Black Box: Book Three

32 ~ Left/Right Game? part 1

A few points before we start.

Firstly, I am not the protagonist of this story. I just went to university with her, and though she went on to become a professional writer, I most certainly did not. She'll be taking over from me further down but, until then, please forgive my slightly awkward delivery while I give you guys the necessary context.

Secondly, I don't know what you will make of the following events, and I'm sure many of you might consider it all some sort of hoax. I wasn't present for any of what transpired in Phoenix, Arizona but I can vouch for the person who wrote the following logs. She is not, and has never been, a fantasist.

Ok so I once knew a girl called Alice Sharma. She was an undergrad at Edinburgh Uni the same time I was. My educational poison was History, a degree which has greatly benefited my career as a bicycle repairman. Alice Sharma studied journalism, though perhaps "studied" isn't the word. It's not an exaggeration to say that she lived and breathed the subject. Editor-in-chief of the campus paper, recognisable voice of student radio. She was frustratingly tunnel visioned, and she was a journalist in her own right before anyone gave her a professional shot.

We met in student halls and became friends almost immediately. A meandering waster trying to stay off his parent's farm and an intrepid, ambitious reporter may not seem the most obvious pairing, but I learned not to question it. She was inspiring, and smart and she proofread all my essays. I'm not too sure what she saw in me.

We were eventually flatmates down in London where she chased her dream and I chased my tail. She got a few jobs here and there, but nothing befitting of her skills. After months of fruitless internships and rejections, Alice called a flat meeting, telling us that she was moving to America, accepting a position chasing stories for National Public Radio. The job had come out of the blue, the result of a hail mary application she thought had been dismissed out of hand. We threw her a bittersweet going away party and put the room up for rent.

That party was the last time I saw Alice Sharma. She dropped out of contact a few months after her departure. Complete radio silence. I assumed she was just busy so I carried on with my small but happy life, and waited for her to pop up on television with some important words below her name; Chief Correspondent, Senior Analyst... something like that.

The radio silence was broken last week, and, for reasons you'll glean further down, I'm less happy about it than I would've thought.

Arriving home from work I found a lone email in my otherwise bare inbox. An email that would later be described as "suspicious" by my tech literate friends. Despite being born in the early 1990's I didn't own a computer until uni, and I've missed several important lessons in the world of cyberspace. Lessons like "Don't call it Cyberspace" of course and more importantly, "Don't open emails with no text, no subject and no sender's address."

I realise most of you would have deleted this anonymous, blank email immediately, my friends certainly would have, but beyond my basic ignorance about online safety, something further compelled me to open it. The only thing of substance in the entire message was a zipped folder, labeled:

Left.Right.AS

I don't have to explain what I was hoping those final initials stood for.

Opening the zipped folder I found myself staring at a stack of text files. Each one titled with a date, continuing sequentially from the very earliest file "07-02-2017". (To any Americans in the room this is the 7th of February).

I've since read the files a few times, and shown them to some friends. They don't know what to make of it either, but they certainly aren't as concerned as me. They think Alice is just in a creative writing phase and, if I didn't know her, I'd have to agree. But the thing is, I do know her. Alice Sharma only cares about the truth and if that's the case with these files, insane as it may sound, then it's very possible my friend has documented her own disappearance.

The people who suggested this forum said you discuss strange occurrences etc. If you guys have come across anything to do with the below, or know any of the people involved, then please send any information my way.