Leroy Fletcher was having a bad day. Make it a bad week. To be even more precise, he was having bad days for past 11 days. It will turn into 12 days after 17 hours.


    His dorm-mate had left him hanging, holding the bag. Now all he could do was to clean up the mess. As he was taking nature''s call, he wondered where did he go wrong? At what point?


    Was it choose hyper competitive university to graduate? Was it taking challenge of double degree?


    Nah! He had no choice in both cases. Norton Institute for Comprehensive Excellence, NICE, was truly nice place because it gave highest scholarship and maximum student autonomy. You have to accept the bad with good. So, he just had to accept the burden of his fellow college mates being highly competitive. And the double degree could be easily explained too. Gaming and Finance. The two most lucrative fields. If he can earn degree in them in smallest amount of time, he definitely should choose it. Why waste more time in university? The college would not had out stipend or scholarships beyond certain time frame.


    As he finished the call, he came to the conclusion that the start of all his sufferings was mainly from his dorm-mate, Asher Beaumont. He just had to chuck out the project to be done by both of them to him and rush off heavens knows where and the professor just had to need the projects to be handed over a month in advance.


    After spending hours and hours on it, a barely worth project was ready.  After checking it for various parameters, he sent the copies to Asher and professor.


    There. Done. Now, he could relax, without that sword hanging over his head. He can finally sleep. But the growl from his tummy reminded him to do one more thing before embracing the sweet sleep. A quick glance into common kitchen. The fridge was bare. The instant noodles completely used up. Not even a single slice of bread or a drop of milk was left.


    "F*ck you, Asher!" Leroy grumbled and checked his rarely used food card. He had no patience to buy food and prepare it. He just have to tighten his belt, hold his tongue and mind his language when he ventures into dorm dining hall.


    Norton University was good place, with lots of tich and famous alumni. Which translated into better infrastructure and resources in the school. Even the dormitories were top notch, needless to say about the dining hall attached to them.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    The dining hall was a seperate building, five storey tall, each floor having better and costlier food. Leroy ''Cheapstake'' Fletcher never went to second floor, forget the top one. The first floor was when he had strong armed his roommate Asher Beaumont to a meal. Leroy was a hard soul. The flavour of the society were lost to him.


    As the dining hall was frequented by staff and alumni alike, there were few rules and Leroy was prone to forget one or two of them, once in a while. Needs must though. So he washed himself, wore some decent looking clothes, trying to look less like a zombie and more like a human. Grabbing the phone and the food card, he ventures out of his dorm room, finally. His body was not used to sunlight, his eyes became squinted to handle the glare of the sun. It truly had been hellish days.


    As he unmuted notifications in the phone, lots of pings sounded. People along the path all looked to him. He finally found the mute button and there was blessed quite.  10, 12, 18, 33...60, 80, 99+ ...The notifications were coming even after he walked to dining hall, swiped his card and filled his plate to brim with food and found an empty seat to sit and eat.


    Junk. Junk. Junk. Spam. Spam. Spam. Just how did these companies find his number and why were they so sure he had some money to spare on their endeavours?


    Few invites from classmates to join the game. Oh,well! They must have found someone else when he didn''t reply. No need to worry on that.


    Few reminders from TA regarding the project. Done that. No need to worry. Few about change in class schedule. Oh, they even few assignments. There goes my sleep, Leroy mused.


    Remaining ones all had single thing in common. They were all about "For the Glory" game.  It was developed by veteran gaming company, SX corp. So the expectations were high. After teasing the public for long, they had recently unveiled trailers and even released the global launch date. Which had coincide with the time Leroy Fletcher had spent as a hermit. So he had missed all the craze and haze and was just watching the aftermath.


    As he shoveled the food, he clicked the link to one of the interviews. He cringed as he watched the same. The interviewee was spewing PR words word to word, not sharing his personal experience or giving his personal input.  He found few sentences vaguely familiar and then it flashed to him. He wrote those cringeworthy words. He had sold his soul for a silver coin and had written hundreds of words describing a game he had not seen, heard or played.


    He felt like bashing his head. If someone found that he had written them...though the chance was very small, he shuddered thinking of what would happen. Feeling like ants were crawling up his pants, he hurriedly finished his brunch and left the hall, feeling like everyone was watching him. Though he knew it was paronia not truth, he could not stay there even a moment longer.