Video games used to be so fun. Me and my friends would play all the time and rarely ever got sick of gaming. But nowadays gaming makes you feel numb in a certain way, the repetitiveness is depressing and theres no joy in it anymore. Thats what i said to myself after a short hour of playing the latest call of duty with the boys. Dave suggested we look for a new game to download so we all looked through all the new releases but nothing really caught our attention. Either cheap games with no effort put into them or overpriced ones. Until we found a game called “CHOOSE CAREFULLY”. It seemed like one of those games where the story is based on the choices you make for your character, and it was a multiplayer game. We all got a bit of hope that maybe this game could actually be good after Brian pointed out that it was released a couple days ago so we immediately downloaded it. The game took a couple hours to download so we all decided to go to bed and that we would play during the weekend.
A FEW DAYS LATER
Once it was Friday, we all texted in the group chat and said that we would be on in 10 minutes. I booted up the game and was met with a screen so dark i could see my self in the reflection. the screen and a small text in red that said “CHOOSE CAREFULLY”. I put on my headset and joined the voice call and was met with giggles of excitement. “What are we waiting for boys? Let’s start!” Isaac said.
We started the game and the screen displayed a character selection tab. I cycled through until i found one that weirdly resembled me. it didn’t have the same name but physically kind of looked like me and had similar personality attributes. I told my friends and they all said the same thing. each one of us had a character that were kind of like clones of us in a way. We chalked it up to a weird but cool coincidence and started the game. The way the game was made was sort of like a movie, we didn’t get to control the movements of our characters but we decided all their choices and actions. A text appeared saying that the point of the game was to get these 4 characters successful in their lives. It started off with the 4 main characters sitting in a living room hanging out.
We got our first choice, get up and do something productive or sit on the couch and play video games. We all laughed and decided to do something productive. We pressed the select button and our characters got up and decided to go to their jobs and work harder. Brian’s character ended up getting a promotion for the hard work. Dave’s character got a “good job” speech from his boss and Isaac’s boss gave him a one dollar raise. My character ended up getting a promotion as well. We all thought in agreement that even though the theme of the game seemed boring something about it was cool, maybe it was the fact that we could relate to our character or something but either way we enjoyed it. We ended up going to bed not long after because we wanted to spend some time with our family’s instead of just playing video games.
MONDAY
I woke early and made myself a bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee. There must have been something in the air that day because i was feeling very joyful, maybe that video game inspired me to do better because i was actually happy to go to work. I work as a customer service provider for a well known company in Quebec. I usually have to deal with a lot of entitled people or just flat out mean and rude customers, but something told me that today was going to be a good day.
When i got to work, i put my headset on and started taking calls and doing some paper worked i hadn’t finished the week before. Most of the calls i got we’re pretty good. The customers we’re nice and patient and as was i. The day was coming to a end and i was getting ready to leave before my boss signalled to me to go talk to him in his office. I grabbed my stuff and walked over to his office and sat down.
“Listen Mike, i just wanted to tell you that you’ve been doing a great job and you’re working very hard, and i want you to know that we’ve noticed that and appreciate it. We’ve decided to promote you to supervisor of customer service, which includes a pay raise.” When i heard those words, i immediately got a flashback of that game we played. i thought, “this is just a coincidence right? It’s got to be”. I thanked my boss and left my workplace. On the drive back home, i called my friends and told them what just happened and they replied with the fact that they all had the same thing happen to them. It was like whatever happened in the game, happened in real life. We all thought it was crazy, but the only way to know for sure was to play again and see if it would happen again.
LATER THAT NIGHT
I got home and waited for the boys to get home as well. In the meantime i just that there and dreamt of all the things i could do for the better if it was actually true that whatever happens in the game, happens in real life. I also thought of all the bad that could happen, but i tried not to focus on that. Once the boys got home, we made a FaceTime call and loaded up the game. As the game started, we we’re met with a new choice to make, this one a bit weirder. The screen displayed two choices, invest a lot of money into a small business, or dont spend any money and do nothing. We all exchanged uncertain glances, hesitating between caution and boldness. Finally, after a moment of deliberation, we decided to take the risk and invest in the business. The Months that followed after playing every week were marked by a series of unexpected events. The businesses we had invested in started to thrive, our projects coming to life before our eyes. We received praise at work, opportunities unfolded before us, and our lives seemed to be changing in a radical way.
5 MONTHS LATER
Life was going great, we were successful, had loving family’s, and happy. but all of sudden things took a dark turn. One night, we were playing the game like we normally do to keep being successful. But this time, we had a very unsettling choice. “Rob a bank, or suffer the consequences”. The call went silent. We didn’t know what to say, but Brian just laughed and said “what is the game gonna do? we should just not rob the bank and nothing will happen because its just a game, sure its been helping us be successful but it wont kill us”. We still weren’t convinced that the game wouldn’t cause us harm but we listened to Brian and chose “suffer the consequences”.
The next day was when everything went to shit. I was mowing the lawn outside and, i cant even think about it without throwing up, i ran over my cat with the lawnmower. i cant describe how much blood and guts were splattered all over me. But that isn’t all, Isaac’s, sister got into a car accident, she survived but was severely injured. Brian was playing basketball and when he jumped, he landed on the side of his foot and broke his ankle. Dave lost his wife that day cause by an unexpected heart attack. It was a terrifying and tragic day. We tried deleting the game but it wouldn’t work, so we tried just not playing anymore but every day we didn’t play terrible stuff happened to us so we were forced to keep playing. All i could think was that i wish we would’ve never downloaded that game, but it was too late, our fate had been practically decided for us.
ONE MONTH LATER
Today, was the worst of all the days we’ve been playing. We had to make the hardest decision of our lives. As we we’re playing, A big text appeared on the screen and we all got a bit of hope in our souls. The screen said, “ FINAL DECISION”. We assumed that meant that we finally reached the last choice of the game, and that after we would be free. But just as we got excited, our hearts sank. The choice we had to make was, “KILL ONE OF EACH OTHER, OR YOUR FAMILY’S PERISH”. Under the text was another smaller text that said “ ONE OF YOU MUST DIE BY MIDNIGHT”. We started panicking and didn’t know what to do, but just then i got an idea. My plan was to pretend to kill one of the boys. I knew it was a dumb plan, but it was the only plan that had a chance to work without anyone dying.
We set the scene up and once 11pm came we did the best acting we could do. i pretend to stab Isaac in the chest with a retractable knife, and Isaac had a plastic bag of fake blood under his shirt. It looked real, but i had a feeling it wouldn’t work, so i went into the kitchen and grabbed a real knife. i waited in the kitchen for 10 minutes trying to bring myself to do it. I needed to save my family, OUR family’s. I walked back into Isaac’s room, and stabbed him 3 time’s in the chest to make sure he was really dead. i covered my tracks and went home, horrified and disgusted with myself. I didn’t sleep that night. The next morning, we all checked on our family’s and everyone was all right. we checked the game on our consoles and the game had deleted itself and we had a feeling that it was over. I came clean to the boys and we we’re all in agreement that one of us had to actually die in order to end this. We tried to move on as best we could with our lives and ended up not talking to each other as often. Even though we lost our best friend, life seemed to be coming back to normal.
ONE YEAR LATER
Im sitting at my desk writing this down because something terrifying happened again, otherwise what happened to us would have never been revealed to the public. Earlier today, i opened up my console because i wanted to play call of duty, but i got a notification saying a new game was available for pre-order. I opened up the store what i saw made my jaw drop. “COMING SOON: CHOOSE CAREFULLY 2”.