It was 10:30 pm when my best friend Aaron texted me
do you want to play AirTag tag? 10:30
hell yeah 10:31
give me an hour 10:32
I showered, and got a backpack ready. Almost midnight is a pretty late time to be playing AirTag tag, but I’ve been very stressed lately with my senior year of high school…
What could one game hurt? Plus I hadn’t heard from Aaron in almost a week since we both got into an argument about which one of us would make a move on Stacy at her party this weekend.
AirTag tag is a game me and Aaron made up when Apple AirTag came out.
You have 1 hour to hide the AirTag, and with Aaron it’s usually somewhere scary or disgusting. The part that makes it hard is that you need to hide it in plain sight, so it’s hard to know where it is in the room.
Aaron is the Champ at this game, he usually picks a nasty area like a dumpster of a seafood restaurant, seedy back alleys, and once even the dumpster behind a hospital.
And if I didn’t chicken out at the sight of the place he hid the AirTag, he was very stealth and managed to hide it well.
I packed a bag, made a fake Drew out of pillows on my bed (in case my mom come in) and when I got that text at 11:30 pm I snuck out of my window and headed towards the AirTag Aaron sent me.
It was 20 minutes away, I was taking my bike because my car would make way too much noise and my moms would hear it, wake up, and be pissed.
I really should be studying for my finals. We graduate in 3 months and I’m honestly very nervous… so maybe it’s good to do something fun.
Maybe that’s why Aaron texted me; he’s stressed too…
The area i was in started to get sketchier and sketchier…
I saw several ladies of the night, homeless, and some very obvious drug deals.
I started to get weary when it said 12 minutes away down a dirt road covered in trees.
Fuck it.
I sped through the trees as fast as possible. I’m Afraid of the dark, sue me.
When I got to the clearing and it said I was 7 minutes away still… and I was right outside the (broken) gates of an old, giant, medical looking building. I’d be worried it’s another dumpster dive if it weren’t so creepy and abandoned…
I don’t know Aaron this place is super creepy 12:24
don’t be such a pussy 12:25
fine. But if I find this AirTag then I get to hit you twice in the nuts 12:27
deal. But you won’t need to 12:30
Whatever bro. Alright I got this. I put my bike down and walked up to the building, getting closer and closer to the tag. I noticed the sign on the front door…
LeeseDale institute for the mentally insane
Holy fucking shit… I took a deep breath, and looked down at my phone.
4 minutes
How far is a four minute walk really? Four minutes is nothing. Nothing.
I stepped through the open door and made my way inside, looks like I have to go straight, Down the dark, unlit hallways with tons of open doors on either side…
No big deal…
creeeeak
Whatthefuckwasthat?
I turned around in a flash
creeeeeeeak
It was just the door, moving from some wind. Everything’s cool.
I’m close to the AirTag and I’m almost an adult, this isn’t scary I’m fine.
I turned the flashlight on my phone on, and I made my way through the hallway, ignoring the shadows playing tricks on my eyes and the cracks and creaks from old floor boards. I was so close to the AirTag. Less that 2 feet. I was in an office, it smelled in here so bad. Probably water damage.
I started looking on shelves, filing cabinets, floor, dang why is he so good at this it’s so hard to look when you’re scared! I made my way to the desk, didn’t see any tag, but I was less than a foot away at the desk.
That’s when I noticed the chair was facing away from the desk, facing the window. I walked around the desk to check in the chair, I realized I was stepping in something sticky?
I was going to look down but I got distracted when I noticed something was in the chair…
I aimed my flashlight and saw Aaron’s body, from the torso up….
He was pale, blow flies swarming around him, crawling on his face and around the organs that were spilling out of him and onto the chair…
The smell was Aaron.
The light from my flashlight was bouncing off of the metal from the AirTag sticking out of his slightly open mouth.
His eyes were missing… His legs were missing… His arms…
I think I might vomit.
I aimed the flashlight down and saw that I was standing in a pool of Aaron’s blood.
I just started running…
And running…
I felt as if I would die if I stopped.
My heart was going to explode.
I didn’t stop running until I pounded on my front door.
It felt like I was at my front door in seconds, even tho I ran all the way home from a 15 minute bike ride.
I made it out somehow. I think I must have blocked it all out because I just remember finding Aaron and then being home, pounding on my front door shaking, begging my moms to call the cops and lock the doors…
One of my moms called the cops and the other held me while I sobbed, asking me for information that I just couldn’t give.
Why would someone do that to Aaron? He was an amazing person. He was my best friend. At Aaron’s funeral I said exactly that. It was hard watching him be buried, his parents were beside themselves.
As I laid down in bed that night I felt sick, and when my phone buzzed it got worse.
text message from Aaron
I froze in my bed…
No, please no….
I would like to play again 10:30