At first it was just a few words in the standard conversations we would have over texts daily: oh, I was so bored last night and started watching so-and-so. I probably said something in response about TV recommendations.
Next week, she mentioned it again, and I was like oh haha you already told me, I have it on my list.
Truth be told, I did not have it on my list. In fact, I didn’t have a list at all. I mean, sure, there was probably a different me in a different universe who was an avid fan of horror shows, but personally they just didn’t do it for me. Gothic horror movies scared me the most with their dark atmospheres, but I would honestly just feel more trepidation at not being able to see much on the dimly-lit screen. Mind-fuck ones scared us all, sure, but I ended up being the one woken up by little sisters and brothers and having to walk into the same dark to tuck them back in, so I grew out of it by maybe fifteen or sixteen. The slasher and jump-scare ones I’d always found a bit corny, and so I liked watching the satirical versions of them back in college for a quick jeer and laugh.
I remember we’d been talking about her latest job when out of the blue she’d messaged me about the show again and started talking about how good-looking the actors were. Again, this wasn’t the part that alarmed me in the least–I was used to her changing topics part way like that, and I figured everyone had that TV show or movie they were a bit crazy for on social media or whatever. But it got to a point over the next month where she’d find a way to bring it into literally every other conversation we would have. I kept a tally once, with the intent of taking a shot every time, and nearly got alcohol poisoning from it.
Man, fuck me, but I figured at that point I might as well watch the show.
I thought it must’ve been one of those miniseries with like four episodes that win all those awards, with the “underrated gem” tag on Netflix or something. I searched up the title there. Couldn’t find it. So I tried the other streaming platforms I had, and I couldn’t find anything, which was a bit weird but I was thinking to myself, oh it’s probably a movie in a different language and that’s why it’s not available. So I did a little google search on it, found nothing, and in the end I just ended up asking my friend for where she’d watched it.
Her answer was three video attachments, and I clicked the last one and got an eyeful of blood on the pavement in the dark, with the camera shaking like someone was running real fast while holding it. I figured I’d needed to watch them in order, and was about to click out of it when my phone started to vibrate really fucking fast like what happens when you get put in a text groupchat with three billion people messaging at once.
My phone was on mute, so I turned the volume up, hoping that would be the answer to stop the vibrating. It wasn’t, but the scene had moved on to show a dead body that looked disturbingly real. I mean, I’ve seen all the CGI shit imaginable, but this had to be the best work of any artist I’d ever seen. Once, my roommate who had a tendency to also go ham on Twitter about Korean pop stars she liked had stumbled across this gore video, of a man getting shot in the chest, and she’d had a panic attack in the shared bathroom. I’d calmed her down as I’d called her wife and explained things, but I’d gotten to see the video, still open and replaying, on the phone she’d flung halfway across the hallway. The qualities were very similar, and that was when I started having doubts and thinking; oh shit, could this be real?
The person’s head was literally bloody without repair. You know those watermelons that get so heavy you accidentally drop them in the middle of the grocery store? And you see how it splatters across a twelve-foot radius, bits of it falling on the floor? Yeah, well imagine that was a person’s head. The camera panned over the body, with its arms outstretched, almost like someone doing snow angels, and there didn’t seem to be blood anywhere else. I figured it was a horribly-done snuff film, with someone attempting to film it all.
At that point, I’d clicked out of the video. I’d been about a minute into it, and briefly excused myself to the kitchen to drink some tap water. When I came back with the intention of lecturing then blocking my friend and then having a short debate on whether or not to call the cops, I was confronted with my phone vibrating so hard it had fallen off the countertop I’d put it on. Of course, I turned my ringer off, and then opened it to see what the root cause of it was. I was prepared for the messages to be from my friend. With everything going on, I would be a fool if I didn’t anticipate that.
What I didn’t expect, however, was how the spam messages seemed to change. It wasn’t like her account had gotten hacked by some troll pressing the “message 183 times” button on a Google shortcut. The messages all chastised me, and this was their progression:
WATCH THEM IN ORDER
This had probably been sent when I had mistakenly clicked on the last video and watched it instead of the first one.
CLICK OUT AND WATCH THEM IN ORDER, SLUT
This seemed to be when I’d been halfway done with my viewing of the video, back when I’d started to wonder whether the head was real.
FINISH WATCHING IT. WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU GOING
Guess when that was sent.
I finally blocked her halfway through writing this account of everything, when the messages started saying STOP WRITING ABOUT IT AND FINISH WATCHING THE VIDEOS YOU CUNT. I’ve taken screenshots of everything, and when I saw that last variation of messages, I grabbed my necessary shit and got the fuck out. I called the police, made a frantic report, and they told me they’d look into it and that I should stay somewhere else for the time being.
Dude what the fuck. I’m so freaked out by all of this.