i wanna feel lethal on the inside, i wanna read american psycho again

> Dave: Play Sburb.

CURRENT tentacleTherapist [CTT] RIGHT NOW opened memo on board Happy Birthday to Everyone But John.
CTT: Everyone ready?
CEB: yup!
CGG: yes!!
CTG: yeah yeah lets get this over with already
CURRENT tentacleTherapist [CTT] has started a voice chat!

"'Sup," you say into the mic of your shitty, dollar store headphones. Your voice is strained, you haven't talked in awhile, but you'll get used to it. You usually do.

You suppose, in some fucked up way, you lucked out this morning. Bro doesn't strife with you twice in a day, so he won't bother you unless you bother him. Which literally never happens. So.

Jade and John join the call, the latter wishing you a happy birthday for a second time today. Jade does the same, followed by Rose. It's a pretty normal interaction for times like these, just like saying "hello" or "goodbye" or "good morning." Birthdays around December are all grouped together, so you and your friends hand out happy birthdays like it's fucking Christmas. Even so, the fact that they took the time to say it all over again warms your heart in what you're pretty sure is the lamest way possible. Cut that shit out, heart, it's messing with your totally sick coolguy persona that is definitely a real thing that exists.

"Thanks guys," you say with an almost-smile. Gotta keep up the looks, you know, Bro could be watching you right now. You shiver silently and try not to divulge that thought for much longer.

You and your friends make small talk for awhile, until you decide to cut the crap and remind them that there's a reason for the call. Once there's a lull in conversation, you ask:

"So like, what is this game about anyways?"

There's no need to ask what game it is anymore, you already know. Apparently Jade had it on preorder for all of your addresses without telling anyone and has been wanting to play this game since the developers made the announcement that it existed, or was going to exist. Which is fine. You just would have liked a bit more of a warning before your Bro threw a package at you after the strife and then flashstepped the fuck outta there. But it's fine, you're totally chill about it, and you definitely did not have an existential crisis about your Bro getting you a gift when you caught it and realized what it was. No crises here, no sir-ee, we are all good. Sure, when you told Rose about it and she broke the news that it was not, in fact, a gift from your Bro, you were a little crushed. But it's nothing you can't handle, you know?

"Oh, Rose didn't tell you?" Jade interrupts your inner monologue, forcing you back into the present. Rose did not tell you that, no, but you don't say anything, as it was an obvious rhetorical question.

"It's a mix between a survival and an exploration game." She continues. "Nothing scary, promise! The graphics on the website were really good, I'm super excited to play!" You can practically see the buck-toothed smile in her voice.

"Like Minecraft?" You try to pull together any knowledge you have of those genres in games and only come up with one answer. You hear all three of them laugh in some sort of way, and you feel a little left out of the joke.

Jade snorts and says, "yeah, like Minecraft."

Rose's smooth voice pops in. "If everyone has inserted the CD, I believe we can begin."

"Oh shit, yeah no I haven't yet, gimme a second," you say, and reach for the disc sitting by your computer, and you hear John agree with you in the background and some shuffling. You grab it by the sides, careful not to get fingerprints on it(you're not entirely sure why it's a bad thing to get fingerprints on CDs like this, but you specifically remember your Bro getting pissed at you because of your holding a movie CD a certain way, so you've been extra careful from now on) and insert it into your computer.

"Okay, I got it."

"Same here," John says.

You watch your computer screen as it processes, and then a new window pops up titled "SBURB." It's just a black screen with the word "start" in white text in the middle. Something in your stomach twists.

"According to the walkthroughs I've been reading, after the start button, there should be a single player or multiplayer option. When you choose multiplayer, all you have to do is put in your fellow players' pesterchum handles into the site. Once you do that, all you have to do is press start for a second time." Rose explains to the group. You mumble something in agreement, then click on the start button. (You ignore the way your hands tremble ever so slightly, confused at yourself and the reaction you're having.)

After the second page pops up, you click multiplayer. The more chumhandles you type in, the more a feeling of impending doom settles itself upon you like an itchy, thick blanket that your grandma hand-embroidered you for Christmas or something. Not that you have a grandma, or know what grandmas usually get their grandchildren for Christmas. Even so, you get an overlooming sense of paranoia. You've never felt like this before, and it's strange, and unfamiliar, and you hate it, but you're on a voice chat with your friends, so you try to calm the fuck down and type the last word if Rose's chumhandle with (almost)steady hands.

The word "START" appears in big, white, bold letters on your screen. A part of you wishes it was in comic sans at least, to soften the blow. Or something. You might still be freaking the fuck out, but it's nothing you haven't dealt with before(you have never dealt with feeling this way. You have never been so fucking terrified in this way before, it's nothing like how it feels when Bro is watching you or strifing with you. It's cold and bitter and real, and it hits you hard enough to knock you to the ground, but you stay steady and hold your own). You mute yourself and take a deep breath. It helps a little, and a little is going to have to be enough, because Rose's voice says from your headphone's shitty ass speakers, "Is everyone ready to go?"

You unmute yourself to say "yup," under two other voices.

Like ripping off a bandaid, you move your mouse to the start button, and click it without hesitation.

After a deafening moment where stone-cold nothing happens, you suddenly are jerked into having the stomach-tingling and mind-numbing sensation of falling.