Mind Games

Chapter 66 - Alex

Year 2025

Alex slammed his door with a bang.

Behind it he could hear his father yelling, "Come out right now, you ungrateful piece of shit!"

He curled his hands into fists, wishing his scrawny 17 year old body could take on his powerfully built father.

He didn't want to go back to that fucked up high school. The school where everyone treated him like dirt.

He would run away. He had some money saved up. He was intelligent enough. He would survive.

He didn't need his father who was usually too drunk to know what was happening in his son's life. Or his mother who had left him with this pathetic man and was living her life with another man, without a care for him.

He had nothing left in this town.

Beyond the door, he heard his father stomp away.

He sprawled on his bed and slipped on his earphones. Nothing like some self destructive heavy metal to make him feel better.

That, and the thought of taking a machine gun to school and shooting down all those fuckers.

He smiled to himself grimly.

Grabbing his laptop, he pulled up the tech forum he usually posted on. He thought wryly this was the only social interaction he had now.

He wanted to be a developer. He had even taught himself code. And the other members on the forum didn't treat him like a scrawny kid. They didn't know he was one.

He scrolled through the posts randomly, vaguely looking for anything interesting.

One sentence caught his eye - 'They all just die.'

He sat up straight, opening the article.

It's a video file you can download from the link here. Rumour is it drives people crazy. They start screaming. They tear at their face, their hair, their eyes. They start banging their head against a wall. In the end, they all just die. Will YOU dare try to watch :D
- pzycho2

Alex looked at the link skeptically. Then clicked it.

The file looked harmless enough.

His antivirus software didn't think it was dangerous at least.

He paused the heavy metal track and switched the ear phone connection from his cell phone to his laptop.

The mouse hovered on 'open'.

It was obviously a hoax.

Video files couldn't kill people!

It was probably one of those prank videos where you see a nice tranquil scene and then some creature suddenly pops up screeching. 

He thought of his classmates. Fucking snobs. Thought they owned the world just cause their daddies were rich.

A grin formed on his face as an idea played in his head.

He could forward this video on the class group chat.

It would fuck with their heads nicely.

A harmless joke.

And who knew? It might just make him popular!

He chuckled as he transferred the file to his phone.

This would be fun.

The Times
19th May, 2025

23 students from River High School were found dead under mysterious circumstances across town.

In all cases they apparently watched some kind of video. However, when checked by the police, these videos appeared to be corrupted.

Police, along with a medical team are investigating the case.

The possibility of a terror attack has not been ruled out.