Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25688537-20150713171118

 #FunForEveryoneChallenge

 Everyone loves internet challenges, from the cinnamon challenge where people shovel heaped tablespoons of cinnamon into their mouths to the ice cube challenge where participants place some salt upon their hand and then place an ice cube onto the mound of salt, burning their skin in the process but know this reader, worse challenges exist, much worse.

 Recently, I found one called the Fun for everyone challenge. Posted by someone called iam4nothing on Twitter, a silly social networking site that everyone has heard of, the challenge told of how ‘everyone can have fun with this challenge and the steps would be posted one at a time.’ I didn’t know it at the time but this was going to be the death of me.

 ‘First, write the names of the three people you love most in your life, place this under your pillow and sleep with it.’

 I was extremely curious as to where this was going to go, intrigued and strangely enthralled by this challenge, I decided to follow their instructions. I wrote down the three people’s names, my sister, my girlfriend and my best friend’s names went onto a slip of paper which I placed under my pillow and waited for tomorrow’s post.

 I woke up today and checked my pillow to see if the piece of paper was still there, I know it sounds crazy to check if it was gone but I’m known for being a hypochondriac. The slip of paper was still there and I laughed, why did I think it would be gone? Checking Twitter to see if this iam4nothing person had posted the next step which, of course, they had.

 ‘Time for the next step, take that piece of paper and rip it to pieces, scattering it into the winds’

 This was just getting stranger but of course, I couldn’t resist the challenge and ripped the piece of paper up and prepared to throw the pieces when a cold gust of wind tore them from my hand and scattered them around anyway. I shrugged and went back inside, sitting down on the couch and watching some of the news before heading out with some of my friends to the park. We joked about and spent some time listening to music before going home and lying down.

  ‘So, you’ve scattered the pieces of those people, have you not?’

 I was confused by this post, deeply confused, what did it mean by scattering the pieces of those people, what had happened to them? Worried and disturbed, I hurried to the phone and quickly rang up my girlfriend. The phone didn’t connect through and I began to panic, what had happened to her? Had she been hurt? Was it because of this dumb, stupid challenge! No…I had to start thinking rationally, of course it wasn’t due to some silly internet challenge. It just couldn’t.

 I spent the rest of the day working, since I was a high-level coder, hired by companies to design systems for them such as security systems. Recently, I’d made one for the company my older sister worked for, the system was extremely simple but worked efficiently.

 At about 10p.m, I was rung up by the infirmary, my sister had suffered 3rd degree burns from the store that she worked in, the security system that I had designed had a huge bug that caused it to malfunction and delete itself. My girlfriend had been in a car crash, she wasn’t as hurt but had broken both of her legs. Slumping against the wall, I broke down into tears, all this suffering had been caused by me, all because of some silly little game…but I was determined to finish it, call me psychotic, call me insane but I had to finish this no matter what.

  Early the next morning, I awoke to a message on my feed by iam4nothing, it read as follows:

 ‘The next step is really simple, you must wait outside in the cold at 7p.m; may the blistering winds take pity on your simple soul’

 This seemed, illogical, strange, convoluted. Why would they want someone to step out into the cold? Maybe, it was all part of this game, oh how I love this game, it’s the most fun I’ve had in years…years!

 I waited for 7p.m while being extremely agitated, I began to pace around my place. I needed to find out what would happen, I needed to!

<p class="MsoNormal"> So, when it finally came to 7p.m, I stepped outside of my house and began to breathe in the air around, it tasted strange and felt cold…very, very cold, and then it hit me. I sunk to my knees and began to hyperventilate, I couldn’t breathe, my lungs were filling up with something, it felt like ice; it felt really, really cold. I began to scream but I created no noise, and as I sunk to my knees and felt my pulse slow, my phone dropped from my hands and upon the screen was a single instant message:

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<p class="MsoNormal"> ‘You called it a game, didn’t you, it really wasn’t a game’ – iam4nothing.

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<p class="MsoNormal"> This may need editing/rewriting. <ac_metadata title="#FunForEveryoneChallenge (Needs reviewing)"> </ac_metadata>