What Follows

′I HOPE THAT, ONCE SOMEONE RIPS EVERYTHING USEFUL OUT OF ME, I WILL STILL HAUNT THEM′

For some weird reason, I’m lying under a bed.

Tobias and Benji. Benji and Tobias.

I roll from beneath the bed with a grunt and feel a sudden vision rise (or what you’d call as standing up). I’m in Joshua’s room. Alone. And the fear of it being the last day of the month and I’m without Tobias and Benji blossoms in my chest like a bloody daisy.

Joshua’s room is messy. His bed is naked, with its sheets and pillows all over the floor. His jacket and sweater are discarded by his mirrored-closet, and his pair of worn-out, black converse are on the floor, next to his desk.

His desk’s lamp is on, illuminating the mess of papers, pencils and cigarette ash he’s left behind. The dust bin in the room’s corner is filled with crumpled paper and I’m suddenly worried about Joshua’s mental health. Life hasn’t loved him for so long. His mother’s and sister’s death, his father’s abuse, my suicide and Sierra’s madness.

My fingers absently touch a wall and almost immediately Joshua barges in, in a white undershirt, black jeans and wet, dark hair that drips water over his face and shoulders. He runs a hand through his hair and exhales heavily before approaching his mirrored-closet.

He blinks at his reflection and touches the bandage on his face that he quickly peels off with a slight wince and rapidly tearing eyes. His muscular arms and torso hum with so much energy, sad energy. It almost stings me. He drops the slightly bloodied bandage to the floor to stare at his new scarred face.

His brown eyes are scared, confused, as they stare at a person they don’t know. A person who seems to have aged a century, especially with the short beard he grew and the weight he’s lost over the past weeks.

He then walks to his desk and slides down his chair before pulling out his phone. I gulp.

Is he going to play that damned game again? I quickly get closer and stand above his shoulders, disregarding his privacy.

And yes, he opens DevilsPlay.

My shoulders drop and my eyes widen at his actions. Why is he willing to risk it all again?

The app is different than what I remember it to be on Sierra’s phone, and I’m guessing it’s because it’s the beta app. Joshua is staring at a white screen that turns black with seven letters splayed in red across it. It says, ′W 3 L C 0 M E’.

I blink at the screen that then turns white with three options in black, arranged beneath each other.

L0g 1n

RUles

SiGn ↑

I wonder if my ears have turned into two stethoscopes because I can hear nothing, not even the sound of my breathing, over the unpleasant boom-clap of my heart.

Joshua’s finger is shaky when he selects ′SiGn ↑’. The front camera opens and the screen quickly changes to show Joshua’s reflection and a red blinking dot next to a [Rec.] and a number. 11.3k. I’m guessing that it must be the number of people watching him.

‘IntR0duce Y0urs3Lf t0 0ur y0ung bl00d’, is what the screen oddly says before the letters and numbers rearrange themselves into ‘J0shua Michael’.

I can see Joshua’s reactions clearly through his phone. He seems surprised and I wonder if it is because they recognize him. His voice is husky and a little gone when he starts talking.

“Hi,” he says inaudibly as the number of watchers rides up to 14.9k.“I-I’m David.” He fakes his name because that’s what they do. It’s one of their rules. Joshua then sniffs. “I don’t know if you know me or not, but-but I have an announcement to make,” he says clearly and breathes deeply.

19.9k

“I’ve been playing for almost a year,” he says nervously. And recklessly, in my opinion. “I’ve been-I’ve been in a bad place,” he breathes, his eyes wandering to the number of viewers which has risen to 22.1k. It’s almost terrifying. “And playing this,” he says. “-makes everything worse.”

Tears stream down his face and my anxiety is a murderer’s hand choking the death out of me.

“I’ve never done this before,” he says and pauses for a heartbeat. “And I thought you, as a watcher, fan or-or ′young blood’,” he blinks at the screen as his throat bobs up and down. “You should never start playing this,” he says. “Please, never,” he pleads. “It takes every ounce of your freedom. It rips it out,” his eyes well. “For those who know me, my account has been deleted,” he continues. “Sierra’s dead.” He breathes and an immediate red warning appears in the middle of his screen saying,

′WE D0N’T SPEAK 0F ThE d3Ad’

And I’m sure if I was living, my jaws would’ve decimated by the force it took to keep my screams locked in.

Joshua’s phone is shaking with his hands at that point as I watch helplessly. “I’m sorry,” he whispers for some reason and I’m guessing he’s talking to the game. “Sierra is dead." He repeats, his eyes tearing up. “And all I can do is tell you how it was this game that killed her.”

’ST0P!′, another warning flashes in front of him and I shake my head with a whimper. I’m so very scared for him. I have no idea why he’s decided to stick around when he could’ve just run for his life.

“And I think I know what the F-rule exactly is,” he says regardless. “And it makes sense that Sierra is the dead one, not me. I’m sharing it because this is bullshit,” he cries out. “Because no-one should die over a game. No matter how horrible they prove to be. No matter what!”

35.5 k

′Y0U HAVE BE3N WARNED.′

Joshua ignores it.

“The F-rule,” he breathes out, his eyes digging holes into his screen. “They, whoever the hell, are controlling this-this shit, they’re not telling us because they want us to fall for it and die!” He’s losing his composure and I worry. I worry.

′WE KN0W 3VERYTH1NG AB0UT Y0U. J0SHUA.′

“You know everything about me, huh?” Joshua seems to directly talk to the game again with tears splattering his screen. “What’s your worst? What’s the worst you can do?” His face is red and wet, and his eyes are desperate and sleep-deprived. “Kill me? You’d kill me?” He asks in what’s barely a breath. “Death has never been so appealing.”

‘TH1S 1S Y0UR LAST WARN1NG.’

“The F-rule is losing a fan base,” he says loudly to his 50.1k viewers. “The F-rule is-is deleting your account or-or having someone do it. Losing fans is something that DevilsPlay cannot afford. They-they need the money to keep it going! Do you understand?" He yells at the screen. “Do you-do you understand? Do you copy?" He then pauses, anticipating some response but doesn’t get any as I clutch his chair’s back, my vision blurring in fear.

I suddenly understand what it means for fear to blind you.

“Just-just be careful,” Joshua tells them and my heart halts when the number of viewers starts falling dramatically. Joshua blinks at his screen, looking momentarily confused before grinning. “They already heard!” He then starts shouting. “They heard your little dirty secret! Ha! Your little dirty secret!”

20k

“They heard what your stupid rule is!” He says triumphantly. “You wanna kill me? Go ahead!" He loses himself to his phone’s camera. “Do you hear me?” He brings his phone’s microphone to his mouth. “Do you fucking copy? They know now. They know everything! You can kill me! I’m free now! I’m free!”

When he holds his phone down, his smile drops a little. The screen is frozen over a frame where he looked terrified with red eyes and a sweaty face. Joshua shakes his phone like it’s a glitch that’ll get resolved just by that.

And, you know, it isn’t. It isn’t some glitch.

Letters rain down the screen to form a sentence over his frozen petrified face. ′D0 TH3Y؟ D0 tHey ReaIIy Kn0w؟′

I can hear Joshua’s breathing as he fingers down his phone’s home button in hopes of exiting the app. And they fail. His hopes fail.

The sentence gets wiped away and a new one appears. ‘Y0u faiLED.’ A clown face then blinks on his screen as Joshua stares in confusion.

"You’re just bluffing!" He says, outraged, as he randomly taps at his phone’s screen. But nothing seems to be working anymore as the sentences keep coming in succession.

′Y0u faiLED Us.′

‘W3 kn0w Ev3ryTh1nG aB0ut y0u.’

‘y0u sHalL regr3t 1t.’

‘n0 y0unG bL00d watCh3d y0u.’

‘w3 d1d.’

‘and w3 deCid3 whAt habbens.’

Joshua’s eyes frantically run around the screen, not knowing what to expect. I shake my head and gulp down all the possibilities filling my eyes with tears.

Joshua tries to shut down his phone but it is still frozen over his glassy, bloodshot eyeballs. The more you look at his face, the wronger it appears to be.

"SHUT UP!" Joshua yells at the phone as his picture starts getting distorted. His eyes droop and his lips stretch into an eerie smile.

′GAME OVER’, is what the screen then says before going black.

Joshua hurls the phone at his wall and it shatters into pieces. I stand rooted to the ground as Joshua groans at his phone’s remains and clutches his hair in his hands.

“I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” he keeps repeating to himself before knocking the lamp off his desk. He then gets up and kicks his dustbin, emptying its insides onto the ground, before driving his fist to the wall. He immediately regrets it and curses out loud, before holding his wrist in pain.

He slides down the wall next to his desk, nursing his bruised knuckles with tears streaming down his face. It manages to bruise my heart a little.

I stare down at him and pity him for the path he’s chosen for himself. A path that, worst of all, is like looking through an endless tunnel for any exist. And really, you’re hoping against hope that you’d find a way out. But they only way out was your way in, and you have no idea where it all started.

You’re lost and can’t be found. And all you wish for is for time to go back so you’d never go in, in the first place. It reminds me a little of my situation. It reminds me that it’s impossible.

I glance at his desk and find myself reaching out for a paper and his feather pen (it was his grandfather’s, a relic he loves). I sit on his chair and it’s a miracle how I didn’t forget how to write as I dip the pen’s tip into a black ink bottle and smoothly draw letters that I string into words before arranging them into sentences.

I clutch onto the paper with an ugly urgency, with a painful need to empty my mind’s chaotic contents. I write and I’m grateful that my fingers don’t feel the pain the pen’s tip, pressed to its rotting flesh is causing.

I write for as long as I can remember, with Joshua’s soft whimpers as my only company and fuel. I write even as Selena enters, looking terrified for her brother that she finds crouched in a corner looking as good as dead.

I write until black ink seems to erupt from the pen’s tip and paint my vision in its glory. And through it all, through it all, I’m hugging those papers like there’s no tomorrow.

There is no tomorrow.