Frightful Flash Fiction

Don't Break The Chain

I had just gotten home from football practice. I was tired and bored. So usually around this time I'd browse the internet on my laptop for multiple hours. About half an hour in, I got an email. It read, "Now that you have received this letter, may you understand you are in great danger. I have a few things I would like you to do. First, do not delete this letter. Two, forward this letter to at least five other people, if you don't, you will suffer. And finally three, and this one is for you're own good, please, don't break the chain." A chain letter. Those stupid things. Those haven't been scary since middle school. I deleted the letter and continued to browse. The next day at school, a bunch of my teammates also received the letter. Some believed, others didn't. Later, I found out that other students even some teachers got the letter. I thought it was weird, but just assumed that most of the people who got the letter were probably forwarded it by other students. Me and a few other guys got a laugh out of it though. The day ended and just as I thought, nothing bad. The next day I went to practice and no one was there but the coach, when I asked what's up, he told me that six of my teammates were murdered. Apparently they were drowned in a pool of blood. The police have no idea who the blood belongs to, all they know is that it's human blood. I was shocked to hear this. I considered these guys my friends, and I was just told they all died. Another day came and I noticed there were a lot less kids at my school. After asking around, apparently, a bunch of kids called in with lice and that they couldn't come to school because of it. After school ended, I went home and thought about that chain letter. I started to think if maybe people who didn't listen were the ones who got lice. I started freaking out, I didn't forward the message. What if I was next? I had fallen asleep just worrying. I woke up the next morning with a terrible stomachache. When I went to school, something even crazier happened, almost all the teachers who talked about the chain letter were absent because their pet died of some sickness that came out of nowhere. I had no idea what was happening. I was scared the whole day, and my stomachache didn't make anything better. One kid had to be rushed to the nurse that day, he was covered in boils. It looked so painful. I got home and my stomach was in so much pain. I felt the urge to throw up so I ran to the bathroom and began hurling into the toilet. I looked down in the toilet and amongst my vomit was something kinda disturbing. Before I could fully take in what I saw I started to throw up again, but this time instead of regular vomit, it was what I saw, bugs. Not just any bugs, they looked like locusts. It was horrible, I could feel them, the live ones, that were crawling out for safety, the dead ones just piled on top of each other in the toilet. It was so painful and gross, I was in tears. I never told anyone about it. That night haunted me for the rest of my life. But you could say I was luckier than some of the others, no one died, at least, until... Multiple years later, my wife was pregnant. And nine months after that, my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. To bad he'll never be able to experience the world. He was a stillborn. We were crying so much. After the doctors and I finally calmed my wife down a bit, she recieved an email. She opened it up, it read, "Now that you have received this letter, may you understand you are in great danger. I have a few things I would like you to do. First, do not delete this letter. Two, forward this letter to at least five other people, if you don't, you will suffer. And finally three, and this one is for you're own good, please, don't break the chain." It was exactly the same, my wife went to delete it but I stopped her. She asked if I was okay. I tried to respond appropriately but couldn't. All I could muster was, "Don't break the chain."