This happened a year ago. I never thought I’d talk about it, so believe me that sharing this is difficult. It feels as though I am betraying my heart by playing the game again and I know I’ll regret it. Please believe me when I say that I had no choice.
I hope you can forgive me one day and I hope it doesn’t hurt.
❧
It was late when my friend Benji sent me the link, so I didn’t see it until morning.
Check it out, his message said, paired with a shocked-looking emoji. This game is fantastic.
What is it? I typed back. What kind of game is this?
Three dots appeared at the bottom of the screen as he typed back, and I waited for his reply.
A minute went by, then ten, an hour. By then, I had forgotten about Benji and the link because I was running late for work.
Work was busy that day, and I didn’t have time to breathe, much less play on my phone.
When I went on break, I remembered the link Benji had sent earlier in the day. I checked my phone, and I frowned.
Benji still hadn’t replied; it said he was still typing. The three dots disappeared and reappeared, but there was still no answer.
What are you writing? I typed. A walkthrough of the entire game??
But he didn’t answer, and I never heard from Benji again.
❧
I was worried; of course I was. I have known Benji since high school.
We were in our early 30s and had the responsibilities of adulthood, but we made time for one another because we were friends. Well, I thought we were friends.
I texted him every day for two weeks straight.
What’s up?
Are you okay?
LOL, look what Marmalade did insert cat pic
Benji
Benji
insert another cat pic
Why are you ignoring me?
What did I do??
This isn’t cool, dude. I’m really worried.
Benji… you’re scaring me.
I never got a response, just those three dots that indicated he was typing.
Eventually, I contacted our mutual friend and asked her if he was okay.
Yeah, her text said. I just talked to him yesterday. Why? Is something wrong?
No :) all good!
But it was not all good. Nope, I was pissed and admittedly hurt. But unfortunately, there wasn’t much else I could do about it, so I sent Benji one last text.
I hope you’re okay, dude. I miss you.
My girlfriend, Anya, reminded me of the URL that Benji had sent me. With his disappearance, I had completely forgotten about it.
“You haven’t clicked it?” Anya asked.
“No,” I admitted. “I forgot.”
“Well, what are you waiting for? Open it!”
I scowled. “What’s the point? It’s not like it’ll make Benji talk to me again.”
“You don’t know that; it could be a clue.”
“Anya, what kind of clue would a link to a game give?”
She shrugged, and I sighed.
I scrolled through me and Benji’s text history and found the last message he had sent to me. With some trepidation, I clicked the link, ignoring how fast my heart was beating.
The website loaded slowly. So slowly, I asked Anya if the Wi-Fi was out.
Finally, it loaded, and I stared at the screen.
“What the hell?” I whispered.
“What! What is it?” Anya asked in alarm.
“It’s so weird,” I muttered.
“Isis! What is it?”
I turned my phone around so she could see.
“Look at all these weird ads,” I said with a straight face. I pointed to a picture resembling a dog merged with a human. “What the hell is that?”
Anya rolled her eyes and hit me with a throw pillow. “Idiot,” she said, not unkindly. “The link didn’t work?”
“Nope, kept loading, then timed out.” I shrugged. “Who knows, maybe it was some Dark Web shit? Play this game and die after seven days? Maybe Benji got in too deep and got got?”
Anya shook her head. “That’s not funny, Isis.”
“No,” I agreed solemnly. “It’s not.”
❧
My phone woke me up around 2 am. The soft chime alerted me I had a new message. It chimed again and again and again. Who the fuck was texting me?
Sleepily, I climbed out of bed and padded to the bathroom. I didn’t want to wake up Anya.
My eyes were slits in the bathroom’s bright lighting, and I squinted as I scrolled through my messages.
The notifications rolled in faster than I could read.
I froze, and my heart pounded.
The texts were all from Benji.
02/11/2023 4:15 AM
yooo, isis, this game is amazing. def let me know when you check it out.
02/11/2023 6:15 AM
holy shit. I can’t believe this. wake up, you weirdo!
02/11/2023 1:00 PM
isis? isis? are you there? hey i’m callin pickup
02/17/2023 9:56 AM
wow my messages are finally going through. are you getting them? why haven’t you responded what’s going on?
02/20/2023 3:03 AM
this is so weird. nobody is answering me. nobody is seeing me. you can see me? right isis? you can see me you can see me you can see me
02/20/2023 3:53 AM
it’s dark it’s dark it hurts it hurts it hurts
02/23/2023 4:00 am
eonism leviathan
neothalami veins
heir hint vile
eonism leviathan
heir hint vile
eonism leviathan
heir hint vile
hi lilith verne
eh el mp
el hemp
hele mp
em help
help
ME
HELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPMEHELPHELP
02/26/2023 2:26 AM
Isis. I’m here.
My heart was racing wildly, and my mouth went dry. As I read the last text, the phone crashed and then rebooted, blinding me in intense white light. It emitted a loud keening noise that sounded like screaming, a woman’s high-pitched wail.
Images appeared on the screen.
A distortion of patterns and coloring. They made me uneasy. Something was wrong with them; they made my skin itch and my stomach churn. An amalgamation of color, pattern, and shape mimicking humanity.
The pictures flashed across the phone so fast my eyes couldn’t keep up. I quickly grew grateful for the speed because the images gradually became viscous and raw.
Glistening organs, severed limbs, torn flesh. I wanted to look away so badly. Everything was a sea of blue, black, purple, and red.
Just turn the phone off, my mind screamed. But I couldn’t; I had to see it. See what? I didn’t know. I just knew I had to stay and see.
And then there it was, what I had been waiting for. It was a picture of Benji smiling. The screen froze, immortalizing him, and then it changed. His face became a mass of pulsating red and pulverized gray bone. His eyes were empty and black, and his mouth was cavernous and full of wriggling maggots.
My phone shut off, but not before I got another text from Benji; the words flickered across the screen.
02/26/2023 2:56 AM
I thrive in hell
HeLP mE
❧
My phone took hours to turn back on. It was dead beyond dead, but I was grateful for the reprieve. I needed time to process what had happened.
The texts, the pictures, the game.
So Benji had been trying to contact me; I just hadn’t been getting his messages. And what he had sent me was disturbing. No, they were downright scary. What was with the weird, uh, I guess they were Latin? And his last message:
I thrive in hell. Help me.
I admit I almost didn’t want my phone to turn back on. What if it started showing me those horrible pictures? I had to, though. I knew I did because Benji was in trouble, and I needed to help him. I needed to know what the hell kind of game this was.
When it turned on, it looked as it always did. Anya and Marmalade as my lock screen, tens and thousands of unread emails, and my texts which blessedly were zero. It was funny because for weeks; I had been craving a message from Benji, and now I would give anything never to have received them.
Selfish right? Sure, but I was terrified.
I am not a skeptic. I love ghost stories. I believe in curses and blessings, and I have experienced both.
My point is I will not dismiss this as a weird coincidence because coincidences are bullshit.
Everything happens for a reason.
I played on my tablet produced by a company named after a fruit.
I scrolled through Benji’s texts and clicked on the game’s link. This time it opened, and I downloaded it from the app store.
The game was named UNTITLED. Wow, how interesting?
There was no synopsis, but there were reviews. I read them while I waited for the download to complete. Most of the reviews were five stars and full of praise.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
ruby
Scariest game I’ve ever played!
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
grubbin8990
Why so short? I love it! Sequel?
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️
r.d. won
can’t. stop. playing.
I have zero faith in positive reviews because they’re so easy to fake. I like to look at both the good and the bad, mostly bad. What can I say? I have trust issues.
There was exactly one one-star review.
⭐️
-user deleted-
this game is weird. I don’t know how else to describe it but it’s weird. I wouldn’t say I liked it. and i’ve uninstalled it at least ten times and it keeps reappearing??? and my reviews keep getting deleted. I’m contacting corporate this is ridiculous.
Okay, so that review was odd, but not exactly sinister.
I wasn’t sure what I was getting myself into, but it didn’t matter because the game had finished downloading, and without hesitating, I clicked on it to play.