"ᴛʜᴀɴᴋ ʏᴏᴜ"

March 2nd

I didn't know what to expect, it was just a normal Saturday. Well, not exactly normal... It was my birthday, but I didn't think anything out of the ordinary would happen.

I sat in my chair, proud of my rainbow keyboard and it's beauty. I have a slight headache, but it wasn't anything I hadn't experienced before. I was just gladly spending my time playing a game on Steam I somehow found. It was pretty good for an indie game.

I was trying to focus on the game, but something kept coming up in my mind. How come everybody on the delicious sleep chat had been dead for so long? Usually somebody would come in every now and then and send a meme. But nobody had even come online for about 10 hours!

I'm kind of worried about them because it should be around the middle of the day, when they're most active. But it's whatever, I have other people in my life besides them.

I continued playing my game with the audio at full blast. That was until I heard a ding sound that didn't match up with the game's repeated tune. I assumed it was my head messing with me and continued on playing. It happened again and again, more and more sounding like it wasn't from the game.

At this point, I kinda just got bored of the annoying sound so I muted the audio to check if it was still there.

And it was.

But now that I could hear it correctly, the sound seemed to have come from outside my door.

Now I've played enough horror games to know that you don't investigate, but you already know that your boi went to check it out anyways.

I paused the game and got up from my chair. I almost skipped my way down the stairs at the thought of something interesting happening. What if it was a murderer? Or maybe... my family forgetting their keys.

I made my way to the door, my extreme curiosity following behind me.

And, like a ninja, I waited by the door silently so I could hear who was on the other side of the door. Familiar voices rang though the door.

They don't sound like any of my family, so who could it be? The voices are all different pitches so I assume that there is a lot of people.

But why do they sound like I've heard them before? The voices sound troubled, like they're regretting their choices.

Now if this was any other day, I would've just let it go and wait for them to leave. But it's my birthday and my curious ass is practically begging myself to open that door.

I mentally scolded myself for being so hecking curious and swung open the door. I stared at the people, 9 of them to be exact. They look and sound so familiar, but why?

They stared back at me. Silence.

"Do I... know you?" I asked them in English seeing as they looked like they were from America and their clothes had English words written on them.

A girl with straight dyed hair popped up and look up at me. "Are you Mel?" she asked.

"...Yeah, why?" I was slightly shocked, but somehow I remained calm.

I expected a normal 'Hi!' or 'Hello!' but I didn't expect a girl around my age to shove everybody out of the way and to hug me tightly.

The girl's messy brown hair whooshed into my face as she buried her face into my neck.

I gasped a bit, but then I took abother look at the people. Was that...

No no, they wouldn't go through that much just to see me! This has to be some sort of joke, right?

The girl, seeming to be in her late teens, shook her head and looked down. Her black curly hair slightly covering her face. "The flight was a pain, I had to deal with a crying baby sitting behind me for 10 hours," she complained, "it wasn't fun at all, I barely got any rest."

No, they didn't, did they?

"Oof," a skinny boy with a blue hoodie said.

They mostly looked nervous to see me. I wish I could've felt the same, but I didn't know how to react. This was all so sudden.

I'm not sure if it was the sweat rolling down my neck from the girl's breaths or if it was the girl licking me. Either way I shuddered and she got off of me smiling.

"You taste better than I thought you would!"

Well that answered my question.

The girl with black curly hair walked up to me and hugged me. "I can't believe we all met like this! It's so good to see you Mel! You know me, right? Alfa?"

I couldn't speak, but I managed to wrap my arms around her.

A blonde, Lisa I assume, smiled gently at me as she gave a small wave.

A girl with neat brown hair, Kerttu I guess, came over to me and pat me on the back. "It's so good to finally meet you in real life!"

Her kindness practically pierced through my heart.

I looked up at the people there and noticed Alex awkwardly standing in the entrance. He noticed me staring and waved back at me, smiling a bit.

Nea stared at Alfa and Kerttu and pushed them out of the way. "You've hugged her enough, go away!" She had a tsudere look on her face.

Chara kinda just pushed Nea away and hugged me. "It's nice to see you, Mel."

That's when it broke onto me. Tears welled up in my eyes.

"Thank you."

Happy birthday, MelIsStillHere!! OwO