OP here - longtime HN user. I submitted this story to a writing contest a few months back, but didn’t hear anything from them.

I posted it here on a punt and getting front page of HN is 10x the feeling any writing contest could give me!

Thanks to all who read and commented, and glad to hear it resonates with some of you!

[EDIT]: There've been a lot more comments since I wrote this one. I want you all to know that I've read every single comment and am ever so grateful for everyone who responded here / took the time to read the story!

You're a great writer. I haven't read a lot recently, but this was the type of story that I really could not stop reading.

I also didn't see that it said "This is a short story" at the top, so I read more than half thinking it was nonfiction. Heh.

This is incredibly well written had me hooked till the end (probably because I thought it was a real life incident. :)

My god, for a minute there I thought this was real.. This resonates, I bet a number of us know or Are an “Aaron”. Thanks for this.

Congratulations! As someone who's written (micro and short) fiction for many years, I _feel_ how hard it is to get someone to read it. Enjoy it!

Good story, write more. You have a good NO AI style.

Couldn't stop reading! It's been an embarrassingly long amount of time since I got hooked to something like this. Keep going!

Very well written! I haven't read such a long piece on the internet for quite a while but this hooked me immediately, and kept me hooked.

Breath of fresh air between all the AI """writing""".

I really enjoyed this! Thank you for writing and sharing.

Good story. I was hooked.

You write wonderfully, direct, heartfelt, human, real, the opposite of LLM output, and that’s the highest honor I can bestow.

Why make him #5 in WoW of all games? Arena has never been that prestigious and most players primarily engaged in PvE rather than PvP, which didn’t have such rankings.

Superb storytelling. Thank you. This was fantastic.