1999 has a minion!

the CD of Ultimate Terror

　ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ 1 　　　ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ 2 　　　ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ 3 　　　ｃｈａｎｎｅｌ 4

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November 13, 1998

Yeah, I'm a dropout. Why? I don't know. It just felt right, you know? College was supposed to be some kind of portal or something, like a way to spring into the adult world. There's more of the world on my computer than there ever were in those stuffy, old-school classrooms.

The chat rooms are bomb. Not the vanilla "Hi my name is so-and-so" kind. The other kind.
Call it the dark side of the net.

You've got your conspiracy theories covering everything from the Big Bang to how JFK was really assassinated and that's just scratching the surface. The true crime ones...you'd swear you were reading some sort of thriller fiction but the real thrill is that this stuff actually happened.
Some of the stuff I've read, it'll change the way you think about life.

It'll open your eyes to what's real.

That pounding on the door? That's my old man telling me for the third time today to get a job. As if Corporate America wasn't one of the puppet masters pulling the strings. My family? They're all ignorant. Happy in their cookie cutter lives. My father is a banker. My mother sells real estate. My sister was class valedictorian. She wouldn't drop out if the campus burned to the ground. She'd take her too-white smile upstate and get herself enrolled in another program next day. Little Miss "I'm Building A Future".

Whatever. The bottom will drop out eventually and they'll be thanking me for my research, for being aware of what the world is really like.

December 2, 1998

I wasn't into the whole "social scene" when I was suffering through hell school. High school. It might as well have been hell. I had a few people I could talk to, I guess. They forgot about me five minutes after the caps were thrown.
Or I thought they did.

There's a message from Gary, sandwiched between two notifications for chat replies.

To: Sean Calvin (scaldeddragon432)
From: Gary Gustafson (gargus687)
Subject: Wazzup Dude?

Hey man,

Havent heard from u in 4ever. parents still giving u cr4p 4 dropping out? remember Betty? she finally said yes 4 yrs after I asked her 2 prom. better late than never eh?
We should chill at Frozen Spoon soon.

Peace out, dawg.

Romantic attachments. They can bring nothing but sorrow in the coming apocalypse. Or so my friends on Twisted Logic would have me believe. Anton is one of a dozen fellow survivalists who sees the value in using technology now before the government turns our own machines against us.

They're not getting through the custom firewalls I've built into this monster. A virtual tank couldn't blast its way through my security. This baby is ready for whatever Y2K cares to throw my way.

- - - - -

Sandy keeps pestering me about what kind of cookies she should bake for Christmas. She'll make those cherry snowballs no matter what I say, even though I hate maraschino cherries. I don't want to eat a cookie that looks like it's bleeding.

January 1, 1999

The start of the end is here.

Hole in Reality is going absolutely crazy with posts. Anton and I get in on the action. We ridicule some of the most ridiculous suggestions (giant space slugs from Mars? Really?) and lend our support to any that are even remotely plausible. Ricky did a post that reads like War and Peace but has a lot of good points. He was training to be a physicist when an industrial accident left him half-blind and unable to continue his studies. John is a small-town astrologer who does opinion pieces for his town's local newspaper. Harvey tries to come off Oxford-polished but I think he's not much older than me.

That's the beauty of the internet. You can be who you are inside your head, not the person the world makes you when it looks you in the eye.

I can hear the ball drop from the TV in the family room. My sister is singing Auld Lang Syne...badly. She was old enough to drink two years before me. She took advantage of that fact tonight, if her giggling is any indication. Whatever. Her string of pretty playboys will be so many smears of ash when this world goes up in flames, exactly one year from today.

Oh, that's good. I have got to share that thought.

March 16, 1999

Gary sent me a message saying he's done with me. My other friends...what few there were...gave up weeks ago.

Fine. My real friends are all online.

May 28, 1999

>>Chat Activated
>>Harveyharvest: yo man, u online?
>>Scaldeddragon432: hey
>>Harveyharvest: u c that new chain about meteor theory?
>>Scaldeddragon432: sick stuff
>>Harveyharvest: yeah
>>Harveyharvest: your reply tho...LOL
>>Scaldeddragon432: dinosaur + nuke war. even I'm not buying that
>>Harveyharvest: u n me both, dude
>>Harveyharvest: I been thinking
>>Scaldeddragon432: yeah?
>>Harveyharvest: u ever consider a live meet?
>>Scaldeddragon432: ...
>>Scaldeddragon432: really?
>>Scaldeddragon432: that's big, man
>>Harveyharvest: yeah
>>Harveyharvest: give it some thought, k
>>Harveyharvest: not like I can talk 2 just anybody about this stuff
>>Scaldeddragon432: I feel u

June 8, 1999

>>Chat Activated
>>Scaldeddragon432: I'm in, let's do it
>>Harveyharvest: took u long enough
>>Harveyharvest: where u live?
>>Scaldeddragon432: -redacted-
>>Harveyharvest: dude, I'm only like 15 minutes away! I live at -redacted-
>>Scaldeddragon432: sweet!
>>Scaldeddragon432: u know the Burger Empire off Highway 387?
>>Harveyharvest: totally
>>Scaldeddragon432: meet u there tomorrow at 3?
>>Harveyharvest: bring ur notes, man
>>Harveyharvest: we can blow their theories all to Hades
>>Scaldeddragon432: *thumbs up*
>>Scaldeddragon432: c u then

June 9, 1999

>>Chat Activated
>>Scaldeddragon432: dude, what gives? I waited 3 hours n u never showed...
>>Scaldeddragon432: dude?
>>Harveyharvest: ...
>>Harveyharvest: This account has been deactivated.

June 13, 1999

I can't stop thinking about it. I mean...one minute he's online and the next, his account is just...deactivated.

I thought about telling my parents. I mean...what if he's like a psycho robber or something? But then why would he give me his info? Unless he was lying about everything. Why target me, though? The only money I have is Monopoly money and every time I play the stupid game, I end up losing it all.
Maybe he really was taken. Maybe he got too close to the truth.

Which means they'll be coming for me next.

- - - - -

A gentle knock on the door is my mother being her usual annoying, nosy self.

"Sean, honey. A package came for you today. It's from someone named Harvey. Was he one of your little high school friends?"

I crack the door open, snatch the envelope and allow her one brief warning glare.

"Oh, Honey. I wish you would come sit in the living room, just for a little while. You keep it so dark in there. It can't be good for your eyes."

"Go away Mother. I'm in the middle of something very important.

She sighs. I'm sure I'm about to get a fifteen-minute lecture but I guess she must have a showing or something. I can hear her heels on the hardwood.

A floppy disk with "Prophecy" written in magic marker. My hand is shaking as I shove it into the reader.
It opens on a shot of a burning city. My city. Corpses in the streets. Toxic sludge bubbling up through cracks in the ruined sidewalks. People covered in oozing sores, weeping blood.

Blood everywhere. I can see it shinning and dripping under the sun light, an image quality I have never seen before.

A first-person video, the camera panning down a street, recording the destruction of a hundred years of war, famine and plague.

It comes to rest on a house.
My house!

Text at the bottom in blocky red letters.
9 lives, 9 holes, 9/9/1999

This isn't possible. It can't exist. I mean, this is stuff out of some sci-fi movie! This technology...it just isn't possible!
I've heard the legends of Y2K like anyone else. The apocalypse coming for us all. Death to technology and humankind alike but come on. They're just ghost stories to give the media people something to talk about, right?

Right?

August 23, 1999

Lost time.
It's not just something on The X-Files. I really have lost the last two months of my life. I remember nothing.
Once panic set in, I was an animal. There must have been food delivered to me but I don't remember eating. This is the first day I've been coherent.

...I know what I have to do now. I'm not going to sit here and just let this happen.

I will fulfill my part of the prophecy.

I'll save the world, even if those fools never see clearly enough to thank me.

September 9, 1999

Seven sacrifices all neatly aligned. It wasn't easy, smuggling them downstairs with my family none the wiser. It had to be done at night, under cover of darkness. The lambs...
(women and children)
...had to be subdued. All is quiet now. I can no longer hear their bleating...
(crying and pleading)
...and I have hardened my resolve to make these sacrifices of the required offerings...
(innocents)
...for the good of all humankind.

The last two are sheep who will go willingly to the ceremony...
(slaughter)

...therefore renewing the new millennium in blood.

I confess all that I have done to my parents. I am the picture of a repentant son, head bowed and hands trembling. They hurry downstairs to free my lambs...
(victims)

...only to take their place and become the sort of heroes who will be celebrated by the people of the future who will recognize this great and terrible deed I have done.

The sacrificial knife has finally been sated. It feels so light in my hand.
My part in the prophecy is done. I am free!

Time passes.

I recognize midnight's chime. I recognize the sound of the front door opening.
The blood that covers my clothes and skin...it's not mine.
The tears start to fall without my consent. I can't stop the animal sounds coming from my chest.

Hurried footprints on the basement stairs.
Sandy's eyes widen as she takes in the scene. My gaze locks on hers. I hold up a finger to my lips, my voice barely a whisper.

"Please...don't scream."

by fil

Story by Pureflower
Profile, overlay and graphics by boy
TV frame from NicePNG
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