Something didn’t make sense. Discord was repeating convos. My words were places they SHOULD NOT BE. Abandoning the #MonstersGeneral, I clicked over to Zoe’s server.
#FlopperGeneral
Lucy: I think my hair gel’s moldy
BatSh*t: extra firm hold
Lucy: yeah, hair looks amazing, but it stinks like dog ass
HotMash: my cat yacked a hairball so big I puked too
Ciao: I coulda done without that
Hopeful: gotta go mow the lawn
Annie: there’s no lawn. admit it, you live in your grandma’s basement writing lesbian love stories and playing on discord
Hopeful: almost. you forgot the bunker
CurvyMoney: my neighbor has a bunker full of food
KingMaker: there’s your next hostile take over
PillzGal: next?
ForNitzi: Pressure Washers 7 is the best take-over game
OuterStokes: it’s like a cleansing for my brain
AstralCrick: washes you out so good
Scuttle: I need a pressure washer for the bird poop
DoUNotMatter: in your brain?
TitaniumNads: I mean, I’ve heard of shit for brains, but . . .
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
No, no, no, no, no. I shook my head at the screen. It wasn’t happening. There wasn’t a conversation we’d had only a few days ago on #SpecialStreaksGeneral right there in #FlopperGeneral with the names changed.
Hopeful: gotta go mow the lawn
Annie: there’s no lawn. admit it, you live in your grandma’s basement writing lesbian love stories and playing on discord
That’d been HC who’d needed to mow the lawn.
And me responding.
I. WROTE. THAT.
“there’s no lawn. admit it, you live in your grandma’s basement writing lesbian love stories and playing on discord” WAS MY LINE.
Oh god, oh god, oh god. No, no, no, no.
It’d been building for days, and I couldn’t hold it back. I bent forward, gasping, searching. Where was the air?
Not here, there was none. Nothing to breathe, nothing to see. No, I couldn’t fall down in my living room. I felt for the kitchen drawer and the paper bag that was in it.
I put the bag to my face reminding myself to breathe out and push that damn bag open then breathe in to suck the air into my lungs. It was thready at first, barely a breath, but I managed it, eventually. Eyesight returned as I blinked away the black.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Don’t think about the screen. Don’t remember the words.
Don’t consider
what
they
mean.
In. Out. In. Out.
Ping!
My heart raced again, but I kept the bag to my face, clicking open the DM from HC.
HC: Ayela, I saw something on another server that gave me pause. Let’s talk? Link to screenshot
There it was again, words I’d typed just days ago, but with someone else’s name next to them:
Arcane: it’s hot as ass there, right?
That was me! That was my line. I’d written that just days ago. I was on the sofa, rocking, arms around my middle, eyes pinched shut. What was even happening? No, no, no, don’t think about it.
HC! Oh dear god. HC. No, please no.
Ping!
New DM from B. I opened it.
B: Link to video The Tears I Keep
What
the
fuck?
It played a song I knew. The song HC'd sent me, but the date on the video was 2571, almost 300 years ago. Gods no. Please, oh dear god. I grabbed the paper bag again, desperate to keep breathing. No, oh no.
Bent over my lap, I managed to not fall unconscious.
Paper.
Bag.
Every.
Bad.
Memory.
All.
At.
Once.
I could do this. I could keep breathing.
Ping!
My eyes closed.
What? What now? Did I want to see? New DM preview. Worst. One. Ever.
CoralineAsIs: Sam?
