JD

The Mail

Depressed over the loss of his girlfriend to suicide, Johnny had locked himself in his room for a couple of months already, barely coming out except for work and to buy food.

One day, he receives an email from someone he doesn't know titled only "You won't want to miss that".

The title screamed "Spam" and when opening it to check, as it didn't go to his spambox automatically, there was only a huge web-link.

He tried to erase the email, but immediately received it again.

Ignoring it as a possible virus, probably, as soon as he was about to close the browser's window, he receives a follow up from the same source titled "You sure? You are gonna miss one heck of a show." with a small smiling devil emoji at the end and no new content, only the same weblink.

Losing to his curiosity, he decides to open it.

It takes him to a browser game with quite a high quality to say the least.

"What's this? My computer isn't even able to run graphics like that... Is it cloud gaming or something? Who did this? It looks amazing!"

Those were the very first thoughts to run through his head while looking around.

So far, it was just a free camera he could control with WASD and his mouse in a park with quite a few people walking around.

Nothing much, but the graphics were so lifelike it seemed like trade secret technology.

How did whoever send this even find him? Was he being watched by someone? It was seriously weird that he received the same email as soon as he deleted it and even that perfectly timed follow up on it...

He felt a cold sweat run through his back while thinking those things until the game's camera started to move by itself and locked onto some guy.

He was really fat and out of shape and J immediately thought. "What a sad, fat fucker..."

And that is when he noticed actually how sad the man looked, until what seemed to be his friend appeared, and he immediately put a "mask" on.

The NPCs were striking a very "human" conversation, about future, feelings, what he was gonna do from here on out, and the fat guy was clearly hiding the face he had before from his friend.

It felt strikingly close to watching a movie, rather than a game, but with the freedom to position the camera however you want it.

While they were talking, he decided to try and move around with the camera and quickly noticed he couldn't go all that far away from the guy until he hit an invisible wall.

After they finished talking, the fat guy went home, close by.

What seemed odd is that besides flying around, there was nothing else J could do, and just now did he notice that the browser went full screen by itself.

"When did that happen?"

What was really weird is that there was no time skip or anything.

When the guy passed by a clock, the time was exactly the same as his RL smartphone was showing.

The guy's home was a mess. Dirty all around, trash everywhere, clearly belonging to someone severely depressed.

It made J look around his own room and feel slightly ticked off or criticized, as he himself was in a very similar situation.

"Enough, its boring now..."

He tried to press F11 to come out of the full screen, but it wouldn't work.

Neither did Alt + Tab, Alt + F4 or Ctrl + Alt + Del.

"The fuck?..."

When he pressed the "Escape" key, a menu popped up with only two option:

-Continue

-Quit and Suicide

"What sick kind of game is this?! Who even invests in a technology like this only to make some kind of fucked up game like this one?!"

He made a hard reset on his computer, but as soon as the startup ended, the browser opened up again at full screen at the same page and following the same guy.

The same happened by turning the computer off and on again.

"Is this some sort of virus? Shit... Will I have to format?"

He picked his phone to search if someone had received that email as well, but while he was looking at his phone, he noticed the guy in the game was opening pornhub and taking his pants down.

"Oh, hell no... No no no no no no NO! I'm not watching this."

He immediately pressed Escape and chose the "Suicide" option.

At that moment, he felt somewhat guilty, but not nearly as much as he felt seeing what happened next.

The guy stopped what he was doing and started to mumble a few things, crying.

"I'm disgusting... Why do I even still try? Ryan is always cool to check on me since I quit at the firm, but even he would be disgusted at me, if he knew me at all... Fuck all this... I've had enough..."

He opened a drawer at his desk, pulled out a gun, pointed it at his chin and pulled the trigger.

There was no sound, no blood, only a deaf thump, a bright light and then a black screen.

Johnny felt like he went into shock at what just happened. It was too real.

"What the fuck!!?... WhatTheFuckWhatTheFuckWhatTheFuckWHATTHEFUCK?!?!?! Who even makes a sick game like...!? I mean... What the actual fucking fuck!?!"

The screen started to fade to a new scene, somewhere that looked like the inside of a convenience store.
It had not ended yet.

- Oh, no. I'm not putting up with this anymore!... - He said out loud, forcibly turning off his pc and lying in bed, still feeling guilty and in shock with what just happened.

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[May continue in a next chapter...]