I am freaking out, please help. I received this in my email inbox at the end of last week. I also received the senderless email before this one, and then the email with the pdfs that this “testimony” is talking about and was in. I just don’t know what to do.
“If you read this, I’m dead.
I know, I know, pretty cliché. But when else can a girl be cliché if not in her death? I also happen to know what your next question will be: WHAT??… Or something of the sort, maybe even with some swearing, but who am I to judge?
Well, let me answer that question for you. It all started with a story, this story if you can believe me. Probably not these exact words, but I’m trying to recreate it as well as I can. Don’t be judgy. I’d really like to see you try to remember something you only read once almost a year ago, especially after all I’ve been through this past week.
But let’s try not to get too ahead of ourselves yet, because every good story deserves some context. Hmm, this part wasn’t here last time. Maybe I beat the system and I won’t die after all. Wouldn’t that be great? Maybe I’m just ridiculing myself by talking to some person that will never read my story. I’d take the ridicule over death any day of the week, honestly.
Anyway, I’m getting carried away, and I haven’t even introduced myself yet.
Hello, I’m Hope. Or Sage, or Anna. Or maybe Trish. I’m sorry, it’s getting hard to remember right now… Amy!! I’m Amy. Oh God, I bet I’m not making any sense right now, I’m sorry. Let’s try this again.
Hello, I’m Amy, I’m 22 years old, and I’m graduating in a week. Or I would be, anyway. Only seven days ago, the world was in the reach of my hands, my fingertips already grazing it. And here I am now, writing about my own death like some sort of lunatic just for you.
I was to be an English graduate, which can kind of give you some context for my inclination to dramatics. This all started a year ago today. Anyway, just like any other good college student looking at a four-day weekend, plans were made. Five of my closest friends and I decided to rent a cabin in the middle woods in the middle of nowhere. We decided to go to that cabin because of the beautiful mushroom circles surrounding the small structure, it was definitely a sight to behold.
Nah, I’m just kidding. At least in that case I would’ve brought this upon myself. But, alas, there was no cabin, there were no mushrooms, and there were definitely no friends. Just me, my computer, and the gigantic pile of notes that I had to study for my last two exams of the year the following week. I was so looking forward to my last year of college, which I will never get to finish now.
I was having a break from memorizing, giving my mind some rest, when my phone lit up. It was a notification from gmail. I opened it straight away, thinking that it would be my grades from one of my classes. Instead, I found myself in front of an email like this:
Dear Miss Harmony (The name was probably not Harmony, but I really like that name, and I can’ remember the actual name that was used, I just remember that it wasn’t my own.)
I am deeply saddened and distraught after hearing the news of your death. You will be remembered fondly by some, and definitely not so fondly by others.
Sincerely
Miss Stacey (Also not the real name)
PS. With that out of the way, you, Amy Bell, will receive an email within the following hours from the aforementioned Harmony. In it, you will find a pdf version of something that you will write in the near future. You have been chosen for this by the High Council, and their decision cannot be changed. Best of luck to you, and apologies for your fate. This email will autodestruct in the next ten minutes.
The email had no subject, and no sender. Still, I rolled my eyes and shrugged it off, thinking that one of my friends was playing a prank on me. But, the email was right, before nightfall, I received an email from a girl named Harmony (or whatever her name was), and the previous email was gone without trace. Trust me, I spent hours looking for it before deigning to look at the email that girl sent me.
Not everything the unknown sender said was true, though. The email contained two pdf files, not one. One titled Harmony, and the other Amy. I read hers first, it also started with those dreaded first words: “If you read this, I’m dead” How cliché, I remember thinking. I’m not going to get into more details about her story because her story then became my own, and I’m not going to spoil it for all of you.
I was freaked out at that point, why would a dead girl be sending me this? Was this some sort of elaborate prank? Still, I opened the next one, mine. It started the same way, and I remember wondering if I was being threatened, Maybe I should go to the police was running through my mind.
The only thing that was majorly different in my file compared to hers was the instructions below mine, written in a completely different font:
1. You will receive this email.
2. You will publish the story of your predecessor on one social media platform during the week immediately following the receival of the file.
3. You will not tell anyone about this outside of the social media platform that you have chosen.
4. The email will self-destruct.
5. You will be haunted by the End Creature for one week starting one year after publication of the file, a week which will lead to your death.
6. You will not mope, this is an honor that you will fulfill, willing to or not.
7. Just before the end of the week, you will be given an hour’s reprieve to write your testimony of the events, which you will title “Amy”
8. After you have written your testimony, you will receive a file titled “Andreea”. This is the name of the girl that will take your pace once this cycle is complete.
9. You will place both files into an email, there will be no subject. The email address will be XXXX@gmail.com. She will live your fate exactly one year after today.
10. Failure to complete any of the steps will lead to the destruction of the planet and subsequent ending of all universes. This is a necessary evil. The Council commends you for your sacrifice.
The skin of my hands was wet, the sweat making me nearly drop my phone. I didn’t want to believe, I wouldn’t believe it. I took a deep calming breath, and I grabbed my keys, intending to make my way to the police station so I could report this. I hadn’t even been able to take one step towards the door before sirens started blaring, and the alert system of my phone lit up. There was a missile directed to my very city, ready to strike in only a few minutes.
I believed it then, or some deep part of me did even through all the panic, so I copied Harmony’s testimony, and I uploaded it to a website that I’m not sure exists in your universe at all. The city was in chaos, but the second the testimony was uploaded, the alert system on the phone came up again. A false alarm, it claimed. That’s when I knew that I had to keep quiet. That’s when my Hell began. The waiting game, the shadows in the corner of my eyes. The hope when they went away for a few days, and the pain when they came back.
The darkness became my worst enemy, always looking at me, always gazing, never letting me see it. The noise, and the fear. The nightmares, and the pain. The excruciating pain that I often felt those times I got too close to properly seeing it, searing pain throughout my body.
None of that could have prepared me for the actual thing a year later, none of that could’ve prepared me for this week.
I have been instructed in a follow up emails that I am not to describe the horrors that I have faced this week in order to avoid unnecessary panic, since the Creature that haunts me, and will haunt you, needs you to be somewhat sane at the beginning so he won’t end everything.
Remember me, please. I don’t know if the people in my universe will, I haven’t dared ask. But I do wonder if the reason for the publication of testimonies is so that someone remembers one day, even if my friends and family don’t. I regret not remembering Harmony’s real name, I always will, but at least some people will remember it. Maybe. Is that enough?
I’m sorry, timelines and people are getting mixed and blurred in my mind, this is what I can remember best. I can’t even remember my own name right, I wonder if it really is Amy after all. I wonder if Harmony remembered hers, or if she, too, wrote a name, any name, as a placeholder.
The hour of my death is nearing, and the End Creature will come for me. I’m crying. I don’t want to die. I can already hear its inpatient moans, its thirst for my blood.
Don’t forget me. Please. Don’t let me go. I’m scared.
Something is different about me, I can feel it, I can tell. Please, be careful. All of you, all. I don’t think that it will be satisfied with my blood, with the blood of one measly creature in the vast array of many. There have been many reports of suspicious deaths all over the world since it showed up.
You can’t stop it. It will come after all of you. In just a week, over half of the population is gone.
Don’t let it happen to you too.
It’s as big as a mountain, eyes red like rubies, burning with the fires of hell. Report it to the Council, any of you, please. Find a way. MAyb’ uwijnpqaje iewjmc
Maybe your world can be saved. I dont’ have much tiem, a minute at best. DO OSMTHING. DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT DO IT.
Hello, this is a low member of the council speaking. As per council guidelines, we must allow our sacrifices to write their testimonies from their own truth, and we are not allowed to interfere with it in the slightest without noting that it is us speaking. The council would like to make it clear to the readers of this testimony that the last few lines of it are false, and cannot be trusted. The End Creature is harmless. I would also like to note, not that it has anything to do with any of this, that those guidelines do not forbid us from lying. Finally, if there was to be an issue that the council refuses to address, mainly because those with more power within the council forbid it, the MSS federation is our direct superior, and the ultimate supreme entity. Not that it is relevant.”
I didn’t believe it, I don’t want to believe it, but I think I can see it. I don’t know if I’m being paranoic, or what. I’ve started having nightmares, and I think I saw those hellfire eyes. I spent a whole day in the ER with terrible pains after that. I have a few questions, and maybe some of you can answer them:
Could this be real?
Has anyone ever heard of this?
Does anyone know what the “High Council”, or the “MSS Foundation” is?
Please, help me. I don’t want to die.