Chapter 2: Dylan’s Reality (raw, unedited text)

Shame.

That was all Dylan felt on his way to work. Shame was all Dylan felt since graduating from university. He felt ashamed of the four years that he spent barely surviving his college life, having to rely on his groupmates to carry him through papers and readings. He was so ashamed that he intentionally missed his graduation day. ("I overslept," was his usual excuse for people who asked why he didn't show up.) He felt ashamed of his dead-end job that had nothing to do with his degree. He felt ashamed that even after years in the workforce, he still has no fucking clue what to do with his life.

He was so ashamed of himself, he couldn't even open up to anyone. Not his family. Not his friends. Not Sophie, the only girl who attempted to understand him, who now lived miles and miles away. To Dylan, shame felt a lot like claustrophobia. Every day, there was a new reason to be ashamed, squeezing him in from all sides, leaving no room for anyone but himself.

Dylan marinated in shame as he squeezed his way into a crowded jeepney, a vehicle with two long rows of seats at the back and a passenger seat in the front. The jeepney is supposed to fit 20 passengers: 9 in each back row, and two in the passenger seat beside the driver. On most trips, the driver keeps to the passenger limit.

This was not one of those trips. Dylan was pushed to the edge of his seat, he was practically standing. But this was every day for him. Anyway, this was a 25-minute ride at worst to get to his office building 5 kilometers away. He endured this position while passing silver-bronze coins from passenger to driver.

Dylan wondered if his foreign boss, Raylen, would survive a trip like this. He thought of a few of his workmates who went to work in cars. Commute builds character, he tried to console himself. But deep inside, he wished he could drive to work in a car. It didn't have to be a fancy one either; a second-hand with a functioning air conditioning would do. Or better yet, taxi rides to and from work would be ideal. If only rent wasn't so expensive, he could be able to afford that comfort.

On the jeepney ride, Dylan found himself thinking of other things to distract him from thinking about his sorry life. He thought about the sunrise, and how the early morning could have been his favorite part of the day if the city were more serene, if the streets weren't so crowded. He thought about a new book he read about a very guilty saint who was in anguish over some pears he stole. He thought about the voice in his own head, and whether it truly belonged to him. Sometimes, the voice in his head would say things that he wouldn't normally think of, like, "Persevere in your work." But why? He would ask the voice in his head. What's the point?

"Keep living," the voice would sometimes say. That definitely did not come from Dylan.

As Dylan thought about these alien thoughts, the jeepney stopped as a few passengers got out. He realized this was his stop, too.

He stood in front of a giant, white building, on the corner of two major avenues. He checked his watch and let out a two-ton sigh. He walked forward and braced himself for a work day more unpleasant than usual.

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Dylan quickly sat in front of his desk and pretended to work as his boss, Raylen, shouted at Hannah, one of Dylan's coworkers. Though Raylen didn't curse at her, he might as well have. His shouts were magnified in the relatively small office shared by seven people.

Dylan could barely make out what Raylen was angry about - something about Hannah's quality of work. It is true that Hannah was clumsy and would tend to miss some details. It didn't help that she was Raylen's unofficial assistant (officially, she was the Social Media Manager), being given numerous tasks that were unrelated to her role. Though Dylan felt bad for her, he was relieved that this little episode seemed to distract his boss from noticing his late employee.

Dylan quietly opened his laptop and, like five other people in the office, pretended to work while Raylen now tried to console the crying Hannah. Just another day in the office, Dylan thought to himself. He put on his headphones, opened the video files that needed editing, and went straight to work.

Dylan worked for an online-video-channel-slash-company called Sunshine City Studios. Started by Raylen in 2017, Sunshine City was a studio that, according to the founder, "aimed to help people living in cities develop a positive outlook on life by providing them with informational and inspirational content."

Since its foundation, "informational and inspirational content" took on different forms. Back when the studio started, "informational and inspirational content" took the form of vlogs, filmed and edited by the founder, Raylen Colling, about his "life in the new city." He made videos on his whole experience settling into this new country, with video titles like, "HOW TO FIND YOUR WAY AROUND THE CITY | NAVIGATING ASIA'S MOST CONFUSING TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM," "BEST EATS IN THE METRO | THE FOOD IS SURPRISINGLY CHEAP," and "THE ART OF BEING PRESENT | 10 LESSONS I LEARNED FROM LIVING IN  SUNSHINE CITY." In these videos, Raylen Colling - or Ray, as he wanted to be called - took on a persona, speaking to the camera as if he were in a nature documentary (when in fact, he was just walking city streets that Dylan, as a local, knew to be rich people territory).

A lot of these old videos would garner more than half a million views. Some of them even hit the 1 million mark. When Dylan did his research, he found that while a good 70% of these views came from locals who craved validation from foreigners, a good 30% of these views came from people from outside "Sunshine City" who wanted to experience the version of the city that Ray and other foreign vloggers portrayed. In 2019, two years before he joined the team, Sunshine City Studios evolved from being a vlog of one person to being a collective, with two of Ray's friends from abroad joining in and making content of their own, taking turns in posting their videos on their channel. Sometimes, they would post joint vlogs with titles like, "EVERYBODY'S HANDS GO UP | EXPLORING SUNSHINE CITY'S NIGHTLIFE," "MANS ON THE STREET INTERVIEW WITH RAY, GEOFF, AND HUNTER," and "SHE WOULD DO WHAT!?! | MANS ON THE STREET INTERVIEW WITH RAY, GEOFF, AND HUNTER FT. TIM." As Dylan researched all this for his job interview, he judged that as the channel strayed away from its original, noble, albeit naive vision, the more people wanted to watch it This is when the channel was at its peak, and when Ray started hiring full-time staff for Sunshine City Studio. This is also the time when they introduced a local vlogger they met at a night club. The new addition to the team was named Tim, whom Dylan would describe as an objectively good-looking, taller-than-most douchebag who looked like a snake and acted very much like one. With these four vloggers, the channel would reach an all-time high in terms of views, garnering more than 1 million views for most videos, sometimes reaching 5 million. With the "Four Broskis," as they sometimes referred to each other, the studio's success from a purely numbers standpoint seemed to be going on an upward trend.

That was until 2020.

Not a lot of people liked to talk about the details of what happened then. No one knew how the virus started. All people knew for sure is that it felt like the end of the world, especially in the place that Ray called "Sunshine City." The night clubs were some of the first to close, being the sort of place where viruses usually spread. Dylan remembers very clearly the title of the video Sunshine City Studio posted at around this time. It was the highest viewed video, and the last one to reach that many views.

The title read: "HONESTLY? IT'S NOT THAT BAD..."

The next few months would debunk that statement. The whole country warned that it would go on a complete "lockdown," encouraging non-citizens to go back to their home countries before the airports close, and urging locals to stay home as much as possible. Ray's two friends heeded this warning and went back to their home country. Ray, however, stayed in the country to "do what good he could do." Possibly in an effort to redeem his name after their last disastrous video, Ray Colling decided to rebrand. He posted a video entitled, "A RAY OF HOPE," which was twenty minutes of reflection on his "calling" (pun intended), some tears of compassion for the world, and a promise to "return to the original vision of the channel."

Ray fired his whole crew, which he couldn't pay anymore, and put out an ad for new hires - preferably those who could do the same jobs, such as video editing, for lower pay.

Lucky for Ray, a video editor named  Dylan fit the criteria.

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Dylan spent majority of his post-college life from 2017-2020 working as a video editor for various jobs, mostly as a freelancer. His most stable job was in church, working as a video editor in charge of editing the Sunday messages. The work was easy enough and he couldn't complain about anything except for one thing: his dad, the pastor, was his boss.

When the world ended in 2020, video editing in church was the only "job" Dylan could secure. After a year of taking the parishioners' money to edit his dad's sermons, his conscience couldn't take it anymore. Despite his dad's genuine care and reassurance, Dylan set out to find employment elsewhere. In the last month of 2020, with the money he saved from working freelance jobs the past 3 years, he moved out and started searching for online jobs.

This is how he came across Sunshine City Studios. He did his research, had a smooth interview with Ray, and took the job right away. While this was by no means a dream job for him, the offer, by his standards, was good enough, and enabled him to live in a tiny apartment by himself. 

This happened 4 years ago.

The virus was now long gone, and the end of the world... well... ended. After one promotion and a move to a new, spacious condominium building, Dylan felt even more dead. Being one year away from thirty, this is not how Dylan imagined his life. While he worked his butt off to make someone else's dreams come true, he had dreams of his own.

When Dylan isn't busy surviving, he writes songs - songs about the entirety of his experience. He is by no means a professional. He has a private music account buried  somewhere in the Internet. And while he dreams of playing for a crowd of thousands, he knows he lacks the skill and the confidence to do so. (He likes to play pretend, though, singing for an imaginary crowd whenever he writes songs in his room.)