Girl of My Dreams

Back in 2010, I graduated high school. I had a whole life ahead of me. I had so many possibilities down the line in my life. My parents loved me, there was a woman I loved, and I was a pretty smart guy.

That was 2010. This is 2014. In the four years since then, I've accomplished exactly nothing. I haven't gone to college, haven't gotten a job, haven't received a single paycheck, and haven't even gotten my driver's license. My love life is even more pathetic. I've never gotten laid, never been on a date, never kissed a woman, never even held a woman's hand. The truth is, I'm just as successful as I was when I was seven.

I'm what you'd call a loser. My entire life is consumed with TV, video games, and computer. Every day, I realize I could and should be out there in the world, doing things. I say to myself every day that I'll do it tomorrow. I'll get a job tomorrow. I'll lose some weight tomorrow. I'll sign up for college tomorrow.

But tomorrow never comes.

Instead, my life exists in a perpetual cycle. I wake up around noon, microwave something frozen for breakfast, use the computer or play video games for hours and hours, then go to bed. My parents are desperate to see me get out and get a job, and as I said, I know full well that I should. But there's just no motivation. I'm what you call "stuck".

I became so pathetic that I was dreaming of sex more often than not. I always considered myself a guy of high morals and didn't want to just "fuck" like that, you know. I always considered myself a romantic. Sure, getting laid would be great, but I'd also like something more than that.

This is partially where my story begins. I was talking to Trent, a guy I knew from high school. I'd moved away after high school, so I didn't have any contact with my old classmates aside from the internet. He asked me how I was doing and the subject of dating came up. I couldn't tell him that I'd never done anything in that department at all, so I told him I did have a girlfriend.

That night, I had a "dream" about the girl I described to him. That was nice. The next night, I had a weird dream where I talked to Trent. We were in what looked to be a funeral, in a room that was a mix between my grandma's living room and a church. I couldn't actually hear him say anything, but I responded as if I knew that the conversation was going the way it had in real life. A few other guys I knew from high school began hooting and hollering when I said I had a girlfriend.

This is where my story truly begins. It was the day after I had that dream. As per usual, I was browsing the internet. I'd settled on my usual message boards, nothing out of the ordinary. For the first time in months, I'd received a message from somebody on King's Bazaar. I'm not well known there and don't post often, so I didn't know why anyone would be contacting me.

When I opened the message, it was from a user named "LDM43". What a weird name. Their avatar, signature, and everything else in their profile was sugary, cutsey pink. Their avatar was a baby kitten with angel wings on a pink cloud. I nearly gagged with how overly sweet this was. I took note that her profile was fully fleshed out, but they had no posts or any other sort of interaction with the site, from the looks of things.

The message they'd sent me was something that didn't exactly make any sense to me until much later.

"am I really your girlfriend? oh i swear you won't regret it! i love you too and i think we'll be very happy together!

-danielle"

I figured this might just be spam or something, so I just deleted the message and went about my business.

Two days later, I got another message from LDM43.

"hey how come you never responded? you said i was your girlfriend. ttys

-danielle"

What a persistent and oddly specific spam bot. I'd never seen a spam bot employ continuity before. But again, I feared it was still spam and simply deleted the message. Maybe I'd respond if they messaged me again.

Message me again, they did. The day after that, I received another message. This time, a bit different than the last ones.

"why won't you talk to me? i thought we were in love. we were meant to be, daniel. we even have the same name. now please stop being silly and talk to me.

-dani"

This couldn't be a spam bot. No spam bot can guess your name. It could've just been a lucky guess, but holy shit that would be the king of all coincidences. I was apprehensive to respond to this girl. I had no idea who she was or how she knew who I was. There was something very suspicious about this whole thing.

I decided to contact a forum moderator. I explained to the mod that I'd never told anyone online my name and had nothing connecting my real life to my internet life and that there was no way they would know it was me, even if I did know them in real life. The mod said he'd run an IP check on the LDM43 account.

After a short while, the mod got back to me. According to them, the messages were being sent from my IP address. I insisted that that had to be a mistake. Was somebody pirating my internet or something? Would that even lead to them registering as the same IP?

None of it made any sense. I decided I'd message her back.

"Who are you exactly? How do you know my name? Why do you have the same IP address as me?"

"i'm your girlfriend. we're in love, you told me so. of course i know my one true love's name <3"

"Stop saying that. I don't know anyone named Danielle. I think you have the wrong person."

"why are you saying things like this? is there somebody else?"

At this point, I decided to ignore her. It was better to simply cut all ties with her now. Something weird was going on, but putting it entirely in the past would get me out of that, right? I decided I'd simply go to bed then.

Everything was normal for a few days afterward. This is when the real trouble started.

I visited King's Bazaar only to see a new thread. "Troubling News" was the title.

"Dear users of King's Bazaar, we have received troubling news from the police. King's Bazaar moderator, Chunnofloy, real name Jason Weber, was found dead in his home in Traverse City, Michigan yesterday. The police say it was a homicide. Details of his death will not be discussed any further here.

Our condolences go to Jason Weber's family and friends. Rest in peace, brother."

Chunnofloy was the mod I asked for help with "Danielle". Now this was way too much to be a coincidence. I didn't want to read the thread. I couldn't shake the feeling that "Danielle" was somehow involved in this. If I was right, I involved him in it and got him killed. I didn't want to read the thread and see the sadness in the people whose friend I may have taken away. I didn't read the thread until I noticed something that chilled me a bit.

"Last Post By: LDM43, 1 minute ago"

What would she say? I was almost mortified at the idea.

"sooooo sorry to hear about chunnofloy. he was the best mod, even though he tended to look a little too deeply into things. rip"

"He tended to look a little too deeply into things." What the hell did that mean? I decided I'd send her a message.

"Who the hell are you and what did you do?"

"i'm your girlfriend, like you said. i can't wait for us to be more. sometimes people need to learn not to stick their noses  where they don't belong ;3"

Now it was time for the police to get involved. It became obvious to me at this point that she'd somehow found out Chunnofloy ran her IP check and killed him for it. But how? How did she know? I contacted the police and showed them the PMs between me and her, and how she essentially confessed involvement in Chunnofloy's death. They took it into consideration and said they'd get back to me on it.

They got back to me on it a few days later. They said they'd found my fingerprints at the crime scene. Chunnofloy lived in Michigan, somewhere I've never been and don't live anywhere near. How the hell could my fingerprints be there? Now things were making less sense than ever.

The police considered me a suspect, but not a strong one, even with the physical evidence. They placed his death at 9:43 in the morning, a time when I was asleep, and I'd been seen awake at my house at around 1PM. The police understood that there was no way I could have made it up to Michigan, committed a murder, and made it back home in a few hours, all without anybody noticing.

The investigation hit a roadblock, as the person the evidence was screaming toward had an indisputable alibi, and combined with the IP address thing, there was no evidence that the other suspect even existed. The police were under the impression that I'd been sending those messages to myself, but had no answers as to how I could have committed the murder.

Up in the corner of my King's Bazaar page, I saw something that made me double take. My little mail icon indicated 26 new messages.

"are you mad at me?"

"i didn't mean to do anything bad."

"i'm sorry"

"but people need to learn"

"if you know it'll scare you off"

"i'm sorry"

"danny talk to me"

"where are you"

"danny don't do this"

"why are you mad"

"he deserved it"

"people shouldn't get in the way of true love"

"danny this doesn't have to effect anything"

"we can still be together"

"we will still be together"

"wouldn't i be the perfect wife for you?"

"i'll do anything you want"

"danny, i'm so hungry for you"

"danny i'm already yours to do whatever you want to"

"danny"

"i want you inside me so bad"

"i can already feel you"

"oh no danny i'm blushing o///o"

"you're so cute when you're flustered"

"i can only imagine what you taste like"

"danny your picture is still gets the job done every time ;3"

What the fuck.

All 26 of those messages were listed as having been sent in a span of about a minute and a half. Something was really wrong about this. I've never posted any pictures myself anywhere online, not even on Facebook. I decided I wanted nothing to do with this anymore. I decided I'd leave King's Bazaar, and block her just to be safe.

I tried to go on with my life, what little I had. For weeks, I chatted up a few people I knew from high school, moved on to a new site, kept a fairly low profile. The new site I got into was Black Pond Road. It was a simple place, similar to King's Bazaar. I befriended a guy named Brusk. Brusk was a smart guy who knew a lot about the site's subject, although he was a bit of a grammar Nazi.

A few weeks after I became involved in Black Pond Road, I saw something that made my blood go cold for a few seconds.

"Newest Member: LDM43"

How? How could she have followed me here? I wasn't even using the same screen name. How was she tracking where I was going? I thought about reporting her to the site's staff, telling them that she was a person who had harassed me in the past, but I knew that doing that might get somebody else killed. Within minutes of joining the site, her profile page was already completely filled out with all of the sugary, pink details from King's Bazaar.

I watched apprehensively for days. She never made any move. She never contacted me or posted anything. I began to try and distance myself from Black Pond Road, but didn't want to drop out of it completely. I would do that when I needed to.

For months, I went on without anything odd happening. Danielle seemed content simply observing what I was doing. I began to have odd dreams. A young black-haired girl would walk into my bedroom while I was sleeping and "entertain" me. She looked to be in her late teens or early 20's. I had no idea why I kept having this dream. I'd never really had recurring dreams before, but considering its subject matter, I didn't really mind.

One day in June, I got a message from Trent. He asked me how my new girlfriend was doing. Still intent on keeping up the masquerade, I told him she was doing fine. He asked me what her name was. For some reason that I still cannot explain, I told him her name was Danielle.

When the conversation was over, I wondered out loud why the fuck I did that. From what I'd gathered, Danielle seemed to be watching me, so saying that would probably fuel her fire.

"1 New Message"

"danny, i'm so glad you love me enough to tell your friends about me ^^

i'm happy to know your heart sings when you think of me the way mine does when i think of you!

xoxoxoxo"

I'm a fucking idiot.

I knew I would have to watch what I said from now on. I still have no clue how she could possibly be watching me, but I was positive that she was.

I blocked her on Black Pond Road as well. I had no idea if that would accomplish anything, but I did it anyway. I had to find some way of getting away from her. Being pursued was cool and all, but not by somebody who was apparently willing to kill.

Three days went by with no contact from Danielle. On that third day, Trent contacted me. The subject came up, and I told him that I'd broken up with Danielle. He said that was too bad and the subject was dropped. What else could I do? It was the best way to avoid talking about her. I had to make it clear that she wouldn't be getting what she wanted.

A few days later, Trent sent me a link to a news story. A girl named Megan Harris from my town was found murdered. The murder was described less as murder and more as a torture session. They said she was found strapped to a table, naked, with her mouth and eyes sewn shut. She had sharp objects stuck in almost every square inch of her skin. According to the autopsy, somebody smashed her teeth in through her sealed lips with a blunt object, probably a  hammer, forcing her to choke on the pieces of her teeth.

Megan Harris was the first girl I ever had a crush on, back in second grade. That was also the last time I'd ever even seen her.

This fact lead me to believe that Danielle may have somehow been involved again. The place I went to high school, the town I'm originally from, was nowhere near Michigan or where I live now. If Danielle was really the killer, whoever she was, she really got around. But the troubling part is that there's no way she could have known that I was ever interested in Megan. Nobody could have known that. I never told anybody and I didn't even remember it until I found out she died. Not only does Danielle know more than she should, she knows more than is even possible.

Now I was starting to get truly scared. I was no longer asking who Danielle was as much as what she was. This was no longer strange, now it seemed truly unnatural.

I thought long and hard about my next course of action.

"Who do they think did it?" I messaged Trent.

"They don't have any idea." he messaged back. While I was attempting to think of something else to say to him, he messaged me back again.

"Hold on, somebody's here." Trent left for a while. In the meantime, I began talking to Brusk. As I was talking to Brusk, he said something that raised a red flag.

"So, Dan, what do you think of the new series?"

Brusk doesn't know my name. I've never told him and he'd have no way of finding out.

"Brusk, did you just call me Dan?"

"oops, caught ^3^"

It couldn't have been her. But what happened to Brusk?

"Danielle, is that you?"

"uh-huh. you wouldn't talk to me so i had to impersonate somebody you would. pretty clever, huh? :3"

"Where is Brusk?"

"well, i couldn't impersonate him with him standing there, duh. i had to get him out of the way."

"What did you do to him?"

"well... we'll just say he went a little out of his skull. ^^;"

I blocked the Brusk account right there. She'd killed somebody else I knew, I assumed. What could I do? Would she just keep killing people? Why?

Finally, Trent got back to me.

"Back. I just saw something else really fucked up. Take a look."

He included a link to a news article. A porn star named Cheyenne Pepper was found murdered on the set. She'd been stabbed a grand total of 196 times. Without sounding too weird, Cheyenne Pepper was my favorite porn star. The weirdest thing about the case was that the studio was actually running when it happened. Cheyenne had apparently only been on set alone for a few minutes before she was found that way. There was no struggle, no suspects, no nothing. I once again couldn't help but assume Danielle had something to do with this.

Trent ended the conversation after a little bit more banter. He said he was tired and went to bed.

Who the fuck was this Danielle girl? What was she? I opened my Black Pond Road window and decided I'd try something. I unblocked Danielle's account, allowing anything she'd posted or sent to me to be visible.

"863 New Messages"

"daniel what the fuck do you mean we're not together anymore"

"daniel fucking answer me"

"daniel you promised we'd be together forever"

"daniel fucking talk to me"

"you fucking user"

"daniel i'm gonna get mad"

"daniel please respond"

"daniel if you don't answer i'm gonna get mad"

"daniel you're fucking pissing me off"

"daniel i'll start to do things"

"daniel i'm bleeding now look what you did"

"daniel i'm coming to find you"

"daniel i'm sorry i don't mean it"

"daniel i still love you it can still work please respond please"

"daniel if you don't respond i'll fucking kill you"

"daniel look what you made me do i think she's dead"

"daniel i'm so sorry i just get so mad"

"daniel please forgive me i don't mean it"

"daniel please respond"

"daniel please respond"

"daniel please respond"

"daniel please respond"

I flipped through the messages. It just goes on like that for the rest of the chain. What the fuck. This person, or whatever she was, was truly deranged. I re-blocked her and went to bed. She was driving me crazy.

The next day, I got a message from Trent. Right away, I could tell there was something off.

"hey man, how's that girl you're dating?"

"I told you, I broke up with her."

"well don't you think that was cruel?"

"You don't even know her, man."

"i think i know her well enough."

She showed her hand.

"Is this Danielle again? Is Trent dead?"

"of course he is, silly! ^^ after all, he's a bad influence on you. he gives you silly ideas like breaking up with me. i had to get rid of him."

"Why? Why are you doing these things?"

"because i love you of course, danny!"

"But why? How do you even know me? We've never even met."

"i know you well enough, danny. now stop being silly. i'm sorry i got mad at you. i can't stay mad at you, i forgive you for breaking up with me."

"We were never dating."

"of course we were. you told me we were."

"You don't exist. I lied to Trent. I told him I was dating somebody to make myself look good. We were never together because you aren't supposed to be real."

"of course, baby! i'm what you asked for! i'm the answer to your prayers!"

"oh btw danny baby, i hope you're not jealous, but i saw your friend's weiner. he was in the shower when i got to him. so embarrassing! o///o"

"well, i've got blood all over me, honey! i'm gonna go take a shower. wanna join me? ;3 jkjk"

She cut the conversation there. What a goddamn lunatic.

They found Brusk's body stuffed in his bedroom closet. His head had been cut in half with a saw, the top half was found in his  lap. Turns out his real name was Evan Porter. He lived in Florida, nowhere near any of the other murders.

They later found Trent's body in his shower. Somebody had taken an ax to him. He was in so many pieces that he was barely recognizable. There was evidence that somebody else had used the shower after killing him, but they didn't know who.

This continued for weeks. People I knew from high school or earlier, people I knew from online, they were being picked off and murdered in brutal ways, and they never found any evidence of who could be doing it aside from my fingerprints. It was very soon that they kept me under observation. When it was clear that some of the murders were taking place when I was being directly observed, they let me go. They figured that somebody was trying to frame me somehow.

What could I possibly do about this? She was killing people basically because I knew them. I was so alone, but now I was even more so. Most of the few people I did know were dead now.

I decided on a course of action, one that I didn't think I would do. I unblocked Danielle and sent her a message.

"Danielle, please stop. I actually do love you, but please stop with this. It's silly. All you're doing is hurting people."

Literally, within seconds, I had a response.

"i knew you loved me! are we officially bf/gf now? ^^"

I had to think about how to respond. I knew that no matter how I answered, there was no going back.

"Yes, of course we are."

As I typed that, I could feel my blood curdle, like I'd made a horrible mistake.

"yay! don't move a muscle! i'm coming over, baby! maybe i'll wear something sexxxy, assuming i wear anything at all! seeya soon~  ;3"

An hour or so passed. I stared at the ceiling, realizing I may have just signed my own death certificate. This girl was clearly dangerous, and now she was coming to my house. Should I prepare? Should I kill her when she got here? Would I be able to? Was she even human?

After an hour, I heard noise coming from downstairs. Screams, thumping. She was here, and she was after my parents.

What could I do? Nothing. I was paralyzed with fear, and by the time I got over that, all noise from downstairs had ceased. They were likely dead already. There was nothing I could do except wait for her to come for me too.

I sat upstairs in my computer chair, staring at the bedroom door. I could hear footsteps climbing the stairs. I could hear a female voice, humming a tune. A happy tune. All noise ceased as she stopped outside my bedroom door.

I closed my eyes and looked away from the door. I heard the door slowly creak open. Somebody entered the room.

"Danny?" a female voice said. I looked up to see her. Before me stood a young woman. She looked to be in her late teens or early 20's, long, black hair, brown eyes, fair skin, slender body, breasts that were large, but not huge. She wore a short, plaid skirt and a white, button shirt. Her skin and clothes were covered in blood.

I stared at her, coming to a realization. She looked exactly like the girl that had been appearing in my dreams.

"Danny, I'm so happy to see you." she said. I didn't respond. I averted my gaze, down toward the floor. "Danny, now that we're together, things can be the way they were meant to be. Nobody else in the way."

I didn't respond. I sat there with a blank expression.

"It's OK, Danny," she began "we're together now. Nothing will ever keep us apart again."

I wasn't looking at her anymore. I felt her place a hand on my shoulder. She rubbed my shoulder, placing her other hand on my other shoulder. I could feel that she was kissing me, but I wasn't really registering it.

"Who are you?" I finally asked her.

"I'm Danielle." she said. "I'm exactly what you always wanted." As she said that, she did a subtle pose, as if presenting  herself to me. She was strangely bubbly for somebody who killed everybody I knew.

"What are you?" I asked.

"I'm your dream girl. I'm everything you've always wanted in a woman." she said, placing herself on my bed. "You begged for love, and I gave it to you. You begged for a woman, and here I am. What's the problem?"

"The IP address... The fingerprints..." I tried to ask.

"Don't you get it, Danny? You wished for me, and here I am. LDM43, 'Love Daniel Morrison Forever'. I exist to love you, Danny. You just have to accept my love." she said. As she said that, she subtly unbuttoned one of her shirt buttons. I couldn't help but laugh at what she was telling me. I buried my face in my hands and resigned myself. She'd won. She'd gotten exactly what she wanted: to give me exactly what I wanted.

I awoke the next morning with a cloudy head. I could feel wetness all around me against my skin. I could see the color red. I sat up in bed and looked beside me. Danielle laid there, naked. Why. Why had I done it? This woman had done unforgivable things to me and the people I knew. She was a murderer, a monster. I still didn't even know what she really was. But here she was, naked in my bed, still soaked in the blood of her recent victims, my own parents, the same way I was.

I laid back down, placing my head against my pillow. As I laid flat on my back, my head started to hurt, as it always does when I lay like that. What did I have left to lose? She was my dream girl. She was created just for me, just to give me the love that I'd always wanted, that I'd been longing for, and she was doing that. Was it really so bad? To lose everybody else I knew in exchange for somebody who would always truly love me?

I'd made my girl and now I had to lay with her. Whether I liked it or not, she was all I had left now. Maybe Dani is right. This is true love.