Note: If you are under the age of 20 and experience any of these symptoms while reading this, they’ve already got you.
At this point, side effects ONLY occur if you watch this show, but I can’t be sure.
Symptoms include: A pulsing headache, visual disturbances, a nosebleed, nausea and vomiting, and you are suddenly hot to the touch/leaving scorch marks where you have been standing/sitting.
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Over 80,000 young people are reported missing across the United States every year.
Some have their lives mercilessly torn from them– while others remain a cold case and their families never get closure.
The lucky ones, however?
We give them a second chance—a chance to be great, to be remembered in a world full of mediocrity.
That was the opening narration, and the exact moment I realised I wasn’t watching a show about Tik-Tok influencer’s living in a mansion. It was something different—something I couldn’t click out of. I couldn’t stop watching.
I.
Couldn’t.
Stop.
Watching.
…
…
…
To preface this, I want to say I was curious.
Who hasn’t been curious about the Hype House show?
Well, I’ll say morbidly curious.
We all know what that show entails, and honestly, the only people it entertains are kids under the age of 13 and react channels. I mean everyone was talking about it. I’d heard about it everywhere, and I couldn’t escape it. Their scantily dressed starlet’s and over the top dramatics all over Instagram and Tik-Tok were a gold mine for the biggest react Youtubers.
I don’t have Netflix, but if you look hard enough these days and bypass those annoying ads, there are some good pirate sites. I’m not going to give you the name because you would have to be fucking insane to willingly watch this show, so I’m using a stand-in name. The last thing I want is anyone else discovering this. I’d be doing those bastards jobs for them. Anyway… let’s call the site Movie123.
I was surprised to see only the poster available. Usually, there were a lot more details about the show or movie, like the director and cast, some kind of description or maybe a quote to get the viewer’s attention.
This website didn’t have any of that. It just had the poster which was a stretched-out picture of a well-known influencer I’d forgotten the name of—and the supposed release year: 2022. So yeah, I was pretty skeptical from the get-go.
Still though, I checked out the names for each episode, scrolling down.
“HYPE HOUSE” SEASON 5.
Were there really that many seasons?
I was sure the series only started this year.
4 episodes:
Episode 1 - Move.
Episode 2 - Sink or Swim.
Episode 3 - It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here.
Episode 4 – Stitch.
Clicking on episode 1, it was the narration which pulled me in.
“Do you know what the G4 gene is?” A youngish woman’s voice startled me. Her voice was like windchimes, a hypnotizing melody which stopped me from clicking off so I could bask in her presence. I’m not sure what surprised me more, the camera quality or the change in backdrop. I was expecting Californian mansions and sunny blue skies. What I got, however, was vastly different. It was night, shots switching between a mostly empty road and two people in a car. A man and a woman. The woman was driving, and the man was holding the camera—every so often pointing it at himself and wiping the lens.
“Sure.” He said, “Like the Xmen, right?”
“That is fiction.” She said, “This is reality—or at least the closest we will get to that sort of thing.”
He pointed the camera at the woman—a pretty petite redhead with a matching manicure. She was squeezing the steering wheel a little too hard. “For our viewers watching,” she said, shooting the camera a smile, “The G4 gene is what we call an abnormality in young people on the cusp of adulthood. Nobody knows how it came to be. Some say it’s a case of evolution, others, our far more idiotic scientists might I add, speculate closer to fiction. Like space dust, too much antibiotic intake, and even a brand-new virus yet to be discovered.” She cleared her throat. “The G4 gene is none of those things. It is a mutation.”
“Yeah. Like the Xmen.”
She ignored that, continuing.
“Common viruses have their mutations—it works like that. When manifested it can cause what we call a brainstorm which sounds scary, but really, it’s just another fancy word we added to our vocabulary. A brainstorm is simply another word for blossoming, manifestation, uh– development.” At that point I searched again for TV credits on the page, but there was none.
She kept speaking while I scrolled. “It’s not a hindrance. I mean, it’s not even noticeable unless certain measures are taken—which can include induced stress and pain. However, we’ve figured out that those are not necessary. So far, the G4 gene has only manifested during moments of immense pain and fear. Think of the scariest thing you’ve ever seen and imagine it stalking you at every turn– a monster which won’t leave you alone. That amount of fear can trigger it. Presently, however, we have developed a much easier way to find people with it. Which is why we’re doing this, ah, show, of course.”
“You mean—”
“Yes. Through the wonders of technology, we have the answer. And all it takes is one look. Just a simple glance,” she took a breath like she was enjoying her own words, exhilarated by them. “You know how a virus attaches itself to a host and replicates? This is very similar, but it does so in a very different way. The subject will already be weak minded from what they are watching. All it takes is a little push—and then a slap to the face. And bam. The little brats are doing our jobs for us.”
The car took a turn into a fancy looking suburban neighborhood—the type with white picket fences and symmetrical gardens.
“Why only children at the cusp of adulthood?”
The man changed the subject, his voice gravelly. He was the same age, bald, wearing a red baseball cap.
“It’s always kids. And sure, I get it, it’s all evolution bullshit. But why only affect a very specific age group?”
“Nobody knows.” The woman replied in a sigh, “We think it’s just a matter of a developing body and brain.”
The woman continued her monologue in the background while the camera zoomed in on each door number. I wasn’t sure the man was listening. “Being one of the first people to discover the gene, I have taken it upon myself to find these children and help them realize their potential. After all, what are we as human beings if we fail to see our children’s specialties?”
Her lips curled into a smile. “We would be failing as adults if we ignored the future generation and what they can do for us. There have been limited cases in the United States but have been overlooked with those children growing up without ever realizing they were special. That they could make a difference.” Her tone darkened. “And that, my dear, is why we are here tonight.”
“Where is it again?” The man sat up in his seat as the car started to slow.
“Just down here.”
“I thought this one was in a trailer park.”
“No, that’s the next one. Pay attention, 49. Jeez, you didn’t get your mama’s smarts did ya?”
Her hand went to her pocket and pulled out a cigarette, lighting it in the same breath. She took a long drag. I could tell by her voice, the way she moved with grace, rolling up the window and flicking ash out into the night, she was the one in charge, the brains of the operation. “This one’s living at home. Which is adorable. A mommy’s boy who is yet to fly the nest.”
The sound of paper being flipped over. “Huh. He’s smart. 4.9 GPA. But no college aspects.” Chuckling, 49 leaned back in is seat, and there was a flash of a file. I only got a glimpse of what looked like a profile next to a black and white grainy image.
“Damn. This kid really said, ‘fuck you’ to his future. Can’t really blame him in this day and age though, can you? Kids don’t want to be lawyers and teachers anymore. They want to be famous on Clock-Tok, or whatever the darn thing’s called.”
“Indeed.” The woman hummed. “That is why we must step in and do something. Because if we don’t, who will?”
49 chuckled. There was a folder in his lap. “It’s the Coke kid, right?”
“Mmm hmm.”
The car crawled to a stop outside a house with a red door. That was all I could see in the dark. The woman jumped out, and in the glow of headlights, she looked all kinds of intimidating, kitted up in a pinstripe suit. She went to the trunk of the car and pulled out a large black bag. The two of them teetered on the sidewalk, looking out of place in front of a mailbox with a painted red heart on it.
The scene switched to a shaky POV of them striding up to the front door. The woman knocked twice, her hand going to her hip. At this point I wasn’t sure if I was watching a mockumentary on some kind of fictional virus, or a straight up TV show which had stolen the name Hype House. But I was intrigued. The door opened, and a woman wearing a warm smile stuck her head out. “Mrs Baits?” Pinstripe smiled widely when the camera found her profile. “Is your son inside?”
The woman opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Pinstripe was pulling something out of her jacket—something which molded perfectly into her hands. A gun. She didn’t hesitate, shooting the woman dead on the spot. There was no loud bang, no gunshot rattling in my ears. All I heard was a light click, the sound of her finger grazing the trigger before pulling it.
I watched the camera strayed on her lying in pooling red—before panning to a man wearing a blue robe and glasses.
His mouth was twisted into a cry, but before he could speak, Pinstripe strode into the house.
“It’s okay.” She said smoothly, maintaining that twisted lipsticky grin. She dropped the gun and then delved into the black bag on her shoulder—pulling out a small white container. “Do you like candy?” She asked, mocking a giggle. To my surprise, the man seemed mesmerized by her voice, by every twitch of her body. “Open wide.” She said, and he did.
Pinstripe placed a pill inside his mouth and shut it for him, and within a few seconds his mouth was frothing a pinkish goo, his eyes rolling to the back of his head—before he too fell down dead. The camera man didn’t hesitate to film each gory detail, the bluish tint in his skin and blood-tinged froth still pooling from lips curled into a regretful grin. Pinstripe stepped over the bodies and headed into the hallway. She stopped in the kitchen to grab an apple and took a bite before throwing it at 49 to catch.
“Alright!” she clapped her hands together—and I paused it. Just for a second.
I don’t know if it was anticipation or fear, but my stomach was trying to projectile into my throat. I wanted to google it again, scan the Wikipedia pages and IMDB for some hint that it existed, and people knew about it. But if I’m honest, though—I was scared to. I wanted to know what this show’s deal was, sure, but part of me, a gnawing feeling eating me up from the inside, didn’t. As quickly as I paused it, however, I clicked play, my gut twisting into knots. Pinstripe’s face bled back to life, her smile widening, and a cold shiver slipped down my spine. “We’ll call clean-up so we can cover this up. Usually, I don’t like making a mess, but, man, this kid’s mom was begging for a frontal lobotomy. Did you see that shirt?” She pulled a mocking smile.
“A true fashion catastrophe! She should have begged me to blow her brains out.”
49 laughed along, his shoes—expensive looking sneakers—padding through spattered crimson.
“Let’s just find the kid.”
“I’m excited to see him!” Pinstripe did the adult equivalent of a happy dance. “He is one of my favorites.”
Her gaze flashed to the camera. “Family members of subjects must be erased so we can avoid a pesky investigation. As far as the general public are concerned, Mr and Mrs Baits and their son moved back down under years ago. The US wasn’t it. After all, why leave the golden coast for a place like Florida? Ideal to bring up a child, sure. But a generation Z teenage boy?”
With a smile, she excitedly hopped up the stairs two at a time like a child—with 49 following close behind, the camera bouncing with every step. Pinstripe cupped her mouth, her eyes ablaze with madness. She was what kept me watching. She was a character like no other I’d ever seen—someone who laughed in the face of death and looked like she welcomed it, a psychotic playfulness about her which only made her ten times more dangerous.
She was vibrating with it, an energy, an elation I only knew in cartoon villains. The actress was a damn good one, I thought. “Ohhh, Nate!” she called in a sing-song voice. “Where areeee youuu?” Reaching the top of the stairs, Pinstripe took long strides, knocking loudly on each door.
“Olly, Olly Oxen Free!”
No answer.
Somehow, that was worse.
They headed into a room at the end of a hallway. It was dark inside, a sliver of light bleeding from a laptop sitting on a desk at the corner of the room. Pinstripe stepped in first, pretending to marvel at basic decoration, stripy navy wallpaper and matching curtains. As she moved towards a single bed, I got he first glimpses of a person-sized lump under the bedsheets.
49 reached out and grabbed what looked like the boy’s phone from his nightstand, before Pinstripe sat down next to the lump. She shot the camera a grin before leaning over and shaking the blankets. “Hey, kid.” She murmured, “Wakey, wakey.”
The two of them sat in silence for a moment, their breaths entwining with the boy’s light snores.
Pinstripe shoved the lump this time. Harder. She moved closer, so close, her manicure gripping hold of the blanket and puling it back. When the camera zoomed in there was a flash of dark brown hair buried in pillows. “Do I need to count to three?”
“Go away, mum.” The lump groaned, muffling into his bedsheets, “I don’t like pancakes.”
The boy had an accent—which seemed to delight Pinstripe even more.
“Pancakes?” She laughed loudly, and I caught the exact moment the lump under the covers stopped breathing, his body suddenly seizing up. “At this time? Come on sweetie, we all know cereal is the ideal midnight snack,” Pinstripe poked the covers, “And might I say, don’t you have just the cutest little accent! I don’t think we’ve dealt with an aussie kid before!”
Her attention went to 49. “Switch on the light, would ya? I’m tired of playing Hide ‘N Seek.”
49 jumped up, flicking it on.
Pinstripe gave the bed another shake. “Well? Come on, up and at em! We’ve got adventures to go on!”
That was the moment the lump sat up, morphing into a boy around a year or two older than me. His eyes were wide and frenzied. I swore I recognised a flicker of familiarity in his expression, before twisting back to pure, unbridled fear. I couldn’t help marveling the kid’s acting. He was—good.
No, he was amazing, I thought. Everything about the way he moved, his eyes flicking back and forth searching for a weapon and seeing none, and then the despair and hopelessness curling his lip—the breath caught in his throat. He didn’t move to run, only to shuffle backwards when Pinstripe slung a motherly arm around him and pulling him forwards with a violent tug.
“Nate Baits?” Her smile widened when he tried to get away, tried to grab anything in his vicinity to fight back with. The woman didn’t seem fazed, only twisting him around to face her and grazing her hand over his petrified face. “Hi there! Now, would we be right in saying you watched one of our little videos?”
The boy knew exactly what she was talking about from his expression.
I didn’t see confusion in his eyes.
I saw fresh fear, as well as something which had previously haunted him creeping back to stick its claws in once again.
When the boy didn’t reply, she threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, the silent treatment? That’s how it’s going to be?”
Still, he didn’t move, didn’t open his mouth—and the woman sighed a loud exaggerated sigh.
“Teenagers.” She shot a look at the camera and rolled her eyes. “They are so rude. Honestly, the disrespect!”
In one sharp flash I thought the kid was going to run. At least I think he tried. Nate Bailey jumped up for the fraction of a second, I could see his plan coming together in his expression. His gaze went to the window. He was calculating how far down he would have to jump. Before he could crawl off the bed, however, Pinstripe already had him, throwing an arm around him once again.
But it wasn’t a mocking motherly embrace like the first time—this time one hand snaked around his shoulder, while the other went straight to his mouth, where I hadn’t even seen a soaking rag clutched in her fist. I’d been so captivated by the kid’s expressions, I hadn’t noticed. The rag practically blended in with her bronze skin, slamming into the boy’s mouth.
He struggled at first, but the more she coaxed him to breathe in whatever was on the rag, his grappling arms went limp, and he fell against a smiling Pinstripe’s shoulder. She didn’t waste time, gathering him into weighty arms and standing up. She took one last look towards the boy’s bed, and the camera followed her gaze, landing on a stuffed toy just visible under the pillow. I recognised the annoying snowman from Frozen. “Really?” She shook the boy in her arms, “You’re a Disney kid?
“Makes sense.” 49 pointed to a Thor Ragnarök poster—and next to that: Infinity War. “He’s a Marvel fan.”
The bang of a door downstairs alerted Pinstripe and a look of contempt swept across her face.
“Ah, it looks like the cleaning committee is here.” She bent over the kid in her arms, her expression lacking empathy, sympathy—nothing– only an increasing madness which seemed to light up every part of her; the curl in her lip, the gleam in her eyes when she pouted, speaking in an overly patronizing tone which made my fucking skin crawl. “Mommy and daddy have gone to sleep for a little while, alright? Trust me, I didn’t want to blow your momma’s brains out either. It’s just what we do, honey. And besides, you’ll love your new home! It’s like, a—hmm, I guess you could call it a kiiind of group home?”
“Lila.” 49 finally said her name in a hiss. “He’s fucking nineteen.”
“And?” She scoffed. “If he’s going to act like a child, I will treat him like one.”
Pinstripe and 49 didn’t stay long. Through 49’s shaky camera-view they left the house, and several people dressed in white mopping blood off the floor, dumped Nate Bailey with a bag on his head in the trunk of their car, and drove into the night.
The two of them, admittedly, were the most entertaining kidnapper’s I’d ever seen on screen. At least that’s what I thought at first. They stopped off at a McDonald’s Drive Thru and the footage went from a horror-thriller to a comedy in the blink of an eye when they spent half of the car-ride arguing over whether a chicken nugget counted as chicken. By then I was embroiled in what I was watching—so much so that I googled the show.
I tried “Hype House mockumentary 2022” when nothing came up, but still I was just being brought to Tik-Tok pages and articles on the latest influencer being cancelled.
It didn’t make sense. For a TV show with this quality and decent acting not being talked about only left more questions. I went back to the show, and the scene had switched from Pinstripe and 49 yelling at each other in the car, to a glass building in the middle of nowhere. And I mean it was the middle of nowhere. It was just desert.
The narration started up again as the camera angle swapped from shaky POV to a panning shot of a long corridor, men and women in white walking up and down wearing masks and clutching clipboards. It had a clinical and real feel.
Like the place was just down the street.
Then it flashed to the kid being dragged out of the car, still unconscious, and slammed down—rather roughly—on a gurney. “Nate Baits just got his life turned upside down,” The narrator from the beginning came in, again describing what the gene was, while the camera focused on his arms and legs being strapped down with velcro. “Little does he know; this is just the start…”
I watched the following scene, shivers creeping down my spine.
As the show progressed it was looking less like fiction.
And more real.
But that couldn’t be it, right?
The corridor flashed to a white padded room with a single chair and Nate Baits tied to it, a cartoonish looking bag over his head. When he screamed, struggling violently, the chair rocked back and forth. “Bastards!” He gritted out in an animalistic screech, his body rattling. This was a very different Nate to the one earlier. This one resembled more of a wild animal. Though I couldn’t blame him—they had thrown a rotten sack over his head.
“Hey!” He yelled, “Get this shit off my head! I can’t—I can’t breathe! Let me go! You’re dead! All of you–”
I jumped when a title card appeared, cutting off his threat.
A light flicked on, illuminating Nate in white light.
“EPISODE ONE.” The title card came up in white letters levitating around him.
“MOVE.”
The camera zoomed out to a wide shot of Nate. Then Pinstripe, or Lila, behind a glass screen in front of him. There was a smug smile on her lips. She was holding something—a microphone. The bag was pulled off his head, and Nate blinked rapidly, taking in his surroundings.
His eyes were wide, almost dilated. Though the setting had changed. The room was the same, and the chair—the same white walls. But something else had been placed in front of him; a white table with a single Coke can sitting in the middle. Initially I thought it was for him to drink, but then I realised the seal had already been cracked open.
The can was empty.
Nate was thinking the same thing as me, his gaze on the can, his lips curling into a frown before he found the camera.
“What is this?” He demanded, pulling at his bound arms. “I… I didn’t see anything.”
Nate Baits was a shitty liar. Everything in his expression told me he had expected this. The way he looked helpless, like he’d tried—he’d really tried to avoid this situation. It made me realize Lila and 49 weren’t lying. He wasn’t some oblivious victim.
“Oh?! Lila hummed into the speaker, her voice crackling. “Well, can you explain this?”
The wall in front of him flickered and the camera showed both the video playing—and his reaction. The footage he was watching was grainy, only showing Nate’s face close-up, his eyebrows knotted together in confusion before something—moved next to him. I could barely see what he was watching, but from what I gathered, a can of Coke next to him seemed to mimic his movements when he jumped, startled—slamming into the back wall like an unseen force had control over it.
On the footage, Nate’s mouth opened in a yell, and he lunged forwards and cut off the video.
Nate pulled a face at the footage. “That… that wasn’t me.” His tone had softened into a whimper, “The window was open.”
“Look straight ahead for us, Nathanial.”
He twitched at the use of his full name. “This is kidnapping.”
“This is for your own good.” Lila shot back. “You’re lucky we found you when we did! Besides, you kids are obsessed with being on camera these days. This is it, Nate. Your shining moment. Ever since we found you, we knew you were interesting.”
“You didn’t find me!” He cried out, “You fucking—”
“Language.”
Nate seemed to deflate, the anger in his eyes bleeding away, making way for fear.
His gaze turned to the camera. “I know what you do,” he whispered, “Please. I don’t… I’m not what you want, I swear.” He was shaking. Real fear, which set something off something inside me. This guy was playing the role well. Almost too well.
“It wasn’t you?” Lila said, “Then who was it?”
“I said window the was open!”
“Nate, we know that is not true.” The woman’s tone was sickly sweet. “Because you saw it…” she dragged out her words for suspense. “Didn’t you?”
The boy’s gaze found the marble flooring beneath his bare feet. “What do you want?” he whispered.
Lila sighed. “Well, what on earth do you think we want? Nate, we want you to do it again.”
“Do… what again?”
“Move the can.” Lila’s tone turned cold and demanding. “Move the can in front of you like you did yesterday morning.”
Nate shook his head. “Have you fuckin’ lost it? My hands are tied!”
“I don’t mean with your hands, Nate.”
Realization bled into his eyes.
“No. You’re fucking crazy.”
“I forgot to mention.” She added, “If you fail to do it you will be punished.
“Punished?!”
A man wearing a white lab-coat walked in, and without a word started attaching rubber circle like patches to Nate’s face and forehead. “We’ll start small, just to give you a little… motivation. It’ll feel like just a prick, and each one following will get progressively worse. So, if I were you, my dear, I would do as you’re told unless you want to feel the sensation of thousands of electronic volts running through you. Think of it like this. It will feel just like being hit directly with a lightning strike—and we all know how painful that is, don’t we? Nathanial, I am not exaggerating when I say we will happily fry your brain to get results. You’re not the first kid we have lost due to his/her stubbornness and my patience is wearing thin. So, think carefully.”
Nate paled. “But I can’t… I can’t do something like that!”
“Very well.” Lila said. “Let’s give him a shock, shall we?”
I couldn’t watch. I managed to sit through the first three, and they were agonizing even for me the viewer. I dragged the video forward, and by the time I’d skipped three minutes, the boy was keening over in the chair, sobbing, spluttering, scarlet dripping from his nose. He was a shell of his former self, his body twitching, lips already formed in a silent scream even before an increasing number of volts was shot through him. I didn’t know if it was special effects, I thought, but I could have sworn the boy was… burning.
I saw glimpses of smoke, swirling grey tendrils coming off of him. I kept thinking, watching him, that he was a fucking good actor. The best I’d ever seen. When Lila teased the kid with more volts, Nate seemed to stiffen in his chair, all rebellion burned from his eyes. They glazed over, and his gaze dragged itself to the Coke can. Nate spluttered like what he was doing was stupid, but he also didn’t want to get a lightning bolt shot through him.
He lifted his head slowly, gritted teeth, flickering eyes on the bottle– blood ran from his nose. Then he screamed, his head tapping back, his body rattling with the force of the electricity being forced through him. And finally– something happened, the table and the can flying into the wall and smashing on impact.
The man in the lab-coat came to attend to him, but he hit the ceiling, and then the floor, and then the ceiling again, his body being thrown around like a doll. When Nate stopped screaming, his body going still, limp, the man was nothing but mangled blood and bone at his feet. And by then something was creeping up my throat.
Too real, I thought maniacally. Too fucking real. Nate’s cry had shattered the camera, the blood running down his nose– very Stranger Things esque– but it wasn’t bright like you would expect, it was closer to the color black, coagulated.
Lila came through the door in an instant, like a mother tending to her child.
But she was smiling—a joker like grin stretched across her face. In her hands was a glass of water, and she bent down in front of the kid, holding it to his lips. “Well done.” She said, “Now drink. That must have taken a lot out of you, Nathanial.”
“No.” Nate’s voice was a broken whimper. “No, no, no! That wasn’t—that wasn’t me! It wasn’t me!”
“Denial, Nate.” The woman cooed, “Don’t worry. You will feel at home here. We’re excited to have you.”
When he snapped his head up, the air around the two of them seemed to change, and there was a moment I thought Lila would follow the dead man and the Coke can. And she did, at first. The glass of water slipped from her grasp and smashed onto the ground, her hair suddenly flying behind her—yet there was no window open, no wind. The woman, though, dug in her heels, her fists tightening at her sides.
And just like that, it stopped—it stopped, and Nate’s head dropped, the boy letting out a strangled hiss of breath. “That won’t work with me, Nate.” She said, her eyes twinkling. “But I admire your attempt.”
The door slammed shut, and the episode ended on Lila walking back down the hallway.
“Telekinesis has had a role in fiction since King’s classics all the way back in 76.” She turned to the camera, “The ability to move things with your mind. And we found it in a nineteen-year-old dropout. It’s… remarkable.” Lila laughed. “I’m in awe.”
The camera lingered on her face, before flashing to what looked like a glass tank filled with water.
“Next time.” The narrator came in once again. “Sink or Swim.”
When the screen went black and some random pop song played, I thought what I’d watched was some vivid hallucination, and I’d actually sat through 40 minutes of the real Hype House show. Feeling lightheaded, I figured I’d leave it and never think about it again. I’d close my laptop and jump on Minecraft or watch some random YouTube video. But something kept me on that page. Something kept me staring at the link for episode 2. I couldn’t help it, clicking onto the next episode.
It was the same thing, this time an 18-year-old girl – Laney– kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night, her father, who seemed to be ready, already wielding a gun, being shot in the face. That’s what connected them. Laney and Nate both knew what was going to happen, and the latter had prepared herself, telling her father. But Pinstripe and 49 were ready.
Laney was dragged from her bed and thrown in the back of the car. This time they threw her in a glass tank, and the girl flailed, slamming her hands against the glass. When she swam up to the surface, her mouth open in a scream, her dark hair flying around her. She pounded her chest with her fist, her lips forming the same words over and over and over again.
I can’t breathe.
That’s what she was saying.
I. Can’t. Fucking. Breathe.
“Hello, Laney.”
Lila came to stand in front of the tank. After making dolphin noises, teasing the girl who had given up holding her nose, slowly removing her hand from her face.
Bubbles flew from her mouth when he let out a cry. The woman was unfazed by the girl’s pained face. “Three days ago, you found something of ours and since then you have been manifesting quite the ability.” She paused for effect, and the title card came up once again, this time in some fancy After Effects lettering splashing across the screen: EPISODE TWO: SINK OR SWIM. The title was washed off the screen before the camera zoomed into Laney’s face; she was pretty, dark red hair flying around her and freckles which could have likened her to The Little Mermaid. It was uncanny.
“Can you hear me?” Lila tapped on the glass, “There are speakers fitted in there. You should be able to hear me.”
The girl opened her mouth in a screech, throwing herself against the glass.
I felt her panic, her pain. She was drowning.
“You have quite the scream.” Lila chuckled.
She pressed her hand against the glass, “Shatter the glass, and survive, Laney. It’s as simple as that. You’re not going to drown; we both know that. You can hold your breath for far longer than any average human, so stop with the theatrics.”
When the girl shook her head, her dead father was brought in, pupiteered in front of her. His flesh was grey, his eyes popping out of his skull cartoonishly while his lips were carved into an unsettling grin. A man-made smile created with the tooth of a blade. “Do you like him? I’ve been thinking about trying taxidermy. He would make a good decoration for my office.”
Laney stopped hammering on the glass, her lips moving in sharp breaths caught in an invisible current.
No.
Bubbles exploded around her.
No!
“Louder.” The woman ordered. “I want you to listen well– to the exact details of your father’s death. I gathered that you told him someone was coming for you, and he had taken it upon himself to protect you.” Laney’s eyes widened, and bubbles stopped flowing from her mouth.
“Your father begged me,” She said, “He told me to kill him and take mercy on you, his only daughter– what was left of his poor, dead wife, your mother.” Lila mimed sticking a gun in her temple. “I told him no, his daughter is far too special to be let go– I stuck the barrel of my silencer into his mouth, and— bam.” She mimed an explosion.
“Fireworks.”
Laney blinked. Her expression had gone blank, her eyes flickering. I could see it, clawing through her, a screech exploding in bubbles around her, and then rattling through the speakers. It was painful and piercing, like an entity had crawled directly inside my brain. The girl’s body spasmed like she had no control over it, like the screech itself controlled her; red exploding around her and illuminating the water.
She screamed again and again, the wail increasing in pitch each time until it was a barely comprehensible shriek. I saw the moment her body gave up, unable to harbor the cry. Laney went limp, cracks spiderwebbing across the tank before shattering completely, releasing a wave of water slamming into marble flooring.
Laney was retrieved quickly, and when the camera found her, her face was unrecognizable almost like it cracked resembling the glass. The blood vessels in her eyes had exploded, sharp red running down her face. Lila loomed over the girl who had been lifted onto a stretcher.
“See?” She murmured, kicking red-tinged water at her feet. “You screamed for a death which has already happened–and I had to push you. You are weak, and I’m sure you only fully manifested because of your emotions. With practice, you will be able to sense death.” The episode ended with the girl being dropped into a bed which wasn’t much of a bed, a metal frame with a thin matrass and a rag for a blanket—and this time I googled their names. I felt like I had to.
“Nate Baits Hype House”
“Laney Issacs Hype House 2022”
Nothing.
Nothing was coming up, and I was getting progressively more panicked.
Episode 3. I’m only going to summarize this one. I don’t’ have time to write down every detail.
By the time I’d clicked on it, I felt sick to my stomach.
“It’s Getting’ Hot in Here” followed the same formula. 17-year-old Ben this time taken from what looked like a party in the middle of the woods. He had been making out with his girlfriend in front of the fire, while his friends slept, before Pinstripe suffocated the girlfriend with a cushion and dragged the kid into the back of an awaiting van. This seemed the most fictional, the one which was the least realistic. Ben was tied up, dangled over a vat of acid and told he had to release himself or they would dunk him in.
Lila explained that once his ropes became loose, and it was his doing, she would let him go. It didn’t take long, because Lila had seemingly lost all her patience. She let him drop until his shoes were just about grazing the surface. In another monologue, Lila explained that one of the triggers which activated the G4 gene was fear—the type of fear you cannot hide from. Life or death. Fight or flight.
And that showed in Ben. Once he was inches from being burned alive, the camera zoomed in on his bound hands, and the slight flicker of a flame catching light, fraying the rope. When it was clear he was burning through his restraints, Ben was let go. Out of the three of them, he was the more—well behaved one. According to Lila, that was. To me, though, he was just traumatized, acting on basic human instinct to survive.
The last episode was when I kind of—I don’t know. I think I went crazy. Something like that, anyway. I couldn’t find names or film credits, directors or production notes. According to the internet, this show didn’t exist. It was the invisible shadow to Hype House, a fucked-up twin only found on this specific website. Episode 4 was available.
I mean, I could click it, but instead of another episode starting, I was showed what appeared to be a live feed. It confirmed my suspicions, but I wasn’t sure I was happy about being right. It showed each room. Laney was sitting with her head between her legs, Ben, slamming his fists against the door, and Nate sitting on his bed, glaring at the door handle like he could unlock the door with his mind.
Live.
My vision blurred.
Because what I was seeing– it was real.
I was looking at real people suffering.
Real people being tortured on camera.
I vomited, my stomach heaving.
Sitting back, the world spinning, my head– it felt like someone was stabbing me in my skull. Something flashed in front of my eyes, a pain slicing through the back of my brain. I felt the graze of cool air on my face from my fan, and soft fibers of carpet.
But suddenly it felt like I was being pulled into a vacuum, my body rattling, a cry sharp and painful in my chest. I was suffocating for the fraction of a second, before I felt my body slam into something cold. I could smell– oranges. My mom’s lasagna from last night. I was in my kitchen. I was– I was in my kitchen.
Slowly, I got up, and when I lifted my hands, they were smoking. My phone vibrated, and I ignored it. When I went back to my room, the spot where I’d been sitting was scorched black, the carpet melted, everything in the vicinity burned to a crisp. I picked up the laptop which was still playing.
Episode 4, I thought dizzily.
I had to watch it—to know what was going on.
To know what they were doing to real people.
To me.
I clicked on it, my heart pounding.
But there was no episode 4.
It was still live.
Nate. Surrounded by wrangled bodies twisted beyond recognition.
He’d fucking bodied half of the goddamn staff.
Nate climbed onto a chair and was glaring at the camera. Behind him, Laney and Ben. the two of them fighting against a door which was being forced open from the other side. “Hey!” He moved closer to the camera, a crazed grin splitting his lips.
“When I find you, you psycho bitch, I’m ripping off every FUCKING limb. You hear me? Every. Fucking. Limb!”
“Nate.” Lila spoke over the intercom in a chuckle, “I’m impressed. But stop the dramatics, and open the door, please. If you want to express negative emotions, you visit the quiet room– not disembowel our doctors. That goes for you two too.”
The footage flickered, and I found myself staring at Lila in that fucking pinstripe suit.
She was looking directly at me—a glimmer of greed in wide eyes.
It made me wonder.
Why does she want people with the G4 gene so badly?
I thought back to Nate and Laney who were both told they watched a video.
The same video I was watching right then.
“Hello!” She waved, “Sam, am I right? It’s nice to meet you! We’ll be with you very soon!”
I slammed the laptop shut, my stomach churning.
I threw up again, something warm and wet running from my nose.
My phone vibrated once more, and I grabbed it.
“CONGRATULATIONS! YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN TO PARTICIPATE IN THIS YEAR’S “HYPE HOUSE.” STAY WHERE YOU ARE, WE WILL BE WITH YOU VERY SOON!!! YOU APPEAR TO BE SHOWING THE FIRST SIGNS OF [TELE-POR-TA-TION.]
This wasn’t a TV show.
Not even some real-life footage uploaded to the internet, live-leak style.
No, this was a recruitment video.
A never-ending cycle of taking people, broadcasting their torture to unsuspecting others, and finding more to capture, and then starting it again. And I’m next. I’m going to run. I’ve packed all my things—and I pray they don’t find this fucking post.
These aren’t superpowers.
Just like I told you, they’re forced out of you—putting you in unimaginable pain and making you feel immense fear.
Just to achieve a sliver of gold.
Whatever the G4 gene is, it’s a curse.
Do not watch this fucking show.