It was a long awaited Friday night. On the rare occasion my shitty fast food job gave me my days off on the weekend, I would celebrate. Not with a family or anything–I’m not quite ready for such a thing. But by going out for a beer with a couple of friends. They each had weekends off in their construction job. Weekends they would spend partying and going out to rodeos.
I envied them, to say the least. Their brand new trucks and the wads of cash they would flex on Facebook. Man, even their chemistry. They would post stories of them pranking one another and drinking on the job.
Burger King is the polar opposite. Only good stories I see there are the ones my miserable coworkers tell each other. “They cut off my food stamps.” or “Yup, it’s his fucking week again. Can you believe he’s taking the kids to six flags? God, who does he think he is?”
Sorry. I can get a little off track when talking about others. I-I don’t know. Maybe I was cursed with the power to read people so well?
Which was why when I got a ding from Facebook, I pressed it right away.
While I was at home, waiting for my friends to arrive and pick me up, I scrolled through Facebook. Time passed, viewing stories of family members and supposedly funny posts they would share. None of them were funny.
I was watching a video a Mr. Bean doing Mr. Bean things, when my messenger dinged. Out of instinct, I pressed on the notification without even reading it. I had assumed it was my friends texting me “I’m here.” or something. The chatbox loading circle spun and spun. No profile picture on the top banner. No option to call or video chat. Just spinning circles.
Odd. I thought.
My Wi-Fi was the best possible speed that Xfinity had to offer. So this should’ve been loaded by now. A minute passed, my fingers fidgeting in the meantime.
Fuck this. I tossed my phone on the couch and walked into my bathroom. Soles of my boots clinked. Keys jingled in my pocket. I sighed, staring at the shattered reflection before me. Ah damn, how had I not seen this earlier? My thick eyebrows were not symmetrical.
Swinging open the mirror cabinet, I pulled out my tweezers from the organized grooming supplies. Quickly but carefully, I squeezed out the stubborn hair from the middle of my brows and everywhere else that seemed even a bit uneven. Leaning that close to the mirror, my concentrated breath fogged up my reflection. Wait, did I even brush my teeth? No, no. I rummaged through the bathroom drawers, but halted when I heard a distorted voice coming from the living room.
“Enrique? Ariel?” I shouted into the darkness of my apartment, “I’ll be out in a sec!”
I noticed that the voice never stopped talking. Even when I was talking. Were they having their own convo? No, it’s one voice.
Oh, right. That text that wouldn’t load. It must’ve accidentally dialed Ariel or Enrique when I threw it.
I brushed my teeth and made my way over to the living room.
Sitting down on the couch, small dust particles rose up and drifted down. I grabbed my phone and saw the text box loaded. A voice message, spanning one minute, awaited me. It was sent by…
No one. There was no name. No profile picture. Just white. Weird. But I brushed it off as technical problems on Facebook’s end.
I pressed play.
The distorted and crackly voice of an elderly woman exploded out from the phone speakers. I jumped out of my own skin, quickly rushing to turn down the volume.
“…this is not a warning. The day of reckoning is upon us. Please forward this message to five friends or else something tragic will happen to you. Remember, Jesus will be watching.”
Fuck, I missed everything before that. What the hell did she say? I went to replay the message, but it poofed away. As if this was one of those messages that disappear after being seen. A button materialized from where the voice message has been prior. ‘Forward’, it said.
What is this, the early 2000s? Who uses these kinds of scams anymore? I chuckled and turned my phone off.
Headlights shined through my window, and seven continuous honks boomed throughout the entire neighborhood. Enrique and Ariel. I rolled my eyes, walking outside and locking the door behind me.
It might as well have been day time with these high beams shining directly at me. I shielded my eyes, walked to the side of the truck, and hopped in.
“Rickyyyyy,” the two said in unison, mimicking that Boyz n the Hood line as if it were still funny.
“Yooooo!”
“Are you fucking hype? This is gonna be the best night you’ve had in ages!” Enrique said, turning to face me from the driver’s seat.
“Y-Yeah man, let’s do it.”
Ariel let out a mesmerizing giggle. She waved a little baggie in front of me, sealing in the trance. “Should we give him some?”
Enrique looked at her then back at me. “Fuck it.”
“Nah man, I cool.”
They laughed. Enrique floored it in reverse, and we hit the road.
***
We pulled back into my driveway. High beams lit up my house like a fire. My vision was wavering. It felt like I was viewing the world submerged underwater. Never, never again will I take whatever the fuck they gave me.
I let go of my grip on a heavy, cold metal object. My ears rang.
I stumbled out of the truck without acknowledging what I had just done and trudged to the entrance. My shadow loomed over my entire apartment.
Making my way inside, I just collapsed on the couch. Even the darkness was wavering, a pool of water mixed with black food coloring.
I sighed and pulled out my phone for the first time since I left. It greeted me with that same damn forward button. What the hell? I tried to swipe out of the app, but in my haze, I accidentally pressed the button.
Eh, why not? It’ll be a funny little prank. I thought to myself, as I forwarded it to Enrique, Ariel, and three other names I couldn’t be bothered to read.
I let myself drown in sleep.
I awoke with the worst headache I’ve ever had. It felt like a tiny minion was inside my head, swinging a sledgehammer to my skull. Ah, fuck! All I could do was roll over to my side and throw up onto my vinyl floor.
I wiped my lips with my red-stained dress shirt and pulled out my phone. Facebook will heal this. Turning down the brightness, I opened up Facebook.
On the top right there were Five unread messages. Who would be texting me–
Oh, right. That stupid voice message I forwarded to five people. I tapped the icon.
“Thank you for opening my eyes.” They read. All five of them had the exact same message with the exact same punctuation. It freaked me out. Was this their way of pranking me back?
As I was going to open one of the messages, a message request caught my eye. I knew what it was gonna be. Another one of those stupid voice messages sent to me because I was gullible enough to forward the last one.
I accepted the request and opened it.
“Congratulations, Jesus is proud.” What. The. Fuck?
I stared at the message in disbelief. This couldn’t be real. I must still be groggy from last night…
My fingers trembling, I began typing a response. “Who is this? What do you mean, ‘Jesus is proud’?” I hit send, my anxiety growing with each passing second. The response came back almost immediately, as if the sender had been waiting for my message.
“Your act of faith has been noted. Prepare for the unveiling.”
Unveiling? What unveiling? What in the world was going on? I was about to type another message when a strange sensation washed over me. It was as if the surrounding air was thickening, and a faint, otherworldly light began to suffuse the room. I looked around, my heart pounding in my chest.
This had to be some kind of elaborate prank. Had Enrique and Ariel set this up? No… That’s impossible. How would they?
Then, as if emerging from thin air, a figure materialized before me. It was a figure clad in robes, surrounded by an aura of luminous energy. The room seemed to pulse and I could hardly believe my eyes.
It was… Jesus.
He stood there, gaze fixed upon me. His eyes seemed to hold the weight of millennia. His presence was both beautiful and terrifying. I stumbled backward, my mind unable to process what I was witnessing. This couldn’t be real. It simply couldn’t.
“You have heeded the call,” he spoke, “The chain was not one of mere messages but of belief, of connection. Your actions have set a greater force in motion.”
I tried to speak, to form words, but my mouth was dry, and my thoughts were a chaotic whirlwind. This was impossible. I must have gone completely mad.
“Humanity is at a crossroads,” Jesus continued, his gaze unwavering. “The digital realm has become a conduit for belief and intention. Your act of forwarding the message was a catalyst, an opening of the door between the material and the spiritual.”
I felt a mixture of fear, wonder, and disbelief. This was too much for any mortal to comprehend. “But… why me?” I managed to stammer.
“You were chosen, not by me, but by your own actions,” Jesus replied. “You embraced the unknown, even in the face of doubt. Your belief, however small, carried power.”
My head throbbed as I struggled to form proper thoughts. Glimpses of last night came back to me. I was holding a gun… In the back seat of the car. My ears rang for some reason, it wasn’t the drugs… “H-Hold on. What did I do?” I shut my eyes down hard.
“You believed in yourself.” I opened my eyes and… No one was there. I was staring at a pile of clothes, side-lit by some bright light.
I dashed to the window, seeing it was still nighttime. The headlights… They gave the illusion of it being day. I darted outside, running over to the side of the truck.
Thick red liquid oozed out of the truck door. Through the tinted windows, there was the glow of a cell phone.
I inched forward for a better view.
Bloody fingerprints covered the screen. It was opened up to… My forwarded message.