Horror Stories

Alternate 21328

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Good. Now that I have your attention, I'm going to tell you how such a universally reviled symbol came to rule my life. For the sake of convenience, if my memoir is ever republished, I request it be under the title Alternate 21328. In the now outdated windows XP, this is the input that results in the above symbol.

I recently became aware that a story posted by an old acquaintance of mine, whose name is John, but whom you may have known as "Jack", has for some time been circulated in certain corners of the internet.

John understood very little. I feel grossly misrepresented by his story, and so I've decided to contribute my own side of the events that lead up to and followed the early months of 2007 when his story takes place. For those of you who may wonder why I would go to the effort to do something like this, I hope that the restoration of my reputation, at least in the eyes of some of you, will be as sufficient a reason as any I may give.

As far as I've been able to discern, for as long as mail and telegrams and the like have been around, "The Game", as it has most often been referred to, has existed in some form or another. In old Europe, stories of "foxfire" and the "will o' the wisp" may refer to the phenomena surrounding it. Old stories like Karl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischutz and even modern media narratives like the movie Drag Me to Hell or the Japanese animated series Jigoku Shoujo seem to be retellings or re-imaginings of its ancient legend in its various forms around the world.

For me, however, "The Game" began in early 2005, in the waning months of my sophomore year of high school. I was a lot like anyone else at that time; a young, idealistic student with hopes and dreams and visions of a bright future. I could never have conceived at that time that my destiny would be redefined by a bunch of spoiled brats and their ill-advised curiosity for occult rituals.

I was a good student. I'd even go so far as to say I was great. I got high marks and always did my homework. I was responsible; I never touched alcohol or cigarettes or drugs, and I steered clear of the students who did. I always thought it would be enough to keep me out of trouble, but I was not so fortunate.

It was Wednesday, April 20th 2005. The irony, or perhaps the appropriateness, of this date may not be lost on those of you who know your history. A number of students from my school were having a party and smoking marijuana together to mark the date, which has been adopted by counterculture movements throughout America. I, of course, was not invited as I did not ever partake in such events, nor did I associate with those who did. Among those who were in attendance was a somewhat disagreeable girl named Kaylee Hernandez.

Kaylee is still remembered fondly in decrepit MySpace memorials as a "bright" and "cheerful" and "carefree" girl who "brightened people's days with her smile". All of that irritating nonsense that people make up about someone just because they died or disappeared in order to sound like a good person. But to me, she'll always just be the annoying bitch who ruined my life.

I can only guess as to what -exactly- happened, but I'd imagine that, at the party, under the influence of alcohol and marijuana she and her friends got together late at night and decided to get together and look up "spooky" occult rituals on the internet. Whatever the cause, I was awakened by the vibration of my cellular phone at about 1 A.M. that night. I remember sleepily rolling over and flipping open the phone, its soft blue glow illuminating my room in the darkness. I had one text message, from Kaylee Hernandez:

"Welcome to the Game."

At the time I thought very little of it. I was tired, and I figured it was just some sort of bizarre ritual drunken teenage girls undertook in the wee hours of the morning. I even deigned to wonder if it was some kind of roundabout way of saying she fancied me, although I had no interest in her or her ilk. I went back to sleep.