The following is a transcript of an audio recording made by Dave Thresh with Jacob the day after his text conversation with Jacob’s girlfriend.
Dave: Okay. So today is April 29th. I’m recording because I’m about to talk to my friend Jacob and I want there to be a record of what he says and acts like. Not because I want to get him in trouble or anything, but I’m afraid if he’s acting weird or crazy and I don’t have some proof to show him or other people, I can’t get him help or stop him from…well, I just don’t want anybody getting hurt.
Dave: Open up, man. It’s me, Dave.
Dave: Dude, come on. I’m not leaving without talking to you. And I know you’re in there.
Jacob (muffled, possibly through the door): I’m fine. But I’m busy. I’ll talk to you later.
Dave (sighing): No, man. Look, I’m worried about you, okay? Just let me in to talk for a few minutes and then I’ll leave you alone.
Jacob: Fine. Fine! Come in.
Jacob: I don’t know what you’re worried about, man. I’m just busy with…I’ve got deadlines, you know?
Dave: Mmmhmm. Jacob: Look, you’ve got your proof of life, so can you go so I can get back to…wait, don’t go in…
Dave: Jesus. It stinks in here. You need to stop playing that fucking…wait, what’s that? Did you finally stop playing that Malorina shit and start a new game?
Jacob: No. That’s still The Return to Malorina.
Dave: So what, they sent you the real game now or something? The text stuff was just a teaser? How does that make any…
Jacob: No. I haven’t gotten anything else. The game just keeps changing. Now it’s this.
Dave: That’s not possible. You have to have reconnected to the internet and it’s downloaded this and installed it. It’s really clever, but why would anyone hide something like this behind that lame text stuff?
Jacob: I haven’t reconnected anything since you left. I’ve been in the game the whole time. (Laughs) To be honest, I don’t even know when it started changing into this 3d graphics stuff. I guess I was so into the game I was seeing it in my head already. It’s just like I pictured anyway.
Dave: Okay, now I’m starting to think you’re fucking with me. These graphics…they’re better than pretty much anything I’ve ever seen. I don’t know how they’ve done it…or you’ve done it…or whatever, but they’re like I’m looking through a window into a real fucking world.
Jacob: It’s not a window, it’s…
Dave: And I know you can’t program this kind of stuff. I don’t know who can. But I’m starting to feel like I’m getting pranked or something, though I don’t know how or why you’d do that.
Jacob: No one is pranking you. It’s all real. Malorina is more real than this fucking shit.
Dave: That. That right fucking there. That’s why I’m over here. Whatever weird hold this game has on you, it has to stop. Are you…Are you going to hurt George?
Jacob (laughing): Why do you think that?
Dave: Because the game has been telling you to kill “Lord Naril” and we both know who that is. And because you’ve always hated George since he got you to take that drug charge for him. He paid you, sure, but you got expelled. It…It put you down a path, and I’ve always felt like you hated him for it, and I don’t blame you.
Jacob: I don’t care about Naril at all.
Dave: Well, that’s not the impression I’ve gotten, but either way, why is the game telling you to kill him? I tell you what I think. I think someone is fucking with you, and you’re giving in to it. And you have to stop before someone gets hurt.
Jacob: I’m done with Naril. Nothing to worry about.
Dave: What do you mean you’re “done with him”? What did you do?
Jacob: I mailed him the USB drive. George always liked old-school games.
Dave: Okay, well the USB doesn’t even work anymore, remember?
Jacob (chuckling): Oh, it’ll work for him.
Dave (after a long pause): Okay. Do you have a number for him?
Jacob: Nope. Just an address. 687 Tower Road. (still laughing softly) It’s all on that note there.
Dave: Okay, okay. Look. I’m going to go and try to contact him. Make sure he’s okay and warn him about what’s coming in the mail. I’m doing that, because my only alternative is to call the cops, and I don’t want to do that if we can help it, right?
Jacob: Sure, Dave.
Dave: But I also don’t want to leave you alone while I go to check this. I think…I think you’re sick. And I want to get you help. Is it okay if I get Holly over here to keep you company until I get back and we can all figure this out?
Jacob: That sounds just fine, Dave.
Dave: Okay. I texted Holly and she’s on the way over. You good for now? Can you stay off the game for a bit and let her in when she gets here?
Jacob: Yep. (chuckling) I’ll be glad to see her. Hang out.
Dave: Um, okay. I’ll be back as soon as I track George down. Shouldn’t be more than a few hours. See you soon.
Jacob: Bye, Dave.
The first 911 call came eleven hours later, at approximately 11:31 p.m. Dave Thresh had driven five hours away to the home of Gaylord “George” Neril. While he had not contacted the authorities during this trip, he had tried several ways of finding a number for Mr. Neril. Unfortunately, being the son of a diplomat and a wealthy individual in his own right, Mr. Neril kept a low-profile and was not easily found. It is still unknown how Jacob got the address in the first place, but according to later interviews with Dave, it was, in fact, Mr. Neril’s home.
He went up and rang the doorbell, half expecting no one to answer, either because they were out or for some other, more troubling reason. Dave kept stressing in his interviews that while he allowed for the possibility that Jacob was lying about sending Neril the USB, he chalked up any idea that he had actually hurt Neril physically as just a far-flung irrational worry. He didn’t think Jacob had a mean bone in his body, and if he’d been concerned he’d really be violent, he never would have left him alone or had Holly go over there.
When George Neril opened the door, Dave said he hugged him. This is despite the fact that he’d cut all ties with the man after the chain of events that led to Jacob’s expulsion from college. Neril apparently didn’t even recognize him for a few startled moments as he tried to push him off. Once he did, however, his demeanor changed and he welcomed Dave inside.
Dave said they talked for about an hour—partially about what Jacob was going through and partially Neril’s own guilt at his role in how things had played out years before. He assured Dave that he had become a more mature and better person since then, and that he desperately wanted to give Jacob whatever help he needed both personally and professionally to atone for past wrongs and see their mutual friend become the happier and more successful version of himself that he deserved to be.
Dave said he left things vague but positive with George—it wasn’t for him to say what help Jacob would or wouldn’t accept from the man, and his main goal had just been to make sure Jacob hadn’t hurt him and to warn him about the USB that might be coming in the mail. He just told him it was a dangerous computer virus, but George had seemed to understand that the USB stick shouldn’t be used when it came.
On the long drive back he tried calling Jacob and Holly, but got no answer. She’d texted him shortly after she’d arrived that everything was okay, but that had been hours before and there was no word from either of them since. Telling himself that everything was okay, he returned to Jacob’s apartment as quickly as he could. Once there, he knocked and then beat on the door, but no one answered. He was about to try to find a landlord or just kick it in when he thought to try the knob. It turned easily.
Stepping past the entry hall and into the living room, he saw the computer first. The laptop monitor was a pure, blazing white now, a stark contrast with the dark red handprint pressed into the middle of that glowing field. Subsequent testing would show that it was a mixture of Jacob and Holly’s blood.
Dave’s eyes were already moving on, because as he turned from the monitor to look for Jacob or Holly themselves, he saw her hanging two feet off the ground, her face blue and her neck purple from the thick, black fishing line that had once been wrapped around the red USB stick and now was coiled tightly around her throat, the other end terminating in a rat’s nest of twists and ties around several large screw eyebolts that had been drilled into the wall.
Subsequent autopsy found a paralytic agent in Ms. Jenner’s system as well as a small puncture wound on her throat. It is believed that the paralytic was administered on the tip of a large needle, perhaps consistent with the hidden “tooth” in the ring described by Jacob but never recovered. The current theory is that she was alive but unable to escape as Jacob screwed enough eyebolts into a wall stud to support her weight, wrapped the fishing line around her throat, and pulled her into position before securing the end of the line. There were no signs of a struggle, but a small cut on the bottom of her foot, as well as drops of blood found underneath where she was found, make it likely that she was bled while choking to death, and that this blood, along with some of Jacob’s own, was utilized before he left the scene.
Because thus far, Jacob has never been seen again. While his writings were recovered from his laptop, no sign of the game itself was ever found, though we know the game did exist from Dave Thresh’s statements, Jacob’s written words, and miscellaneous items such as text conversations and the recording Dave made the last time he saw his friend. Attempts to contact Gaylord Neril or obtain the USB from him have so far failed, with the last record of his movements being on the manifest of a private jet heading out of the country two days after the murder of Holly Jenner.
As for Jacob’s writings, aside from a few unrelated text messages and emails in the first few days after he started playing The Return to Malorina, all but one have been faithfully reproduced above. As for the last, it wasn’t located on the laptop’s hard drive or tucked away on some removable memory found later on. It was, in fact, the most obvious and perhaps profound of everything he wrote about The Return to Malorina, though the medium was horrific and the true meaning remains obscure. It was, much like the bloody handprint on the monitor, written in a mixture of his blood and that of his sacrifice. The crimson letters long and dripping in an arc above that poor girl’s head. Just one line of revelation or warning or both: