Everything was different before Bren died. He always brightened the mood, brought a smile to our faces, and always lent his shoulder to cry on. To some, he was long-time friends, and to others, he was a new face. But to everyone, he was the light.
As it was hard imagining the world without the sun-without the light-it was hard imagining life without Bren.
  Shmo: ugh
  Bren: what’s wrong?
  Shmo: people at school are being a pain in the neck :/
  Bren: kick ‘em in the shins, works everytime
  Shmo: lol, I wish.
  Bren: honestly, just ignore them
  Shmo: I try my best, but it’s so difficult
  Bren: they aren’t worth your time, your suffering
  Bren: just know that they’re low-lifes, keep your head up and move on
  Shmo: I can’t possibly do that…
  Bren: yes you can, I know you can!
  Bren: Focus on yourself, and who you want to be. Don’t let anyone stand in your way
  Shmo: You’re right…
  Bren: Have I ever been wrong?
Admittedly, he hasn’t.
  Bren: Trust me, the best way to overcome something is to move on.
  Bren: Think about what’s in front of you, not behind you!
  Bren: And if none of that works, you could always kick them in the shins.
  Shmo: Haha, you’re really right. I’ll think about that.
  Bren: Don’t ever forget it!
  Shmo: Thanks, this really brightened my mood
  Bren: Anytime <3
The thing that really struck everyone about Bren was how he was always positive. Out of all the people in the tribe, he was almost the most happy, the most joyful. It was really amazing how he was so positive, when everything around him was shrouded in darkness.
  Bren: I’d better get going, I have a doctor’s appointment
  Shmo: another??
  Bren: Yeah, I have to go to regular check-ups. I’ve been doing it ever since the tumor was removed
  Shmo: Oh, gosh
  Bren: Yeah, crap happens.
  Shmo: :/
  Shmo: Be sure to be back soon! We’re gonna watch a movie in the tribe house.
  Bren: The appointments don’t take too long, I’ll be back within a couple of hours.
  Shmo: See you later!
• Bren has disconnected.
And he always came back.

Bren was also a familiar member of the tribe. He was always online, any day of the week, any time.
• Shmo just connected.
  Bren: Hey shmo!
  Shmo: The heck? It’s a Friday right?
  Bren: yep
  Shmo: Isn’t it 11 a.m where you are?
  Bren: Yeah, why?
  Shmo: No school today?
  Bren: Oh, I don’t go to school. Homeschooling and online classes instead.
  Shmo: Oh, dang.
  Bren: Dang what?
  Shmo: Well, homeschooling isn’t as bad as normal schooling.
  Shmo: For like, education.
  Bren: Yeah..
  Shmo: But what about finding friends?
  Bren: It’s tough y’know.
  Bren: With my conditions, I’m vulnerable. People picked on me a lot as a kid.
  Shmo: Did you kick them in the shins?
  Bren: Heh, I should’ve.
  Bren: Also, with my appearance, I wouldn’t find many people to accept me. I’d get rejected a lot.
Bren had some physical deformities due to treatment.
  Shmo: :(
  Bren: It’s alright though, you guys are all I need.
Seeing him say that brought me to tears. To him, we were his only family. And in return, he was a part of our family.
Especially to me, Bren was like a long distance brother. He was always there when I needed support, or there when I needed a laugh, or someone to just vent to. I’m sure he was like that for everyone as well.
Well, it’d be appropriate to address “everyone”.

I joined the tribe around April of 2012, a couple of months after I started playing Transformice in January.
It’s a rather classic tale, really.
During the time of January to April, I was always in Room 1, and I always saw certain people talking together in a group, a group of people who knew everyone. I’d click on their profiles to see who exactly they were, and there was one thing in common between all these people.
  Tribe: Hgnh
It kind of felt like being around the popular kids. They were always talking to everyone in the room, making inside jokes and having a good time. You’d feel the pressure of wanting to talk to them, but being too shy to do so. They all seemed friendly, and I talked to some of them, but I never really became close friends with anyone.
Until I talked to Bb, also known as Bb.
It was around 1 am on the weekend, and nobody was online in Room 1. Just me, some other people who come by the room once in a while, and Bb. I started talking to her, getting to know her, and I had always thought she was really funny. We also had a lot of things in common, mostly our tastes in music.
  Shmo: Welp, this room is pretty dead.
  Bb: yeah, everyone’s got stuff to do this weekend.
  Shmo: Just sitting here by myself in the dark playing a mouse game. Productivity at its finest.
  Bb: lol, same.
  Shmo: At least I have over 500 pictures of Gerard to keep me company.
  Bb: Gerard? u mean Gerard way???
  Shmo: Yes!
  Bb: omg
  Shmo: I’m assuming you listen to MCR???
  Bb: mmhmm!
  Shmo: finally! someone who listens to them as well!!
  Bb: gosh, nobody at my school, or in the tribe, listens to MCR, just a bunch of famous pop people. Ew.
  Shmo: Same here. it feels like nobody appreciates meaningful music nowadays..
  Bb: i know right?!
It turned out we both listened to a ton of rock bands, mostly My Chemical Romance and Fall Out Boy. We discussed our favorite songs, favorite band members, and evidently became friends.
Everything kinda went uphill from there. Bb introduced to me to some of her friends in Hgnh who also listen to our kind of music, as well as some of the better known members.
Including the queen of Room 1; Lub; also known as Lub.
Lub was a known member of Room 1 because of how high her stats were. She’s been playing the game around the time it came out, so she knew a lot of old players and had high numbers on her profile. Considering how often she gets online, and the people she talks to, she was considered the queen of the room.
By the time I started talking to Lub, I had known some of the other members of Hgnh, and she and Bb were pretty good friends.
Getting to talk to her wasn’t difficult, she was really friendly.
  Shmo: Golly, you’ve got so many firsts, Lub!
Firsts were the number of times you reached the hole with cheese, well, first. Lub’s firsts ratio was about 4/5 maps.
  Lub: yeah, took a hell of a long time to collect. They’re pretty easy nowadays :P
  Shmo: I’ve only got about like, 100, lol
  Lub: a couple more hundred thousand until you can catch up to me!
  Shmo: until I can learn the dumb mechanics
  Lub: hehe
  Shmo: How long did it take you to get used to the game?
  Lub: around the first year of playing
  Shmo: Dang, about 4 months playing now. I’m thinking about going back to play “Click the Square to Win”
  Lub: rofl, sounds like a blast
  Shmo: You’d be surprised at how hard it really is
  Shmo: Well, you think one day you’ll surpass Thejkb?
Thejkb was a player in Transformice who, at the time, had the highest stats out of any player in the world.
  Lub: Hmm, maybe. I’m working on it, heh
  Shmo: I’ll be cheering for you until then!
As I got to know her, and more members of the tribe, I eventually became a known friend of theirs. It wasn’t before long until I joined Hgnh on April 20th. Bb got the A-Okay to invite me, and I was warmly welcomed.

Getting to know Bren took a while. He was mostly reserved, talking to the people he knew the best. He was friendly to those he didn’t know, but there was always that bit of empty space inbetween. I usually joined the conversations he had with others, adding my own jokes or opinions. Evidently, I talked to him privately, especially since he really interested me.
It really caught my attention that he lived with an illness, and he managed to adapt to it. He always kept an optimistic and grateful mind, something I’d never be able to do. I had relatives and known people with illnesses, but they were never at a degree like his. Despite that, they were at least x10 bitterer than he was. That truly amazed me.
Despite Bren developing cancer as a child, and having it stick with him, he was always thankful for what he had, knowing it could be worse. We always praised him for being so strong, but he’d humbly say “It’s no big deal” and move on. I always admired and looked up to Bren because of this. I constantly reminded myself that if Bren could stay strong in his situation, then I could too. It felt like we were driving side-by-side on the same road, going through the different obstacles in life together.
Befriending people in the tribe was easy, especially considering all the social-online gatherings we had. We instant-messaged on Skype and Transformice, video chatted on Tinychat, and had little hangouts in the tribehouse. I started talking to Bren a lot when I was going through troubling times at school. Workloads, social problems, I felt like talking to someone about it.
And at that time, all the time, Bren was there.
He always was.

Me, Bren, Aj, and Lub were watching YouTube videos in the tribe house that night. We were watched Will Sasso’s Lemons, where an old guy spits out lemons in an overly dramatic way.
It’s rather entertaining.
  Anj: oH MY GOD
  Lub: How does he fit all of those in his mouth?!
  Shmo: I can’t breathe, help
  Bren: dang.
  Anj: THAT ONE WAS HUGE WHAT THE HECK
  Shmo: hAAH??
  Lub: o_O
  Bren: this guy is crazy.
  Anj: But he certainly is talented.
  Lub: he should be paid to do this
  Shmo: I wanna be paid to do this!
  Bren: aw, crap
  Anj: ??
  Bren: I’ve gotta go to a doctor’s appointment now, darn it.
  Lub: aww
  Anj: D:
  Bren: I’ll be back soon, cya guys later
  Lub: byebye<3
  Anj: later Bren!
  Shmo: Alrighty, bye!
• Bren has disconnected.
If I knew that’d be the last goodbye, I would’ve said so much more.

Times were worrying for us. Bren hadn’t been online for a while, and we haven’t heard from him on Skype. It wasn’t like him for this to happen; nearly everyday we talked on Skype, and he’d always get back to my messages. I taped my eyes opened during the weekend, keeping a lookout for him in the after-hours. I wanted to be the first to welcome him from his nearly two months of inactivity. Daily, I used the tribe’s bot (provided by Iz, our wizardly programmer) to see if Bren had been online.
  Shmo: Bot, have you seen Bren?
  Izbot: Yes, I have seen Bren 62 days, 20 hours, and 4 minutes ago.
  Shmo: >:(

Worriedly, I’d consult with other members as much as I could.
  Shmo: aj, have u seen Bren?
  Anj: Nope, I’m rather concerned.
  Shmo: Me too…
  Shmo: Have any idea what he’d be doing?
  Anj: he’s most likely in the hospital, maybe something bad popped up.
  Shmo: don’t think like that, please
  Anj: I don’t like the idea as much as you do, but what else could’ve happened?
  Shmo: I don’t know..
  Anj: It’d be the most logical reason, he doesn’t go anywhere else besides the doctor’s.
  Shmo: I guess we’ll have to wait.
  Anj: yep.
  Shmo: It’s been 2 months, but it feels like 2 centuries…

It had been nearly four months since Bren had been online. For me, all hope was lost. At night, I’d lay in bed and stare up at the plastered sky, thinking of anything but the worst case scenario. This problem had also been seeping into real life, holding me back. I was detached from my friends, spending more time at home and online. I was falling behind in school because I was ignoring homework, ignoring everything. I’d stay on Transformice all day, certain that I’d be there when Bren came back.
Then bad news came.
  Anj: guys…
  Moo: What’s up buttercup?
  Lub: ??
  Bb: yeah?
  Shmo: hmm?
  Anj: Look at this
Aj had sent us a link to a website. She said she found it when searching Bren’s real name.
It was a website where people kept profiles of their ill loved ones, showing their biography and journey through this illness. Some profiles were of the deceased, some of the living. It was like an online memorial.
The link she gave us was Bren’s profile.
  Shmo:…
  Moo: what in the
  Lub: no
  Bb: what the…
  Anj: I’m sorry, but you guys needed to see this
Bren’s profile had his full biography, most of which I already knew from him, but I read all of it. All the way to the end. Even if it killed me.
“…his journey ended January 25th, 2014.”
Two days ago.
  Moo: This can’t be
  Anj: I couldn’t believe it either, I still can’t
  Lub: oh my god
  Bb: this can’t be happening
I couldn’t believe this, but I had to. I scrolled down the page, and there were tens of dozens of farewell messages from Bren’s family and relatives, honoring his death.
  Shmo: There’s no way this is true. It can’t be. He was fine the last time we talked to him! He even said he was recovering!!
  Moo: He was, but things can change with what he had
  Anj: you guys…
I felt like I couldn’t breathe, like all the life had been sucked out of me. I was already crying my eyes out, pressing my face into my pillow.
  Lub: I just can’t imagine it.
  Bb: really? we had to see this coming..
  Anj: just because we thought this would happen doesn’t mean our feelings won’t change!
  Moo: guys, just be calm about this. Don’t let this bring you down too much. It’s what he’d want.
  Shmo: HOW CAN WE BE CALM IN A TIME LIKE THIS?!
  Anj: moo’s right, we shouldn’t feel too overwhelmed.
  Shmo: it’s really hard to not feel overwhelmed.
  Lub: this just feels so damn strange, you know?
It did. Bren was always there for us, always there for me. Now, having to live without him; it seemed impossible.
  Anj: guys, please, just stay with me on this.
  Anj: This isn’t what he’d want for us, we shouldn’t desperately grip onto his life like this.
  Lub: we need to set him free
  Moo: yes, we need to.
  Anj: And we will.
After about an hour and a half, things had cooled down. Crying, we all let our feelings out, and were calmed. Members who were coming online afterwards were told of the bad news, and vented with us.
  Quiz: no way..
  Quiz: oh my god...
  Whuttie: it can’t be!
  Iz: really!? are you sure??
  Dj: please, no
  Anj: We didn’t take it better than you guys, but we thought you should know.
During the rest of January, everybody only spoke to greet someone who was online, or to talk about the game. Real life stuff or personal problems were put to the side.
It’s like how at a funeral you had complete silence in order to gather your thoughts; we had that.
Well, everyone except me.
I had silence all around me, but voices were swarming through my head, all telling me different things at once. One was telling me to let go, one was telling me it must be a mistake, one was telling me it’s all a lie. I never had my own moment of silence, because I was a step back behind it. The moment of silence comes when you accept death and move on, able to recollect your thoughts one last time to forget all about them.
I couldn’t do that.
Bren’s death was always on my mind, even if I wasn’t actually thinking about it, it’d always be at the back of my head. “Oh, look, I’m not thinking about it. Wait…now I am.”
I was living in a steel grey cage, locked in with my own thoughts. They pecked and terrorized me, and I was unable to escape.
All I could do was sit and endure it, with no way out.

It had been about a month since Bren’s passing, and everything was back to normal.
Absolutely, perfectly, back to normal.
…Mostly.
I had quit playing Transformice for a while, going back to my real life. I was improving my grades in school, connecting with my friends better. Everything seemed fine.
But it wasn’t, it never truly was.
I knew I couldn’t keep living like this, that I was suffocating myself for naught. Everyday I went to the website with Bren’s profile, and read his biography again and again. I refused to forget about him, I didn’t want to. I clutched on to his soul for dear life, adamant about letting go.
Then, I thought about what he had said to me before. That day, when I was feeling down about people in school. His exact words repeated through my head, in my own voice, like I was telling it to myself.
“Trust me, the best way to overcome something is to move on.”
He was right, he really was.
I scrolled to the bottom of his profile, and clicked the option to add my own farewell message. I named myself anonymously, a nickname he’d recognize.
“Shmo”.
I took a deep breath, and started typing. No backspacing, no deleting. I just typed, and typed.
I typed about my relations with him, how much he was loved, how much he was appreciated. I typed about how much he really helped me, how he always motivated me to never give up. I typed about how I’d never forget him, and how he’d always be safe in my heart.
And with each letter I typed, I felt my cage doors opening, the voices in my head hushing, my hands releasing Bren’s soul.
By the end, when I read it one last time, I saw that this wasn’t a mere farewell message anymore.
It was a eulogy.

That morning, and the mornings following the day I wrote my eulogy to his profile, they had been unlike any other.
I woke up bright-eyed and early, around 6:45 am. I hopped out of bed, my legs easily becoming free from my blanket. I rushed to my bathroom, eager to get on Transformice as soon as possible. As I looked at myself in the mirror, I noticed my eyes ditched their black bags and went for clutches instead. My hair had a lesser case of bedhead, my ponytail simply tousled and loose. After pushing a few strands out of the way, my lively hands turned the faucet on, and I splashed the refreshingly cool water over my face. After drying off, I ran back to my room, where I carefully set my laptop on my bed and proceeded to go through my password routine.
“Type in your password.”
As normal, I quickly typed it, certain I missed more than a few keys.
“Welcome.”
Well then, I thought, surprised.
I then logged onto Transformice, seeing my normal hail of welcomes and helloes.
I logged on at the right time, Quiz and Bb were arguing about who’s the better player.
  Quiz: I’ve got better stats, so I’m clearly better
  Bb: sorry for actually having a life and not playing 24/7
  Quiz: Please, I don’t play 24/7
  Moo: The most I’ve seen the bot report your absence was “4 days, 2 hours, and 2 minutes ago”.
  Bb: haha!!
  Quiz: Thanks, moo…-_-
  Moo: Anytime sugar <3
I’d gotten so into the argument I forgot to have a conversation of my own. I always managed to get lost in the tribe chat, enjoying reading my daily dose of family bickering.
  Whuttie: psst, shmo, speak!!
  Quiz: she’s watching Bb vs. Quiz Round 1
  Bb: Round 1 is all there’s gonna be, because I’m obviously the rightful winner!
  Shmo: heh, I always like watching you guys fight
Aj private-messaged me, concerned. After Bren departed, she took his place as my on-demand psychiatrist.
  Anj: Shmo, are you alright?
I took a deep breath.
  Shmo: Yeah, I’m fine.
And that time, I really was fine.
I really was.