38 18.0: Rec. (2/2)

′WE KN0W 3VERYTH1NG AB0UT Y0U. J0SHUA.′

”You know everything about me, huh?” Joshua seems to directly talk to the game again with tears splattering his screen. ”What's the worst you can do?” His face is red and wet and his eyes are desperate and sleep-deprived. ”Kill me? You'd kill me?” He asks in what's barely a breath. ”Death has never been so appealing.”

'TH1S 1S Y0UR LAST WARN1NG.'

”The F-rule is losing a fan base,” he says loudly to his 50.1k viewers. ”The F-rule is-is deleting your account or-or having someone do it. Losing fans is something that DevilsPlay cannot afford. They-they need the money to keep it going! Do you understand-?” He yells at the screen. ”Do you-do you understand? Do you copy?” He then pauses, anticipating some response but doesn't get any as I clutch his chair's back, my vision blurring in fear.

I suddenly understand what it means for fear to blind you.

”Just-just be careful,” Joshua tells them and my heart halts when the number of viewers starts falling dramatically. Joshua blinks at his screen, looking momentarily confused before grinning. ”They already heard!” He then starts shouting. ”They heard your little dirty secret-!”

20k

”They heard what your Fucking rule is-” he says triumphantly. ”You wanna kill me? Go ahead!” He loses himself to his phone's camera. ”Do you hear me?” He brings his phone's microphone to his mouth. ”Do you fucking copy? They know now. They know everything! You can kill me! I'm free now! I'm fucking free!”

When he holds his phone down, his smile drops a little. The screen has frozen on a frame where he looked terrified with red eyes and a sweaty face. Joshua shakes his phone, thinking it was a glitch.

And, you know, it isn't.

Letters rain down the screen to form a sentence over his frozen petrified face. ′D0 TH3Y؟ D0 tHey ReaIIy Kn0w؟′

I can hear Joshua's breathing as he fingers down his phone's home button in hopes of exiting the app. And they fail. His hopes fail.

The sentence gets wiped away and a new one appears. 'Y0u faiLED.' A clown face then blinks on his screen as Joshua stares in confusion.

”You're just bluffing!” He says, outraged, as he randomly taps at his phone's screen. But nothing seems to be working anymore as the sentences keep coming in succession.

′Y0u faiLED Us.'

'W3 kn0w Ev3ryTh1nG aB0ut y0u.'

'y0u sHalL regr3t 1t.'

'n0 y0unG bL00d watCh3d y0u.'

'w3 d1d.'

'and w3 deCid3 whAt habbens.'

Joshua's eyes frantically run around the screen, not knowing what to expect. I shake my head and gulp down all the possibilities filling my eyes with tears.

Joshua tries to shut down his phone but it is still frozen over his glassy, bloodshot eyeballs. The more you look at his face, the wronger it appears to be.

”SHUT UP!” Joshua yells at the phone as his picture starts getting distorted. His eyes droop and his lips stretch into an eerie smile.

'GAME OVER' is what the screen then says before going black.

Joshua hurls the phone at his wall and it shatters into pieces. I stand rooted to the ground as Joshua groans at his phone's remains and clutches his hair in his hands.

”I hate this, I hate this, I hate this,” he keeps repeating to himself before knocking the lamp off his desk. He then gets up and kicks his dustbin, emptying its insides onto the ground, before driving his fist to the wall. He immediately regrets it as he curses out loud and holds his wrist in pain.

He slides down the wall next to his desk, nursing his bruised knuckles with tears streaming down his face. It manages to bruise my heart a little.

I stare down at him and pity him for the path he's chosen for himself. A path that, worst of all, no-one has a clue what its consequences would be.

I glance at his desk and find myself reaching out for a paper and his feather pen (it was his grandfather's, a relic he loves). I sit on his chair and it's a miracle how I didn't forget how to write as I dip the pen's tip into a black ink bottle and smoothly draw letters that I string into words before arranging them into sentences.

I clutch onto the paper with an ugly urgency, with a painful need to empty my mind's chaotic contents. I write and I'm grateful that my fingers don't feel the pain the pen's tip pressed to its rotting flesh is causing.

I write for as long as I remember, with Joshua's soft whimpers as my only background music and fuel. I write even as Selena enters, looking terrified for her brother that she finds crouched in a corner looking as good as dead.

I write until black ink seems to erupt from the pen's tip and paint my vision in its glory. And through it all, through it all, I'm hugging those papers like there's no tomorrow.

There is no tomorrow.