Did you know you can make your wishlist on your xbox public?
It was the first time I had noticed the option, a couple of weeks ago. I guess it made sense, you can make your wishlist public and then anyone could look at it and buy you a game, as a gift or something.
I am a lonely person who doesn’t really have any friends; I live with my mum in a three-story apartment, where I spend most of my time on the bottom floor, in my room playing video games on my Xbox One.
So, when I was bored and I was flicking through the Microsoft Store, I noticed the option to make my wishlist public and thought ‘Hey, why not?’
It was one of those small opening-up moments, where I think that I am making some first step to opening up to others and getting out of the isolated, cocoon room I called home, but in reality: I really wasn’t.
I have almost always struggled to make friends and the last time I had anyone I considered a friend, I was still in secondary school. Now, I am in my early 20s and have no one outside of my family I could truly call a friend.
This isn’t me opening up to the world or anything like that. This is me warning anyone who might read this.
Then that was it, I simply made my wishlist public and I thought no more of it, why should it matter; no one would bother looking at it. And if anyone did, why would they care?
Then, about a week later, out of the blue, I received a redeem code for one of the games on my wishlist from someone as a ‘gift’.
It was one of the £70 to £80 games on my wishlist, one of the ones which I was waiting to go on sale before buying: I am quite a cheapskate when it comes down to buying any games on xbox.
The gamertag was Fiend900, you know the usual gamertag of someone who just got their profile and hadn’t tailored their gamertag to their liking.
I just assumed it was an accident and messaged back telling him that he accidentally gifted me a game for quite a lot of money.
Almost seconds later, he messaged me back simply “Take it.”
Nothing else, “Take it.” Like it was no big deal. Though looking back, I think it was more of a command than a ‘Here, take this.’
What else could I do, there would have been no way that could have been a mistake. He literally told me to take it.
Fuck, I regret that! Maybe even more than making my wishlist public in the first place.
At the time, I assumed it was some kind of giveaway; like you see those streamers do – I don’t watch any streams or giveaway channels.
I thought then that was it. Though it was worth making my wishlist public, it did get me a rather-of-my-budget game I wanted.
But then he just kept giving me games over the next few days.
Even weirder, he would occasionally attach messages that criticised the games, or more specifically; me for playing those games.
They were quite creative criticisms, criticising the low-budget graphics, the repetitive gameplay and such.
Though, they felt aimed at me.
One I can remember was like “Huh, you really like wasting your time on this long, boring game? Get a life!” or “Really, this game? Do you really expand your gaming experience with this one? There are so many games you already have that are like this one. Grow up!” I half expected him to swear in his messages, but I guess he can’t.
When I was tired of his sarky remarks, I finally decided to message him back asking why he was being so judgemental of the games I played.
He replied “You are the one wishing for these games on your dumb little list. You are the one who chooses to waste your life on these fictional, fanboy games designed to drain your wallet. You are calling the shots! You should expect criticism!” or something like that.
I couldn’t argue with him, of course. But, I was still confused why he was doing this in the first place. I asked him and he said he was just being nice. Said “Do you not want these games? I don’t understand. I was just being nice.”
I also couldn’t argue with that; he bought me my games and I just accepted them without even a thank you. He felt too mean to thank, yet I couldn’t help but feel he might be lonely. It’s strange to think that now, but I did back then.
To me, Fiend was just some lonely, rich kid who only wanted attention.
Well, he had gotten his attention, but thinking this didn’t stop me from being upset by his retorts.
I decided to look at his xbox profile. I was shocked to see nothing.
He had played no games, had no followers, no friends, no numerical gamerscore of playing anything, nothing. It was as though he just made the profile.
Looking back, he must have made it about a week ago.
I just felt bad for him, perhaps I shouldn’t have, he could have made the profile just to mess with me somehow or even go as far as scam me in some way. But, I couldn’t help but feel he was some new kid who hadn’t made any friends where he lived and had just discovered xbox for the first time ever.
What else could I think?
Another week passed, and Fiend had bought me all of the games on my wishlist.
He must’ve spent about £300. I mean, none of the games he got me were on sale at the time. Who does this? But, if I am being completely honest; I did not question it at all. I wish I did.
I was going to try and thank him in some sort of way, I was going to ask whether he wanted to play a game with me. Not any he had gifted me, he didn’t have any, he didn’t seem to like them and they are mainly single-player games anyway.
So, I was going to ask whether he would want to play Overwatch 2 or maybe I could reinstall Fortnite; a game he can play for free.
But then as I was composing the message – like he knew what I was doing – he messaged me.
It was the weirdest message so far and I don’t think I will ever forget it. It simply read “I have given you what you value. Now, you owe me…”
I was like “What the actual fuck!” The message was so different from any other messages he had sent me: “You owe me…” What did that mean?
So, I replied “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you wanted something in return. Perhaps, you could refund some of the games you have given me.” I was trying to sound formal and polite, I had stumbled into something deeper than I had thought and he was clearly agitated. Though he couldn’t refund most of the earlier games he had given me, because I had already redeemed them, he could still refund some of the later games; the 2 or 3 I hadn’t redeemed yet.
Little did I know then, the next message was even weirder. He said, “No, you belong to me!”
I chuckled at this one, it sounded oddly sexual.
He had the wrong impression of me, so I messaged “Ok, I don’t know what you are thinking, but I am not interested in you in that way. I don’t even know who you are. I’m sorry.” I did realise how harsh that sounded, but I had to stand up for myself in a mature and adult fashion, he couldn’t treat me like this.
He repeated, “You belong to me.” Was he not getting the message?
“Listen, you seem like a nice person, but I do not know you. I am sorry.”
“You belong to me.”
“That’s enough, stop it! Or I am going to block you!”
“You belong to me.”
It was getting creepy. No matter what I messaged, he would just say “You belong to me.”
So, I blocked him.
Though, it did seem to take a while, not sure why; but my console was whirling noisily and getting very hot. Like when it boots up a demanding game. I ignored it.
Then, I reported him and simply said he was being creepy and toxic.
I moved on and that was that, at least for the rest of that day.
I will remember the next day until I die.
That morning was on a weekday, so I had to get up early in the morning to go to work. I get up at 6 a.m. and I am always the first to wake in the apartment. I did what I do every morning: I cleaned my teeth, got dressed and got ready to go.
I noticed I had left my xbox on overnight. I don’t think I had ever done that before, but it didn’t matter. I turned it off.
Before I leave every morning, I would open the blinds. Not to see anything, but so we, me and my mum, don’t look anti-social to people passing by. Though that morning, I did see something.
It was only there for a split second, yet I could have sworn I saw a naked, pale figure on the other side of the road, dashing off out of view. It was like it was trying not to be seen by me, like it was looking over and, as though it somehow knew I was opening the blinds, it ran off.
So when I saw it, I gasped and a second later looked down the road to see who it was.
Outside our apartment, you can see across the road with the only closest turn off the pathway on the opposite side being about 10 metres away.
It was gone. Somehow, it got out of sight within a single second.
Whether or not it turned around that corner to get out of sight, I will never know; there was nowhere else it could have gone.
Though it made me jump at the time, I had to move on with my day. So, I chalked it up to a jogger running past – they do that in my town early in the morning – or my imagination and I moved on, forgetting all about it.
Well, I didn’t forget about it. How could I? I had never seen anything like it before. It didn’t help that at work, I was listening to horror podcasts; most of which had pale, figured cryptids in them.
On my way home, I had that really strong feeling that someone, or something, was following me.
This wasn’t uncommon for me; when it was dark and uncrowded, but it was broad daylight and in the centre of the town market.
It’s not like I saw anything to give me that feeling, I just had that feeling.
I got home and once again my xbox was on. I distinctly remembered turning it off this time.
Perhaps, something brushed past the power button and turned it on. Like any Xbox One or 360, that happens from time to time. But, what could’ve brushed up against the button; my mum doesn’t go into my room without my knowledge, at least I strongly believe that she doesn’t. Nothing could have stirred in my room enough to power on my console by accident.
This reminded me of Fiend and our last chat. This was the first time I connected the strange figure from that morning to Fiend, though the idea that they were connected stressed me out too much to seriously consider.
I powered down my console and unplugged it.
Nothing felt wrong again until about 10 o’clock, I was watching Youtube on my laptop.
Markiplier was doing one of his ‘it’s behind you bits’ in a ‘3 Scary Games’ video: the cheesy, stupid humour that keeps me working all day.
Yet, I couldn’t shake the feeling. Something felt like it was behind me.
Like, maybe the room got colder by half a degree or I could faintly smell the salt of someone sweating in the room. I honestly don’t know. I could just feel it. Like when something has been removed from your room, even though you weren’t even conscious of that thing being there in the first place, and yet, you can just tell something is missing.
I spent the next half an hour looking at the screen for a minute or two and then glancing behind myself, seeing nothing.
Eventually, I paused the video I was watching and surveyed my room from my chair; spinning as a satellite dish would.
I think it was only for about 10 seconds, though it felt a lot longer. Looking and looking again to confirm and reconfirm that I was alone in my room. I even closed my eyes occasionally to try and hear anything in my room.
When I was satisfied, I turned back to my screen.
It was right there, right behind me!
Off the reflection of the darker side of my laptop screen, in the corner of my eye!
Saved as a screenshot in my brain forever – the same being looking in through my window that morning – drifting out of view.
From what I could see more clearly this time, it wasn’t human.
The skin was far too pale, more the skin of a corpse than anything else. Not that it was a corpse, in any sense, it was just the skin wrapped so tightly around its frame. Like a Skinwalker would wear the skin of a person, yet this thing’s skin was wrapped so tightly around its bones, that it had to have been the skin of somebody half its size.
It was naked, as it was before, and roughly the same size as me: though extremely slender and dangerously underweight.
That’s all I could say about it. I only saw its mid-section: torso and arms, but I think my mind would break if it saw anything else.
I don’t exactly know how I reacted.
I saw it only a moment longer than last time and was choking on a bit of saliva at the back of my throat. My hands were desperately trying to find my chair’s armrests to strangle and my legs were desperately trying to skid my chair away across the wooden, glossy floor.
Only a second passed until I could swallow and finally scream.
Yet, my scream only lasted 1 or 2 seconds, before my eyes started darting around the room to try and find it again.
And once more it was gone. Vanished completely from sight!
How could it just vanish when the direction it was moving in was towards the back of my room? Where did it go? Where could it go?
I found myself glancing at the xbox, yet this time it was off.
But, the feeling couldn’t elude me, that it was on and it just soundlessly turned itself off upon me looking at it. Like, when I was scanning my room; it was on in the background and I was too distracted by whatever else was in my room to notice it.
I didn’t know what else to do, but I had to catch my breath and steady my heartbeat; they were both running at 1000%.
I thought for quite some time, maybe an hour or so, I don’t know. I decided I should call it a day and I went to bed, hoping my dreams would let me escape my hellish hallucinations. That’s all I hoped they were: hellish hallucinations.
Do ding!
The sound of my console turning itself on woke me up. I didn’t budge much at first, I was still half asleep.
Do doo!
The sound of my console turning itself off. This time I opened my eyes.
It was pitch black and I had no inkling of the time. And I mean pitch black; my TV didn’t have its standby light on, my other console’s supply bricks were dead and anything that could admit any light was consumed by the darkness.
Do ding!
The light from the console was the only light which had power, even though it was unplugged. It came back on after about 10 seconds.
Do doo!
It turned off again after the same amount of time and the room went back to black. With nothing else to focus on, I focused my eyes on the corner of my room.
Do ding!
I noticed some movement in the corner. Like when you look out into the darkness and it looks like something is moving there, but then you notice nothing is moving there at all.
Do doo!
Focussing harder, it still looked that way. No matter how hard I would focus, the corner still looked occupied by something.
Do ding!
Wait. Something looked as though it was coming out towards me; a figure. So faint, yet so present.
Do doo!
I tried to move, panicked now. For some reason, I couldn’t.
Was this sleep paralysis? I had never experienced sleep paralysis before then, but people can hallucinate things when having sleep paralysis.
This was sleep paralysis, wasn’t it? Or was I scared stiff? I slammed my eyes shut and put my whole body weight onto them.
Do ding!
I was sure that thing was in front of me now, if I had opened my eyes I would finally realise my delusions. Yet, I couldn’t out of sheer fear.
I just tried to sleep instead, to escape into my world of dreams. Any nightmare I could conjure would have been better than this.
Do doo! Do ding! Do doo! Do ding!
I have no idea how many repetitions of that sound went by before I would open my eyes again. The sound which I would usually get a dopamine release every time I heard it, was then and will now and forever be just as daunting a noise as death’s bell.
I had to face it. I opened my eyes.
Do ding!
Nothing.
My console was still on, but there was nothing I could see. The repeating sound of my console had stopped.
It felt like I could finally breathe a fresh sigh of relief. That moment of joy was as blissful as water in a desert.
It was over until it wasn’t.
I felt it first at my feet, every nerve in my body was operating far above what was normal. The press against the foot of my bed, that of something leaning on it. Then, it stepped onto the mattress making the air within audibly gush very quietly. It felt like footsteps walking the length of the bed, just behind where I lay. It was so light, the same weight of shoes gently placed on the bed. Impossibly sparse for how big the entity was. Though, the thudding of its steps was still audible, only just.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
It stopped at the head of the bed for a second, before finally slinking down into a lying position just behind me, forbidding any physical contact with me by only a few inches.
My heart was leaping from my chest.
But, then I could feel its breathing. It was heavy, like a pig in heat. I could feel the moisture from its breath settle on the nape of my neck and the strands of what I believed to be its thin hair whip softly against the new damp spot. Yet, once more, it sounded so quiet; so impossibly quiet for how heavy its breathing was.
Though throughout this, I still could not move; proving it was fear I was under the power of, not mere sleep paralysis. My body had locked itself in place like my joints were filled with cement.
Time passed before it was whispering something. I couldn’t hear what it was saying at first, its voice was so soft and silent.
It was repeating something. My name. Every word sharpened its unseen tongue again and again. Sharper and sharper and sharper and sharper.
Then finally, it spat out slowly: “You, owe, me… You belong to me!”
‘Do doo!’
The room fell still, just as it should have been, in a single instant.
The unplugged console was off and all the other standby lights had power again, giving the room a light, artificial glow.
I couldn’t say how my body was; it had unlocked itself, but all my organs and joints felt weak.
I felt the covers behind me: it was gone.
I don’t know how I slept after that, but I can say I most likely passed out.
The next morning, I told work I felt a bit too ill to come in. That wasn’t entirely false.
I knew I had to do something, this ‘entity’ wasn’t going away.
So, I started with the obvious and considered calling the police. I would have told them that something was stalking me and that it had gotten into my room somehow, got into bed with me and left without leaving any trace of its presents behind.
Oh, and that it was a fourth-dimensional pervert. That would have gotten me a nice, warm bed in the loonie bin.
I considered telling mum, but though she is more likely to believe me, I don’t want her to get involved. I have no idea how this thing operates.
So, I decided that I need to know more about this thing.
I plugged my xbox back in and looked for Fiend or who I believed was my invader from last night.
I did expect I wouldn’t find anything new, but the profile was gone.
No, not deleted, just outright gone.
The chats I had with Fiend, the redeem codes I had gotten from him, the fact I reported/blocked his profile, all of it: gone.
I still had the games from Fiend, but that was it.
So, I gave up on that idea and tried searching google for this entity.
This was also a dead-end however, I couldn’t find any demons who operate like this being or any mythical creatures that capture humans through Xbox Live. I tried cryptids and, well let’s just say there are more pale, slender cryptids than I thought on the internet.
Maybe, it was how I was researching this thing? Though, I don’t know how to search the internet for anything like this in the first place.
I have had no luck finding anything out about this entity.
But, maybe I could evade this thing? Perhaps, I could get far enough away from my console to lose it? It may have found me at work, but maybe it has a range limit.
Though, this was assuming it is tied down to my console somehow. And I don’t think I have it in me to run away; I would have to disappear, change my name and everything that makes me who I am. I don’t think I could make my mum go through that.
I was running out of ideas. The best one I had was going back onto my xbox to find out more about Fiend. That idea was going in the right direction but I needed a new lead.
Then I thought, maybe Microsoft could help me. I called their customer service line.
From what I could find out from them: you can’t delete an xbox profile; only change your gamertag, profiles don’t just disappear and that my story was crazy and I should be contacting the police or someone I knew who could ‘help’ me.
Though, when I was about to throw in the towel and hang up, the young woman who I was speaking to said something sympathetically along the lines of “Look, have you shared your wishlist with anyone?”
I told her no and said, “I saw the option, but I had no reason to select it.”
“Well, then I know your story is false,” she replied, sounding more hopeful. “If this person was giving you games, then they would be doing it blindly. Even if you made your wishlist public, no one should be able to see it unless you shared it with someone else before.”
“What?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“I had this issue with one of my friends before. The option should be left of the ‘settings’ option on your wishlist. When you select this and you have set your wishlist to ‘public’, then it should give you the option to share your wishlist with other people. Otherwise, no one should be able to view it.”
I froze when she said this. My mind was a mess. If what she said was true; then everything I had experienced up until then was supposed to be impossible.
“H-hello?” she spoke through the phone after I didn’t respond.
All I could do at that moment was tell her I had to go and hang up the phone.
I looked over at my console and I was fairly sure it was looking back at me. Whatever I provoked, it was because of my xbox: it had found me.
I saw red. I picked up the console and as hard as I could, I threw it down. It smashed into the hard ground and I went to pick it up again and I threw it again and again and again. I did this until it looked more like a wrecked car than an Xbox One.
I then opened the door to my closet and dumped it on the hard closet floor. I did feel a pang of pain because I did enjoy playing games on it. But, I felt this had to be done.
After that, I gave up and started writing this.
I don’t know what to conclude; I didn’t learn anything from this.
Something found my wishlist on my xbox – through some unknown means, I cannot say how; it could have hacked me for all I know –, bought me the games on it and started to stalk me.
What it is, I can only guess it came from somewhere beyond our reality and does not follow the same logic as we do.
It came looking for somebody, maybe specifically me. Maybe I have something it wants.
Though I don’t know what it wants with me, I can say it does not have good intentions. That I can be sure of.
I do think, however, this thing somehow bought me with the games it gave me. It gave me those games knowing I would take them without question and when I did, this thing found me.
If I didn’t take those games, maybe it wouldn’t have found me. Maybe, it doesn’t matter; maybe it would find me anyway.
Please, whatever you do, do not make this same mistake.
This happened to me, but this could still happen to anyone else.
Maybe my situation is unique. Even if this is the case, supernatural or not, there will be someone out there that will want to use you. Someone with ill intentions that, if he ever gets the chance, will try to manipulate you. Offer you gifts, which you take without even meeting them first, and then that person will start demanding things from you; favours, money, influence or even your very body.
The kindness of strangers cannot be blindly trusted, because they may want something in return.
If only I had the chance to go out and socialise. Well, I did, but I didn’t take it. And that just led me to this point.
Perhaps, you can’t trust the kindness of strangers, but you could still go out into the world and meet people who you can trust. People who like you and respect who you are. People who you can see in the flesh and don’t ask for anything in return.
Because, when you get to know a person, they stop being a stranger. I just hope you have the strength I never had. I think it’s too late for me.
I can hear my console power up from my closet. Despite the fact it doesn’t look like an Xbox One anymore; it apparently still works fine.
Listen to this at least; if you can find someone on xbox with the gamertag Fiend900, then get away from it; it is not human and will only mean you ill will.
I think it is calling to me. I must face it, I don’t know why but I feel like I need to face it. I don’t think I could live with myself if I didn’t.
I’ve got to go.