Back in 2010 I found a flash game called Everybody Edits. It was a sandbox/platformer where people could build and play worlds. The concept was intriguing so I found myself coming back to the game. After a few months the developers added a way to create an account and save your creations. Communication with other players was done by writing words in a world. As this was very time-consuming I had been looking for other ways to talk to the community. I found a world which had a link to a Tinychat chatbox. The world was created by the EXcrew, one of the first groups of players to collab to create worlds as a group. Worlds by this group featured a link to the crews Tinychat. When I finally decided to visit the chatroom it was fairly active. There were about 10 people there and there was a discussion about something I don’t remember. The world I was playing at that time had some jumps that I couldn’t figure out so I decided to ask for help.
That’s when it happened. Some person called Megalamb said he would hop on to show how the jump worked. He played through half the world just to show me how it worked so, as you could imagine, I was quite thankful. I sent him a private message to thank him and we just kind of hit it off. I didn’t expect a player of a simple smiley block game to be this adult so it was really a pleasant surprise. I convinced him to join the Tinychat more often so we could play together more often.
Over the next few weeks we kept playing together and having a good time. At some point we decided to make our own Tinychat server so we could voicechat whilst playing. This would, according to him, make it easier to play and chat at the same time. I was hesitant at first because my parents had always warned me about bad people online so I was hesitant at first. We agreed that he would enable his webcam and that I would just use my microphone. To further erase any doubt I decided to try to get him on a more personal level. This is when it started going downhill. I asked him how he came up with his username that it was the size of his genitalia plus his last name. I was kind of creeped out but I figured that it must have been a stupid joke. He told me that he was ashamed of this nickname and that he would change it if he could.
As I got comfortable with Megalamb, he was able to convince me into enabling my webcam as well. We were mostly playing the game when we chatted so we usually weren’t looking at each other anyway. Over the next few months I kept hearing weird noises during our play sessions. Once time, I quickly switched tabs to see what he was doing. He was sitting there without a shirt and his right arm was making suspicious movement. I think he saw my shocked expression as he quickly disconnected. He later came back to claim his air-conditioning was broken and that he should have warned me. I was in discomfort and I decided to gradually stop playing with him.
By this time we already talked about the places we were from, pets, relationships and other generic stuff internet friends talked about. He had insisted on me telling him my last name as he had already told his. Again, I was hesitant because of what my parents taught me but I figured it couldn’t cause too much harm.
A few months later I got a weird friend request on Facebook. Some guy called Christopher Lamb sent me a friend request. We didn’t have mutual friends, weren’t from the same area of the country and I couldn’t find anything we had in common. I rejected the request and moved on with my day. The next day I has a revelation. I quickly pieced together how he was able to find me. He had figured out that my nickname was just my first name with some random numbers. This knowledge combined with my last name and the general area I lived it made it easy for him to track me down. I Decided to tell him that the friend request was creepy and that he shouldn’t try to contact me again. He instantly ignored my request by saying how illogical I was being. This time I blocked him to make sure there couldn’t be further communication from him.
Later that week I was running some errands when I noticed an extremely beat up opel kadett at the grocery store I usually went to. The car had a pixelated smiley sticker on it that seemed weirdly familiar. I couldn’t quite place it but I knew I had seen it before. By the time I was done shopping I had forgotten about the car and walked home.
That evening I was going to a party at a farm not far out of town. These parties were known for the sheer amount of alcohol and other drugs involved. They were also the only thing to do in a small town like mine. I got high like I usually did because there was no way I could enjoy such a party sober. The lights were dimmed and the music was loud. The dancefloor was packed and everyone was just having a good time. When I went for my drink I couldn’t find it at first. I always made sure to leave it a very specific place to make sure I would remember which glass was mine. There was a glass 10 centimetres from the place I placed mine but I was sure it wasn’t mine. As I was very thirsty I just decided to take the other glass.
Right when I took a swig I felt something was wrong. Within a few minutes I got extremely tired and I had to sit down. Someone walked up to me to ask if I was okay. Their voice was familiar but it also felt weird to hear. Long story short, this person agreed to drive me home so we left the party.
I woke up un an unfamiliar bed. When I tried to get up I felt that my legs were restrained. He came in. My heart dropped as I finally realised what had happened the last day. The weird car, the moved drink and the weird but familiar voice. It was Megalamb. He laughed maniacally as I tried to cry. He put his hands on my neck. I felt my lungs running out of air and saw my eyes going black as I was grasping for air in this panicked state.
I died.