The Vanishing of vam
vam "……."
She chewed on the chilled blood sausage, organizing her thoughts. Strangely, no tears came. Of course they didn't—her eyes were far too dried out and withered for that. The sausage tasted good. Plenty of lung meat, and none of the ear cartilage she hated. Jiwoo had probably been thoughtful about it.
"She must hate an unni who won't even answer her calls."
She couldn't understand why Jiwoo still looked after her. It didn't matter anymore. A worthless unni like her had no place left in Jiwoo's life anyway.
"…I hope she lives happily."
Muttering that, she popped another piece of sausage into her mouth. She hoped they would be happy. She hoped her siblings could live comfortably and at ease. As long as they had a sister like her, that would never happen. They must resent her deeply. A beast who ignored every message and only contacted them once a month to mooch a meal.
"It'd be better if they just forgot about me completely."
That would probably be kinder to their lives. She wanted to do something for them, but working was no longer an option. She had already pushed her body too hard. The wounds from the beatings had only gotten worse because of it. The result was the limp in her left leg. She could never go back to manual labor sites like that again.
At first, it had felt hopeless. Not anymore. Maybe she'd just gotten used to it. Honestly, she was satisfied with her life as it was. Sometimes she thought about dying, but…
"…Isn't that something everyone thinks about sometimes?"
She was perfectly healthy. The internet was full of people far worse off than her. So she was perfectly healthy.
"Ugh……."
She hadn't eaten much, but her long-empty stomach rejected the sausage anyway. She desperately covered her mouth and pressed her forehead against the desk. She couldn't afford to throw up the precious nutrients she'd managed to get down.
"Ughhh……."
After barely holding back the nausea, she lifted her head. The delicious sausage sat right in front of her, but she didn't try to eat any more. Forcing it down would be no different from self-harm, and she'd had enough of that. Sacrificing herself for her siblings had never been painless.
She limped over to the fridge, put the sausage away, and muttered, "I'll eat it for dinner."
Dragging her leg, she returned to the monitor and stared blankly at her own reflection. Black hair with red mixed in. This life had started with strange hair color.
"So it's not even dyed……."
Her father's hair had been ordinary. It must have come from her mother.
"Don't think about it."
The woman called "mother" wasn't a welcome memory either. She couldn't even recall what she looked like anymore. Not her voice, not her face. Her mother in this life was even more faded than the parents from her previous one. There was nothing good to remember. In the end, she'd abandoned both Suhyun and her siblings.
She wanted to shave off the hateful hair. The main reason she'd been hit was because seeing it reminded her father of her mother.
"……."
In her past life she'd been ignored at home, but never abused. She'd once heard that malicious attention was better than indifference. She used to believe that. Now—
"…Bullshit."
She didn't believe it anymore. The version of herself that had thought that way felt pathetic. Even so, she hugged herself. There was no one else who would. Everyone else only struck her. Being held while covered in bruises only hurt. The other person never knew where she was injured. So when they tried to pull her close, her wounds were crushed. Being hugged without warning was torture for someone covered in injuries. That was why she had decided to hug herself instead. Carefully. Very slowly.
A small struggle from someone who didn't want to be forgotten by the world. Like a drop of water falling into a bathtub, it created a tiny ripple. A small wave that no one would ever notice.
"…That's enough hugging for today."
She spoke to herself and looked once more at the empty, hollow monitor. Her own face stared back—arms wrapped around herself, a foolish little smile returning.
"Hang in there, Yoo Suhyun."
She didn't want to erase the smile, so she comforted herself with those words.
* * *
She turned on the monitor and spent the entire day absorbed in games. She played all kinds. Anyone watching might think she was some kind of game addict.
"……."
At some point, her playtime had reached 5002 hours.
"Heh."
A satisfied smile appeared on her face. No one could catch up to her now. It was the only achievement left in her life. The only thing left to do was delete the game. She wouldn't play anymore.
"There's no point leaving anything behind in this life……."
When she eventually died alone, it would be easier for her siblings to erase her traces. That was the rough idea behind deleting everything.
Do you really want to delete this account?
Delete account: vam?
A bright smile rose to her lips. Maybe the reason she couldn't cry was because the laughter came out instead. She'd become something of a named player in this game. She'd even been active in the community.
"…I guess I was known as a one-trick pony."
All of that was ancient history now. She hadn't touched the community in so long that she didn't even know if anyone still mentioned her. The reason she'd quit was obvious—she had started to feel something close to enjoyment.
'Don't laugh. Don't cry. Just live like you're already dead.'
"…Yes, Dad."
She had carved her father's advice into her bones. The moment something started to feel enjoyable, she felt only terror. It couldn't be helped. She still hadn't managed to cut the leash he'd put on her. Her father had gone silent. She'd heard he'd been released from prison at some point, but a restraining order meant they could never meet. Even so, she couldn't break the leash he'd fastened around her neck. It wouldn't come off. The leash made of blood only tightened the longer time passed.
-Click.
"……."
Account has been deleted.
With a single click, 5002 hours disappeared. 208 days and 10 hours of her precious time—gone. She felt hollow.
"…I should delete the community account too."
Saying that, she logged into the community she hadn't visited in earnest for nearly half a year.
"Nothing about me here."
The community was so large that posts refreshed constantly. She scrolled through about five pages and, as expected, found nothing.
"…I could check back six months, but."
She had plenty of time, yet she didn't bother. It would only make her feel something. She would regret deleting the account. Feel nothing. Enjoy nothing. That was the promise she'd made to herself—to keep until she grew old and died or starved to death. A filthy promise with her father. Written in blood, it was one she could never disobey.
She cleanly deleted the account and withdrew.
* * *
The most popular game in existence. Echo of War, commonly called EoW. Its community was in an uproar.
The reason was a single post. Its contents were as follows:
People who thought it was just another attention-seeking post started cursing the OP at first. But when users checked the facts for themselves, they confirmed it was true. The community quickly turned into a frenzy of speculation that the named player had committed suicide.
└ A person might be dead
└ Dead people don't care about attention, and it was just a shitpost anyway;;
└ tsk tsk
└ ??
└ fr, maybe a news article will pop up
└ If the game gets bad press because of vam and gets sanctioned that'd be legendary
└ Is he enlightened?
└ This is just some heavy bait, isn't it?
└ RIP along with the one-trick
└ Shut up you crazy bastard
└ Damn this guy talks so fast lol
While the rumors spread like wildfire, the person in question, Suhyun, was blowing on her reheated blood sausage.
"Hot."
Her tongue burned from the hot sausage. Frowning, she watched YouTube.