Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-26342384-20150530014043

This is the title of the email I received about 2 months ago (at the time of writing).

If you ever get an email headed with this from the email address fun@happy4ever.net, don’t click it; don’t even think about clicking it. Delete it immediately. Why? Well, it’s a long story.

Let me back up before I continue. I am going to go by the name of Bill. Bill is not my real name, nor is it a nickname. I will be referring to everyone in this recount of the horrific events that befell me by a pseudonym for their own safety.

When I first saw this email, before I even opened it, I was confused. Why did my computer not send it to the Junk folder? It can’t have viruses (I have really good security software), and it can’t be trying to sell me something (I had filters for that).

Also, what did it mean, exactly? It’s a very…ambiguous question. Did it mean me? Did it mean someone else? Or was it something else? My need to know got the better of me, and I opened the email.

The contents of the email consisted entirely of a link. This link only increased my need to know just what the hell this was about. Was this some kind of crazy, elaborate hoax one (or maybe multiple) of my friends was pulling me? Or was it something else entirely?

I clicked the link, knowing my computer would stop if there was a single virus, worm, or whatever else on that website. There wasn’t, and the site loaded. (Oh, and to answer your questions now: No, I will never post that link.)

The website consisted solely of a large, red button (similar in design to one of those EMERGENCY OVERRIDE buttons you see in movies) superimposed over a solid white background. The phrase “WOULD YOU LIKE TO BURN?” was written in the background in bold white text.

I needed to know what this was about. I clicked the button, and the sound a fire makes when it crackles played. It then played a sound clip of a man with a deep voice saying, “Good Choice”, and the website closed itself out.

Worried, I ran a virus scan. It turned out negative; no viruses at all. Just to be safe, I checked for any hidden background processes, and nothing new there either. I figured it was just some joke, and I went back to checking my email, and promptly forgot about it. I then emailed one of my friends back saying that I could hang out with them tomorrow afternoon.

The next day, I saw the news headline on the local news while I was eating breakfast. It was this:

LOCAL FAMILY BURNS ALIVE IN MYSTERIOUS FIRE, NO SURVIVORS It was showing a picture of the charred remains of a vaguely familiar house. Why was it so familiar? I stopped eating and stared at it for a moment before it hit me.

That was what remained of my best friend’s house.

I did attend the funeral. Charles and I had been the best of friends for as long as I could remember. All I remember is the sight of my friend’s corpse; the rest is a blur.

I guess I had been secretly wishing up to that point that my friend wasn’t really dead and that at any moment he would jump up and yell “Surprise! I’m alive!” He had always been a trickster; in fact, he had pulled that same trick on the entire school once. The look on the nurse’s face at that point is on I shall always look back upon and smile. But I’m getting sidetracked.

Have you ever seen that famous picture where it shows a naked Vietnamese child running towards the camera while being burned alive from the Napalm covering her skin? Imagine what that girl eventually looked like, right after the point where she died. That’s what my friend's corpse looked like: a disfigured lump of slag-like skin and bones, the fat inside cooked thin. I will never forget what he looked like right before thy sealed him in his coffin; it’s burned into my mind, and I still see it every night when I shut my eyes to go to sleep.

I spent the next couple of days lying in bed. I didn’t feel like getting up was even worth it anymore. I just felt like lying down, closing my eyes, and waiting for death to eventually come.

Eventually, my parents forced me out of bed. The next couple of days are a blur of going through the motions. Looking back on it, I was probably in a state of shock.

My parents somehow persuaded me check my email. I think they said something about maybe one of my friends wanted to hang out or something? I don’t remember.

Much to my amusement, I had again received that email I told you about earlier. I clicked on it (just to see if it would be different), but it went exactly the same as last time. Or maybe it didn’t, and there was some important detail that I missed. I don’t think I was entirely aware of what was going on at the time.

I was going to be visiting on my grandparents in Minnesota for our annual visit the following week. Just as we were about to embark on the 8 hour road trip, we received the horrible news.

My grandparents had burned alive in their own home in a mysterious fire.

I don’t remember the next couple of days after that. I don’t even remember if I went to the funeral, or even Minnesota for that matter. My parents say that was in what they described as a “waking coma”.

My coma apparently lasted about a week or two. My parents, in a last ditch effort to cheer me up, had my friend send me an email. I received that email, along with the other one. The one that just kept popping up in my inbox. The “BURN?” email.

I had seen all of tricks (or so I thought), so instead of viewing it, I deleted the email and blocked the sender (fun@happy4ever.net).

Whatever that email address is, be it a vengeful spirit, a demon from hell, or a cyberterrorist, I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. But it somehow sent me another email. After I blocked them.

This time, the email opened itself. Then, it clicked the link itself. Finally, it pressed the button itself.

The voice clip that played after you click the button was different this time. It was the same voice, but instead of saying, “Good choice,” like it normally did, it said, “You’re next in line, Bill.”

That’s when I realized.

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BURN?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BURN?

WOULD YOU LIKE TO BURN?

I’m typing this as my last words, and as a warning to anyone who finds themselves in the same situation as I found myself in when I first received that email.

I’m next, after all.  