The cafe was buzzing with people, I forgot it was the weekend, so there were a lot of people out and about.
Brady: “Earth to Mike, hey man, you good?”
I immediately looked up and realized I was staring off into space.
Me: “Yeah, im good just…. a lot on my mind, that’s all.”
Brady: “What’s up? What did you want to talk about?”
Me: “I… found something. Something I wasn’t supposed to find. I wanted to tell someone my story, just in case I go missing.”
Brady: “You’re scaring me man, what do you mean you found something you were not supposed to find?”
I sighed and waved a waiter over. I ordered 2 more coffees. It was going to be a long morning.
It was 3 days ago, I just got home from work, and I was winding down after a long day. I went to my computer desk and turned on my computer. I decided to see if anything good was being streamed on Twitch. I knew a few new video games came out. As I was scrolling, I found a channel that stood out “Richie Plays” with an icon picture that you could barely make out what it was. It was of a silouette with a bedroom for a background.It looked like a failed selfie attempt.
I joined the stream, and it was gameplay of the game Garry’s mod. A raspy voice of a man, sounding to be in his early 40s, couldn’t be heard. No facecam, just gameplay. I said hi in chat and followed.
Ritchie: “Mikeyshreds, thank you for the follow.”
I had nothing to do, so I watched the stream. It was pretty entertaining for the most part. But the red flags started appearing, and it wasn’t so entertaining. I noticed he started talking to chatters that weren’t there and then to himself. I asked him if he also streamed on youtube because I didn’t see the other chatters he was talking to. I never got a response. Instead, I heard richie start screaming at something, the screaming blaring through my headphones. I threw my headphones off, and after a minute, he stopped. My heart was pounding, and that scared the shit out of me.
The stream went back to normal, almost like nothing had happened. With my still shaking hand, I put my headphones back on, and I noticed that for the first time, music was playing in the background. It sounded like the stuff that would be playing in the 1920s.
Muffled Sobbing could be heard, and it sounded like it was coming from behind Richie. I heard him get up and walk a few steps from the mic. The screaming stopped, and the stream went offline. I sat there, staring at my wall, wondering what I had just watched. I decided to go to bed, I had some errands to run in the morning.
When I woke up, I woke up to two twitch notifications on my phone. It was 2 messeges from “Richie plays.”
Richieplays: “I know what you witnessed.”
The second messege was…. my address. My blood ran cold. How the fuck could he know my address, let alone how I knew I witnessed whatever I was. Then I remembered, I followed him and chatted in his stream. I contacted the police, somehow this guy found my address and that muffled screaming…. that couldn’t have been good. The police told me since it was online, it would take longer to figure out who it was. I blocked that twitch channel, but he found my number. I kept on getting cryptic messeges for the rest of that day.
Walking through the grocery store was terrifying, I still had to do my errands but this Richie guy knew who I was, where I lived and wanted to silence me. When I walked outside, I started heading towards my car. I noticed a man following me. I picked up my pace, and basically swung open my car door and slammed it loudly. The guy walked past my car, and gave me a weird look. I sighed, started my car, and headed home.
Later on, I turned on my television, and it was on the local news station.. They were talking about a string of murders in a nearby county. This killer finds people online, grabs their info, and kidnaps them. I almost dropped my drink in shock, I felt everything go numb.I looked on my Twitch app and looked for blocked users… nothing. I searched “Richie plays,” nothing. I didn’t sleep that night. Every little noise freaked me out.
I looked Brady in the eyes for any reaction, and he seemed stunned.
Me: “I was wondering if I could crash at your place for a while.”
Brady: “Yea, man, sure, you can stay as long as you need.”
With that, we left, and I followed him in my car back to his place. A few days went by, and I got the news. Richie had been caught, apperently they found him… breaking into my apartment. Thank God, I wasn’t there. Hopefully, this is all over, I think I am done with streams for now.