Unwanted Fame

In the city of inspiration and wonder, lived a certain someone. A human who, despite his hatred of the world, love it so much too. The human was a man, no more than 25 or so. This man seemed to be normal. He lived normally, acted normally, and talked normally. He had goals, dreams, and hopes like everyone else in the city that he grew up in. However, to a few, he wasn’t that normal at all. The man had black hair and crimson eyes and seem to wear the same jacket everywhere he went. But he didn’t care that much, he had spares. And to the ones that knew this man, He had this mystery and wonder backed up to him and as a result, people who were hypnotized by his glances and smirks follow his every move.

They followed him on social media, as a chance to get to know him without ever leaving the house. They knew his name, age, location, his past, they knew everything about him and got new information about him as days past, weeks, maybe months. He couldn’t tell nor care otherwise. The one thing that disturbed the man though was how they took advantage of him and the opportunity of stalking him around. They started drawing him out to be this demon. A demon of lust, and envy. Someone or something that he was not. And whoever “they” were, he would be glad to tell him to stop. But he couldn’t of course, there were too many of them. Too many of them to even bother. He had to stop them at some point. And he thought that way about them until one day, where everything changed for the better of “they” and for the worse for the man.

The man actually had brown hair and hazel eyes, and had a more pale, light tone of skin than what they depicted. He did wear the same jacket every time but not the jacket that they portrayed he had. And the whole “cell phone” thing, well they were correct about that, weren’t they? I mean, the man did stomp on people’s cell phones out of anger and rage. But he didn’t enjoy it nor like doing it. It was just a impulse control thing and nothing more. The man sighed and started to check his media feeds for anything of the sort that “they” were trying to do to him this time around. And to his shock and surprise, he received an e-mail from an unknown. The sender was from Japan as he could tell from the address. The subject was in Japanese but the message was in English. Confused, the man read the message. All it said was the following;

“You may not know me as of yet, but I know you. Where you are right now, you don’t belong there. You belong here, and it is obvious why that is. - Simon”

“Who the hell is Simon?” The man asked to himself before realizing that there was an attachment in the e-mail he just received. The attachment was a .jpg file, an image file with a Japanese name that was obviously written in Hiragana. He clicked on the file out of curiosity but it didn’t take him long to realize it was a virus so he immediately deleted it from his computer. It was already too late by the time he did though.

A message popped up on the screen. It was some sort of chat application. Knowing it was playing a trick with him. He closed the application, it closed successfully but then the computer crashed soon afterwards. He threw himself to the bed in rage as he tried to calm himself down. He looked at the screen and sighed. “I’m just overreacting.” He said to himself as he got back up and reset the computer. What happened next confused him. The application from before opened on starting up the computer. It was the chat application from before!!! Shocked and worried, he tried to close the application. It wouldn’t close. He tried ending it with task manager, task manager wouldn’t open. It looked as if he had to use it. And he did, for a bit.

He made an account for whatever this application was and logged in with the newly opened account. He successfully logged in to the application as he was taken to the chat interface.

3 people were on-line. All of them male and around the same age range. But before he could talk to these people to call them out of what previously occurred. He checked his profile. The profile had already been filled out for him. This made him furious and he wanted to know what was going on.

He started typing into the chat box furiously wanting to know what the hell had been going on with the computer. Someone had private messaged him. He agreed to open the pop-up and read the message. The message that was sent to him not only confused him but gave him this feeling of fear for some reason. It just didn’t make sense and he needed to read it to understand it more clearly.

“Well then, it’s about time you came here to talk to us.”

He read the message and he still didn’t understand the message clearly at all. But he didn’t know exactly why somehow. Was the user not being specific enough with the statement the user just typed out and sent? Was the user implying something that he, himself couldn’t get in a certain amount of time? None of it made sense to him and it took a toll on his mind very quickly. He became paranoid. He started hearing voices telling him to press onward. All of it was illogical to him, but he had to press forward. So he replied back.

“I’m not exactly sure what you’ll trying to imply here, can you be more specific for me?”

He sent the message and waited. But as time went by, he was unaware that he was actually being drawn closer to the users themselves and their location. But surprisingly, it didn’t take too long for the user to respond back. But what was sent to him unnerved him to the extent of starting up the madness which “they” had been spreading all around social media. Plus, there was some sort of reference being hinted in there, but he couldn’t get it out. But at the same time, he knew what the message meant as well. The message read;

“Implying that at this point, you’re just handing yourself over to us with time.”

“Us, what did the user mean by “us”?” he thought. What the user was trying to say to him in context he could barely recognize or understand. He thought of leaving the application alone but he had this fear built up inside of him that they were watching him through the monitor and that they needed him to respond back. And with the fear becoming more and more clearer and more recognizable than before. He snapped in a bitter-sweet, yet confusing rage as he replied back to the user in fear and unpredictability of what he would spew out next.

“I didn’t want this, I don’t want this. Leave me alone, you bastard!!!” He typed back to the unnerving user.

Just then, at the peak of his anxiety, a knock could be heard from the door of the apartment. He sighed, while being impatient from stress caused by the chat application, He checked to see who was out there. However, to his dismay and shock, there was no-one out there. He began to get more paranoid. He didn’t want to be stalked by “them”, he didn’t want all of this attention and fame go up to him. A web of thoughts came flashing through his mind soon after, a web of “what if’s”. He thought about the situation for a bit before realizing that the user had replied to him. He checked the monitor to see what the message was. To his surprise though, the user sounded out as if he knew him already.

“Wait, what?” The user replied. Then a few seconds later he sent another message.

“Well, that’s ironic coming from you seeing as you’re an attention whore with no sense of morality.”

He had had it with the user. He wanted this nightmare to stop. And as soon as he finished reading the user’s message, the sooner the computer started to lose control. The application closed by itself and with that, a pop-up message appeared. Right before the computer crashed once again, he was able to read the message. The message read in a serious manner;

“You are not who you think you are. We know who you really are.”

The computer then crashed again but this time, he couldn’t start it back up no matter what he did. He stared at the monitor in shock, fear, and disbelief. What the user meant by what he said he had no intentions of ever knowing the answer to. Because by the end of the day, “they” would come for him and take him away from this reality. Either way, it was pointless to go back for the monitor. He wanted to go outside and take as much time he needed to calm himself down. But as soon as he got back up, he heard a knock at the door. He checked who was outside his apartment door and there was somebody there this time. But he couldn’t get the courage or confidence to open the door because it might’ve been the user who was talking to him a couple of minutes ago.

He just stared at the other guy for a moment. The guy seemed to be a decade younger than him, maybe around freshman year of high school. He had blonde hair that was obviously dyed and he had brown eyes. You know, normal brown eyes, at least, he thought so considering that he couldn’t tell from where the guy was positioned The guy’s skin to his surprise and dismay was a light, tan colour. And It was obvious to him now that he was of Asian descent. As the other guy looked up and turn his head to face him, he backed away from a door a bit. The other guy then started walking towards him and bashed his fist against the door while screaming out sentences in another language, probably Japanese by the sounding of it.

He couldn’t help however but open the door right then and there but yet, he didn’t want to either. He still felt the paranoia from before. However, he really needed to know what the teenager wanted from him and alas, he went up to the door and opened it slightly.

“Who are you and what do you want from me?” He asked the teenager.

The teenager just smirked at him like the teenager thought he was stupid for asking the teenager that question. And seeing as he is able to speak Japanese and spoke his question in that language, the teenager could understand him which was a good thing.

“Don’t you remember me?” The teenager responded. “You’ve always pushed me around like I’m your pet.”

He became baffled and confused at this point, not that he didn’t get what the teenager was saying because he did but why the teenager said it. It became clear to him however that there was no turning back at this point and just as the teenager became anxious himself for him not responding to the teenager. He immediately gave in to the teenager unwilling to fight back because it was pointless to do so.

“What do you want from me?” He asked the teenager once again.

The teenager was glad he asked that because the teenager was now fully aware of why he was doing the things he was doing. The teenager gladly responded to his request and said it in a happier tone than before.

“Oh, you lost your memory I see.” The teenager responded. “That’s what I thought.”

The teenager then injected him with some kind of medical substance. He then passed out in front of the teenager 10 seconds later with the knife appearing in his hand shortly afterwards. The teenager just stared at him before jumping excitedly like a kid in a candy store with his eyes set on a certain type of candy. The teenager then abruptly stopped and smirked once again when he woke up. He had changed both physically and mentally as he looked around the room.

He now had black hair that was messy in all of the minor places, he now had crimson eyes like “they” had been talking about on social media. He also now had the exact skin tone as the teenager. He grabbed the knife and placed it in his coat pocket. What he wanted to do now he had no idea but at least everything was normal once again and with the teenager just staring at him waiting for a response. He turned to face the teenager, smirked and responded to the teenager.

“Kida? What the hell are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the others or something?”

Kida quickly replied.

“I guess so, Izaya. Whatever keeps you going.”