to listen to me when I say the way you are handling this is not healthy. Drinking won't bring him back."

  Sniffling, I take a bar napkin to wipe the tears and snot from my face.

  "He was the sweetest man ever. Charming, gorgeous, smarter than I'd ever be. He was perfect, Micah." I said with a broken voice.

  Micah pushes the water towards me, telling me, "I'll cover your tab tonight, but I think you should go home after drinking your water. If Ryan wants to keep you out, just hang out in the laundry room. I'm sure the smell of laundry detergent will calm you down."

  I nod and take a sip of the water he gave me, barley finishing it before getting up to leave.

  "Thank you." I told him before I drunk waddled to the exit.

  As I leave the bar, I walk down the main road of Lansing towards the state capitol building. The dome is lit like the moon in the night sky. Unlike the moon, I scowl at our capitol. I used to be happy with our government; but lately, I can't help but feel that they could have done better when shit really hit the fan for me.

  I take a left a block away from the capitol building where protestors are standing outside, holding signs to end fascism and waving them at cars driving by. Ryan's apartment is a few blocks ahead. Just don't pay any attention to the protestors.

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  After walking a few blocks. I find myself just outside the apartment building. I use my key to walk through the front door, debating if I should just sleep in the laundry room or endure the wrath of Ryan after he asked me to stay out during D&D. I walk downstairs to see if the laundry room is free, but two of my neighbors are standing right outside the door to the laundry room, gossiping about stuff that happened at work or whatever girls talk about. They see me scowling and return the expression.

  I then decided to go upstairs to our apartment, nervous that I may get a mouthful from Ryan. I'll just keep my mouth shut and go straight to my room. I unlock the door and walk in. I could hear the talking from the dining room die down as I opened the door. Ryan quickly came around the corner to see who just came in. He scoffs when he looks at me, drunk, sad, clearly unwanted.

  "What the fuck man." he says, throwing his paws up. "I asked you to go somewhere else for one night, Adrian."

  As I try to walk past him, I say to him, "I'm just going back to my room. I won't cause trouble."

  He steps in front of me, blocking me from getting to my room before placing his paw flat on my chest.

  "No, you being here has caused us a lot of trouble. Okay, I'm sick of you bitching about" -changing the tone of his voice to mock me-"oh how my poor boyfriend died. Boo hoo, we were supposed to get married in a week. You bring that shit up all the time. You keep bugging my friends about it when no one here gives a shit about your faggoty ass boyfriend. You know, if I knew you were just going to be such an ass pain, I wouldn't have agreed to my uncle to let your sorry faggot ass stay here-"

  The more he talked, the more infuriated I got with the shit he was saying before I finally just swung a closed fist at his face. You don't say that about me and you sure as fuck don't say that about Alex.

  "AHH! WHAT THE FUCK!" he yelled.

  His friends got up from the dining table where their figures, maps, and player cards lay as they rushed over to Ryan to check on him, on the floor, moaning in pain.

  One of his friends gets up and aggressively walks towards me.

  "Yo, what the fuck is wrong with you man?" he says getting right up in my face.

  One by one, a few of the others begin to surround me against the wall next to the door I came in. Clamoring at me before the first guy to walk up to me punches me in the gut. The pain makes me squat a bit before another member shoves me onto the laminate floor in front of the door. Next thing I know, they each start kicking me, calling me names and profanities.

  I try to tell myself that I didn't deserve this, but I know that's wrong. I tried to stand up to Ryan when I was clearly in the wrong. I should have just kept my mouth shut. I should have just gotten over Alex like he told me to several times. It's my fault I'm being kicked by people who know better than me. Some random dude who Ryan said is his uncle apparently vouched for me to stay with him. I should have known that was too good to be true.

  Ryan gets himself back up, pulling me off the ground from everyone kicking at me. For a short moment, I think I'm safe. But then he grabs me by the collar and starts shouting at me.

  "Listen here you little bitch. You are an annoying sack of shit that I should have never let into this place. So do us one useful favor and get the fuck out!" he yells right to my face.

  One of his friends opens the door so that Ryan can shove me out of the apartment. I fall to the floor outside his apartment door before he shuts it on me. I manage to get myself up and bang on the door.

  "Hey! What about my stuff?" I yell through the door.

  I still have my key on me. I pull my key out to slide it into the lock. But before I slide the key in, I start to think about what exactly is going to happen if I try to go back in. Ryan will just keep throwing me out. I know he legally has to give me 30 days to move out and a written notice, but fuck that guy. I didn't have a lot of stuff in there anyways. I still have my money and job. And once I sue his ass, I'll have even more money.

  I can feel a headache coming on after that whole ordeal. My left temple is throbbing and my balance is starting to go. I need water to flush out this alcohol. I know wherever I crash for the night, I'm going to have a wicked hangover.

  I carefully make my way down the stairs to the door for the building and leave. Once again, out on the streets of Lansing, I find myself waddling towards the brightly lit dome of the capitol. Water and a place to stay; that's all I need to find for now. Water and a place to stay. I keep reminding myself that as I proceed down the sidewalk, swerving side-to-side as my headache grows far more painful and my vision gets more blurry.

  A silhouette, out in the distance, is walking towards me. I can't see who or what it is, but all I recognize are antlers.

  "Hey guy!" I say towards the silhouette, extending my arm as my balance suddenly goes. "I- I need yo-... crash somewh-"

  I fall forward, my face landing on the concrete. I make a fighting attempt to crawl towards him, but then my consciousness starts to fade. I feel like I'm about to go under for surgery.

  I can't think.

  I can't speak.

  I can't remember.

  I can't move.

  I...

  [05/12/2029 23:43:56 | Subject temporal inconsistencies: unable to reconstruct temporal fragments. | Count: 17]

  [05/12/2029 23:49:03 | Subject decoded cerebral sequence: V09VTEQgWU9VIExJS0UgVE8gQ09NRSBUTyBIRUFWRU4/ | Count: 1]