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When I was sixteen, someone was editing my life. After living out my junior prom 10 times, I started to wake to a world which was not mine.
When I was 16, I did not live freely like the rest of you.
You could call it a lot of things. Loss of free will and the ability to choose. I can say that now.
I did not have control over my own life and what happened to me. My fate was in someone else’s hands.
It had been happening my whole life.
But I don’t think I was fully aware of it until I was around the age of eight years old.
It started with subtle things I would only notice if I paid close attention; my popsicle turning into ice cream, and my dolls changing hair color. Spaghetti would turn into soup, and pizza would become garlic bread baguettes and tacos. But as I grew up, these edits became easier to register. Especially when they were happening actively. I would be riding the school bus, and then suddenly I would be in the back of my dad’s car. Mom would be taking me to a birthday party which was at a swimming pool, and then it was at the park, an amusement park, and then the beach. It’s not like the world around me changed. The exact same events took place—predetermined events which could not be altered. It was just me and my life which was edited. At times, it was annoying.
I was ten years old when I got my first crush. Sunny Pearson, a redhead who sat in front of me in class. But then it was Max Jacobs, and then it was Johnny Markham, followed by Caine Roberts. Eventually, it was settled that my first crush would be Liam Carson. But I still remembered every other crush, as well as the feelings which came with them. I remembered the butterflies in my stomach with Sunny. The tingling in my fingers and toes with Max, and straight-up disgust with Johnny and Caine.
It was like living multiple different lives in multiple universes.
Scary for a kid, but also weirdly cool. I could brag to the other kids in my class that I had lived the same ten minutes over and over again until my editor was happy. But then I would be thrown into some kind of institution for crazy children.
So, I figured that was a bad idea. It did get significantly worse as I grew up. As kids, we don’t really see the true reality of something being terrifying because we don’t understand it. I wasn’t scared of the edits, more curious. In some cases, they could help. Like, I would be cycling down the road and suddenly go too fast, flying over my handlebars and skinning my knees. Sometimes they would help me, taking me back to the moment I decided to go faster, and then slowing me down so instead, I cleared the hill easily, avoiding the rock jutting out of the ground. Getting older though, I wanted it to stop. Because what kid wants someone else to have control over their life? At Jessie Eaton’s twelfth birthday party, I made two friends.
Hannah and Ruby.
I spent all day with them, exchanging secrets and giggling over boy talk. We had just decided that we were going to have a slumber party of our own when I was abruptly yanked back to the start of Jesse’s birthday party.
This time Hannah and Ruby did not talk to me.
When I went over to them to greet them, the two girls exchanged weirded-out looks, told me my swimsuit looked stupid, and left me on the edge of the pool. What’s crazy is I remembered the friendship which blossomed between us in those few short hours it takes kids to make friends. I had this feeling that we were going to be friends for a long time—that maybe it would last a lifetime. Before I was pulled back to the start of that day, and this time the two of them became the exact opposite.
That is when this thing started to get to me. When personal friendships and relationships were edited and cut to suit this phantom entity playing around with my life.
I experienced my dad getting three different new jobs, and we moved to three different cities when I was thirteen. I remembered each one. I remembered the middle schools I attended and the friends I made. Before I was dragged back to the town I was born in.
Whole parts of my life were cut out, friends becoming strangers and strangers becoming friends.
It started to drive me a little crazy.
On my thirteenth birthday, I was hunted down by a woman in a grey suit, chased into the forest, and stabbed in the gut. I remember her steel grip on my neck choking the breath from my lungs, the cruel teeth of her knife plunging in and out of my stomach until warm wetness was tainting me, soaking through my nightshirt.
This woman never spoke to me. She never said a word when she murdered me. I went through this three times. Three versions of me screaming for my parents who were never home, throwing myself into a run that was never fast enough, and always, always going into the same forest I knew was my final destination. I started to wonder if being murdered was my fate.
If this thing in charge of my life and actions wanted me to suffer. Before the fourth time. Where I shut my bedroom window and decided to sleep downstairs. I waited for her to appear, for her looming silhouette to loom over me like it always did, pulling me from slumber and catapulting me into a chase that had ended in me bleeding out on the forest floor with no air in my lungs to scream for help. This time though, there was no woman in a grey suit.
I slept soundly downstairs and was woken by my mother returning from work with a giant birthday cake and presents wrapped in bright pink. I thought the thing would stop hurting me, stop forcing me through the same traumatic events, cutting and pasting and editing them to make them progressively more torturous. But they didn’t stop there. Oh, no.
Because if someone can kill over and over again without consequences, as well as the ability to cut it out like it never happened, why wouldn’t they?
So, in real life if you had the ability to do it to a real person… you would.
I remembered every single time I died.
I remembered every edit, every significant thing severed from me.
At fourteen years old, I fell out of my bedroom window and bled out in my mother’s arms.
I was forced to relive it over and over and over again with certain edits put in place as if this entity, this thing, was adding and removing small things. The flowers on my bedroom table became a bowl of fruit. My cell phone in my hands became a notepad. Everything from my steps to my choices in what I was going to do, changing and evolving until I never even went into my bedroom. Instead, I stayed in the front yard and read a book under the late summer sun. Still, though, I was haunted by memories I had from past edits. I could remember falling directly onto my head, the wind in my face as I plunged down, down, down, and my own sharp breath when impact slammed into me.
I had been completely paralyzed under something sharp sticking from the ground, blood seeping from my ears and ruining my mother’s dress who sobbed into my hair and screamed for an ambulance.
I remembered feeling fuzzy but also weirdly at peace. Like I could close my eyes and everything would be okay. I died. I remembered the confusing and dizzying blur of darkness and nothing enveloping me before the whole thing was severed from me; a full memory cut to pieces and, only existing in fragments still haunting the back of my mind. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't confide in anyone. Whenever I tried to express my thoughts, I found myself struggling to articulate them effectively.
It was like the words were stuck in my mouth, unable to escape. I attempted to explain it to my mom using the analogy of cutting, copying, and pasting, a concept we learned in school. But when I tried to communicate my suspicions that someone was copying and pasting my actions, and playing with my mind like I was their own personal Barbie doll, the words failed me. It felt like having a mouthful of dust that I would never be able to spit out. Their presence was always there, following me no matter what I did or said. Words disappeared a lot, even if I spoke them mentally thousands of times. To Mom, and then to Dr. Luke, who was worried about my educational development when I spent most of my time sleeping in class.
Because that is what this entity wanted me to do. They wanted me to sleep—so I slept.
And when I tried to speak to anyone about what was going on, it was as if my own sentences were erased from my mind before I could speak them aloud, leaving me feeling confused and scared. It was similar to that feeling of walking into a room and forgetting why you entered in the first place. I felt blank and helpless, unable to express myself. Eventually, I discovered this thing’s name.
It wasn’t a “thing” at all. It wasn’t a god or an all-knowing and all-seeing entity. They were human like me. I woke up one day suddenly with the knowledge that the person controlling my life was called Seven—and they did not have bad intentions. They were just… curious.
I saw glimpses of Seven.
Not them in particular, but their life. I saw their room which confused me. It looked like a bedroom from the angle I initially saw.
But when I started to see more, splinters of tiled white walls and odd-looking machines, I started to wonder if Seven was in the hospital.
It would make sense. From what I saw, Seven was always kneeling on the floor with something pressed to their knees. I never saw what it was. Because Seven only existed in small snap-shots in my dreams, pieces of them drip-fed to me. For a long time, I thought they was in the hospital. But then I would see the glass sliding doors of her room opening up and a man my dad’s age would appear with a strained smile, announcing dinner was ready.
And when Seven jumped to their feet, I was seeing twinkling fairy lights strung across an unmade bed, a pale blue rug, and posters on tiled white walls. Seven was my age. Which made me wonder how exactly had this control over me and my life. If an average teenager somewhere in the world was able to edit my life to suit them personally, how could I stop them?
Spoiler alert: I didn’t. Well, I couldn’t. I had no idea where Seven was, and it’s not like I could tell them to stop out loud. They already had my mouth and words, every thought which came into my mind was predetermined by them. I guess I was just living vicariously through them. There came a moment as I grew up and more and more things about my life were changed and erased completely before I accepted it.
I had no choice. I did have a rebellious phase where I lost my mind a little. I became obsessed with snatching back control over MY life and living for myself. I stepped in front of a bus on my way to school—only to be snapped back to five minutes before leaving the house.
I shaved all my hair off, and almost immediately, just as my mom’s eyes were growing to the size of twin saucers, I was thrown back to minutes before, and this time anything sharp in my vicinity was nowhere to be seen. My attempts became obsessive. It became a sort of game I was playing with them, to see if they gave in.
I slapped my then-boyfriend who I didn’t even like in the face and flashed to the whole school, so Seven made me home sick instead. I doused our place and lit a match, convinced if I made a statement as big as an explosion, that Seven would understand. But I thought wrong.
I was naïve. Before I even felt the heat of the explosion, Seven took me all the way to the beach where I was sunbathing under the sun.
Nowhere near home.
I had already been killed multiple times by the woman in grey when I was fourteen—hunted and murdered on my birthday, thrown off of my bike’s handlebars, hit by a bus, hit by a car, a truck, and my own school bus.
I had drowned in the sea, the lake, and my best friend Nick’s pool. I had stuck my own hair straighteners in my mouth, sliced open my throat with a splinter of a mirror, and held my whole class hostage with a super-soaker.
And all of those were Seven.
They could do all of this, all of this fucking craziness, turning me into a murderer in one instance, and then a victim. And wipe it all away, leaving me with the memories. Fifteen years old, and I was completely desensitised to both death and life and tired of both. I was done. I was done fighting. And when I made that clear, throwing up my white flag and stopped trying to take control, Seven stopped trying to murder me to try and punish me.
I started to live my life as they laid it out.
I didn’t even blink when my cereal changed from Frosted Flakes to Peanut Butter Pops. I stopped noticing edits. Or I did notice, but I just didn’t care.
We got a transfer student from Australia called Lucy, who became Adam from Canada, and then Kenji from Japan.
In sophomore year, I saw the woman in the grey suit again.
This time she was our new guidance counselor.
Seven thought they could get a reaction out of me, but I was way past being scared of a monster from my childhood who had been cut and sliced and severed until they only existed inside my memory. Still, though, I wondered why Seven had made her the exact same.
The exact same strict blonde ponytail, and narrow nose, her collar popped open slightly, and one button missing on her suit. I had been the one to tug it off in my struggle to escape her. I remembered all of those instances, exactly ten versions of me reaching out, the air being sucked from my lungs as her grip tightened around my throat, pressing the right amount of pressure for me to suffer-- and grappling with her suit until a button came loose.
Maybe Seven only had that version of her, though it was still eerie hearing her speak after only seeing her as a mute shadow chasing me into the night. “How are you doing today, Smith?” Her name was Mrs. Stoke. When she leaned across the desk with a smile, she smelled like the pine trees I had died underneath. I had to see her every day, both in passing and during sessions I didn’t even know what I was there for. I had to nod and smile and tell this monster all of my problems while Seven made no attempt to edit and cut my memories.
I often wondered why they didn’t. If they could alter my life to fit their taste, why did they leave me with the memories? I quickly came to realize throughout my life that it was just me who was being played around with. The people in my life stayed the same, while in my perspective they changed. Things like accidents and deaths were things that couldn’t be changed. My dad died when I was eleven years old, and at the time I thought the phenomenon playing with my life would bring him back like they could bring me back. But things like my dad’s death and my best friend’s cancer diagnosis could not be changed or edited.
I could die multiple times and be brought back as many times as Seven wanted, but I couldn’t go back and cut out when Nick revealed he had something on his brain, which turned out to be benign, a grade two brain tumor that was thankfully treatable, though still had potential to spread and become malignant. It didn’t. Though it could have. This was my first proper slap in the face. I could be edited and fucked with, while the people in my life had their own fate—their own path. Nick’s path was his.
He discovered he had a potentially killer disease at the age of fourteen years old, fought it, and won.
He told me just as we were saying goodbye, and the expression on his face told me everything I needed to know. Nick was scared—no, terrified. And he didn’t want me to worry, so had told me at the probably the worst time, when I had to head home to help mom prepare catering for a BBQ she was holding. “I’m sick, so I need to be in the emergency room for a bit, but I’m okay!” He said quickly, before jumping into his dad’s car. When I managed to register his words and follow him right to the window of his car, demanding to know what he meant, Nick’s smile disappeared. “It’s nothing,” he said before rolling up the window and signalling his dad to drive. I didn’t find out what he meant until later that night when Mom came into my room and wrapped her arms around me, told me exactly what it was, and that Nick was going to be okay, leaving me to sob into my stuffed toys.
I had naively hoped Seven would take me back to right before Nick dropped the bombshell, and instead have him say something completely different.
But no. I was never taken back, and that day went on to become a concrete moment in my life—and completely unchangeable. I started to understand that the people and the world around me could not be changed. It was just me.
I was very, very wrong.
I didn’t think I had been created by this person. Because the concept of being created and imagined up as a character in someone else’s narrative was crazy. I was not a fictional person in a story. However. I did think my life had been hijacked.
We had our junior prom and as usual, Seven was in editing mode. I started the evening in shorts and a t-shirt, barefoot. Then I was cycling in my prom dress, struggling with my heels on the pedals before they were completely edited out.
Yes. Unsurprisingly, it was hard to peddle in heels and a dress. It took me falling three times for Seven to realise that.
This was the last time. I could sense their eagerness to get this perfect. The early June heat scorching my back felt exactly like it had the first nine times, a light breeze grazing my cheeks and playing with stray strands of my hair. The sky was cloudy, and I was being attacked by fireflies, tiny buzzing balls of light dancing in my eyes. I already knew exactly where the night ahead would lead me.
I wasn’t technically allowed to go to prom due to too many tardies.
However, after reliving the same night nine times already, I knew Mrs. Clay, who was in charge of prom invites would eventually let me in for a single sympathy dance. I wasn’t sure why Seven had taken me through ten different versions, but I wasn’t complaining—and it’s not like I could, anyway. Walking straight into the chorus of Take On Me which I had heard for the ninth time, I once again drank in the theme of the dance. Under The Sea. The dance floor was awash with varying shades of blue balloons, two well-made thrones set up on the stage for our 2015 King and Queen.
Pushing my way through my classmates who were kitted up in pretty blue dresses and suits, I navigated my way towards the refreshments table, bracing myself for Mrs. Clay’s presence. According to the last nine times I had re-lived this dance, she made herself known when Cassie Lennox spilled punch all over herself.
Cassie’s squeak of annoyance rang out, just as I was reaching the table. I could see Nick leaning against the table, idly snacking on a mini sandwich. In the previous instances, he had been tearing apart the dance floor.
I wondered why things were different.
“Smith.” Mrs. Clay folded her arms across her animal sweater she really shouldn’t have been wearing in this kind of heat. “You’re not on the guest list,” she said over another 90’s song blasting. She was a little more friendly this time, unlike attempt eight when she dragged me from the hall herself, shouting at me for disturbing the other students. Fixing me with a stern smile, the teacher cleared her throat.
I could tell she was distracted by some of the varsity team spiking the punch behind me. I already knew what effect their spiking would have on the student body. But it was just beer. Mrs. Clay seemed to be torn over grilling me and stopping them. “Smith, students who have failed to meet requirements to attend prom are not supposed to be here.” Her narrowed gaze flicked behind me. “Robbie Altrez, I can see that beer in your hand!”
“Relax, it's Coke!” The boy laughed.
During the third, fourth, and fifth instances, it was Pepsi instead, and Robbie Altrez had been a lot less chipper.
Visibly uncomfortable now, the teacher was clearly freaking out over whom to yell at. I took my chance. “I know I’m not supposed to be here because of my tardies, or whatever I’m in trouble for,” I smiled, unlike the other times when I protested and started yelling at her.
This time, Seven was making sure I was as sweet as possible. Maybe she really wanted me to have this dance that I had found myself craving. I had relived the same three hours over and over again to get a dance that was either cut short, ruined by the teacher, or cut off by a slow song. “But can I have one dance?” I wasn’t wearing shoes, and she noticed that, raising her eyebrows. I did like the heels I started with, cute silver slip-ons. The teacher opened her mouth to no-doubt question my lack of shoes, but with her actually listening to me, I started to plead.
Just like every past instance, but this time without screaming at her like a banshee.
“Please!” It was when her expression contorted, her lips quirking into the slightest of smiles, that I knew I had swayed her. “I just want to dance to one song and I’ll go,” I said. Nick had caught my eye in the crowd and was waving manically. I waved back, unable to resist a grin. He looked confused. I told him I’d stay home and watch movies. In the sixth instance, he had come over himself and dragged me into a manic dance, ignoring the teacher. “One dance, and then go.”
Mrs. Clay shot me a glare before twisting around to go and wring the varsity guy’s necks. I found Nick at the refreshments table making his way through the dessert options. When I sidled up to him, he shot me a smile, biting down on a mini-cheesecake. The boy looked to be lost in thought, his gaze drowning in the crowd of kids jumping up and down to a dance track. I expected him to be his usual happy self, repeating the same thing he said in every other instance, “Aren’t you supposed to be at home watching scary movies?” But the words never came.
Instead, he offered me a smile. There were tiny differences in his appearance compared to the other instances. Instead of the same stripy suit that I was used to, he wore a simple white shirt and pants, strands of light brown falling in sleepy eyes. It was his freckles that had attracted me to him. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours joining them up in a dot-to-dot until his cheeks resembled constellations.
“You made it,” Nick murmured.
“I did.”
“Did you cycle in a dress?”
I leaned back. “Yes.”
“Was it hard?”
“Maybe.”
I caught his gaze and something in me, what were my actual words, couldn’t resist spitting out a question that was never in any other past instances because I didn’t have to say it. This was the first time Nick wasn’t acting like himself, “Are you okay?”
The words surprised me because they were mine, and Seven had allowed me to say them.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” His voice was slightly slurred, and I remembered the varsity guys were spiking the punch. But that wasn’t for another hour. Mrs. Clay had already chased Robbie from the room, so it didn’t make sense that Nick was getting drunk this quickly.
Seven wasn’t in control at that moment, and I turned to him slowly, with my own free will, my own thoughts, and found myself staring at a face I didn’t know—or at least one which resembled my friend, but wasn’t him. In the dull blue lights, Nick wasn’t looking at anyone or anything, staring into the crowd with a curl on his lip, occasionally sipping from his punch. When I followed his gaze, his eyes seemed to be raking through the crowd. He was searching for something. I was surprised when he nudged me with his elbow. “Hey, so… after this, can we talk?
Nick took another sip.
“Outside.”
Something ice-cold crept down my spine when my best friend turned to me with an expression I didn’t recognize, haunted eyes which reminded me of my own, staring into the mirror at home after reliving the exact same events.
“And you’re 2015 King is…” Mrs Wilma yelled into the microphone with way too much gusto for a woman of her calibre.
Nick.
It was always Nick.
“Nicholas Highcliffe!”
The hall collapsed into applause, and a bright spotlight found my best friend’s face, illuminating handsome features. In past instances, he had been amused and yet surprised. This time, I noticed he rolled his eyes which was odd. I don’t think I had ever seen him react like this during the other times. My best friend turned and dumped his drink.
“You’re kidding. Did you vote for me?
His tone didn’t match his words. The boy’s words were joking around, and I expected a laugh like every other time when he’d elbowed me playfully. I have been trying to think of the best word to describe my best friend at that moment, and it would be… unnatural.
Somehow, he didn’t belong next to me, or in that room, like he had every other time. His presence felt like a glitch, a problem I couldn’t look past. Nick suddenly looked more of a shadow, a silhouette, then a human. Still, though, the same words came from my mouth in the exact same tangled slew as every other time. But this time I was self-aware that there was something wrong with him, and he wasn’t good at hiding it. “I didn’t,” I said.
Which was a lie. I always voted for him. When I tried not to, the ballot wrote itself, anyway.
“Fuck.” Nick groaned, tipping his head back with a sigh. But it looked almost forced, out of whack. Too fast. Like he had been put on two times speed. “Is it because of *The Thing?”*
Nick had been referring to his cancer as “the thing” for a while now. The thing was a very small monster hiding in his brain, around the size of a raisin, which had needed both surgery and chemotherapy. It had been caught early and he had been in remission for almost two years—- had lost his hair during chemo, and grown it all back again. But still, for some reason, our class still referred to him as “the kid who got cancer' so let’s all feel sorry (not sorry) for him. This included him being student body president, as well as having his own designated spot during pep rallies and games. It was as cute as it was kinda cringe. Nick's words, not mine. There’s not a lot you can say to someone who has cancer, when the cruel, yet universal answer we don’t vocalize is, “I am so sorry it’s you and not me.”
It's not cruel, or rude.
It's human.
Our classmates had taken “I’m sorry it’s you and not me” to a whole new level.
I leaned against the table with a shrug, allowing Seven to take control of my mouth. “I’m gonna say it’s because of the thing.”
When he scowled at me, I nudged him. “Well?” I smoothed down his shirt and tie, noticing my hands were shaking. When my fingers delicately fixed his collar and tie, I noticed Nick was staring directly at me. He wanted to say something. “What are you waiting for?" I spouted out the same words which were always on the tip of my tongue.
"Your crown awaits.”
Nick shot me the side-eye. “Please don’t make me do this.” But just like every other time, he slowly made his way through the crowd, before jumping onto the stage. Nick allowed the teacher to crown him with a mocking bow and then took the mic. “I am okay now, by the way,” Nick said, with a shrug. When he caught my eye, I nodded.
“In case any of you haven't noticed, which is all of you since I've been given this for the third goddamn time…” he muttered into the mic, though his words definitely caused alarm bells in my ears. I lifted my head to try and find his gaze, but his eyes instead bore into the crowd.
“I really am okay. I’m not dying. So, this?” He gestured to the crown. “It doesn't really belong to me, but…sure, I'll take it. Thanks, guys.”
Smiling awkwardly, Mrs. Wilma took the mic, but he pulled it back. “And…”
Okay, maybe he was drunker than I realised.
This didn’t happen during the other times. Nick just took his crown and shook his head when he was pressured to make a speech.
This time though, my best friend seemed like he had a lot to say, very clearly intoxicated with alcohol I was sure didn’t even exist yet. “Can we please remove the memorial from the boy’s shower room? I’m not dead, guys. I’m okay. It was THIS big.” He tucked the mic in his armpit, using his thumb and index, to indicate the size. “They caught it, and I am okay. I've been okay for a while, if you actually pay attention. So please treat me like a normal person, all right?"
The crowd answered in a low murmur, and my best friend cleared his throat.
“Also—"
“Okay, Nick,” Mrs. Wilma was getting flustered. “Thank you.” But Nick didn’t let go of the mic. I gestured for him to get a hold of himself though he just smiled and winked. Still the same attitude as the other instances, though I couldn’t ignore a certain look in his eye. When prom queen was announced, Bree Cassidy, an out and proud lesbian who organized the prom herself, Mrs. Wilma caught my eye. “Smith.” She spoke into the microphone. “You are not supposed to be here. Please leave.”
Ouch.
So, maybe things weren’t changing after all.
Nick, who had taken a seat on his “throne” which was underwater themed— awkwardly holding his “trident” which was just a hockey stick covered in blue streamers, cupped his mouth with a grin I couldn’t trust, especially when I knew it was fake.
“Stay! Your king says so!”
The teacher shot a warning look at him before pointing to the door.
I did want to argue, but being dragged out of prom was an embarrassing thought.
So, I waved half-heartedly to Nick, blew a kiss at Bree, who was making a speech and headed towards the door. That is what I always did.
This time though, Nick caught my eye before I left, twisting his head around. He didn't say anything, though his expression told me everything I needed to know. "We need to talk." his eyes said. "Now." My best friend’s gaze lingered on me before finding our classmates once more, his expression contorting back into what I thought I knew. What I thought was familiar. When I made it back onto the corridor, my head was spinning. But they were my thoughts. Not Seven’s. I wanted to go back in there and drag Nick off of the stage.
I wanted to go and down a soda, because I had not drunk anything in hours, and for some reason Seven was against the idea of hydration. Now that I had semi-control back, control I had not felt for a long, long time, I wanted to do everything Seven had stopped me from doing.
I found my fingers grazing my own face and lips and cheeks, and yes, I was real. I was thinking my own thoughts which exploded into my mouth and slipped from my lips when I dared speak them. Words I wanted to tell my mother at the age of eight years old when I was scared I was losing my mind. Starting towards the exit, I planned to wait on the football field for Nick.
Before the doors on the other side of the corridor were flying open, and April Lucas was stumbling forwards. April was one of the quiet kids, usually keeping to herself and barely making eye contact with anyone. I found myself panic-stricken as the girl took long strides toward me before situating herself three inches from my face. “Tell them to stop,” she whispered in a cry. The girl tugged violently at her hair, her wild eyes barely meeting mine, instead lost elsewhere. “Tell them to stop!”
Something strange popped up in front of my eyes, suddenly, a tangle of words barely registering in my mind before I blinked and they were gone.
But the words I had seen were suddenly in my mouth.
“Tell who to stop?”
April grabbed my shoulders, squeezing for dear life. “Seven.” She whispered. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it, I can’t take it! You need to tell her to stop!" When she faced me, there was something wrong with her eyes. Her nose was bleeding, not bad, but significant enough for her to realise, her eyes widening." They're going to kill us."
Before I could respond, the girl was stumbling away, sobbing, clawing at her hair like she was trying to scalp herself.
Turning to shout the girl's name, I caught a sudden flash of movement in the corner of my eye. I knew what it was, or who it was, from the ponytail swishing from side to side. My childhood nightmare had come back to haunt me. I never knew these were the events that followed prom because I had re-lived my prom night almost ten times. Twisting around, I found myself face-face with my guidance counselor, also the woman in the grey suit. This time she did not bother to hide behind her façade.
I glimpsed the familiar sliver of silver poking through the knuckles of her fist, the exact same knife which had killed me multiple times. I didn't even make it to the classroom. It's amazing how fast you can get from A to B fuelled with adrenaline. I don't remember screaming or crying out, just knowing that I was inevitably going to die, and be dragged back to 8 pm, cycling in my dress, and shooing away fireflies.
I was only thinking one thing when my guidance counselor shoved me against the door I was trying to get through, slamming my fists against it, screaming with no voice. *Why?*
I spoke to Seven, when the ice-cold blade was plunged into my gut over and over again, beads of warm red filling my mouth and dripping down my chin. Why are you doing this to me?
I dropped to the ground when the woman's fingers untangled from my hair, letting me slip to the floor with a wet, meaty smack. I was trying to drink in her features and try and find a person, a soul, behind those empty dark eyes boring into me. But I just found the dark. Dead.
Again. This time, though, I was aware of my death. I was aware of the dark swallowing me up. I expected Seven to edit me once again, taking me back to 8 pm. But when I opened my eyes, I was standing up. Back at prom. Back leaning against the table, with Nick at my side. His expression was back to normal; the normal which was amused, the curl of his lip and spark in his eyes. But there was something... wrong.
The world appeared to be frozen, flickering. The air in front of my face looked to be buzzing with an invisible current. Everything was still.
The crowd around me was frozen in time, some of them dancing, chatting, and spilling drinks. Before I could fully understand what I was doing, I was pushing my way through my frozen classmates, and back out onto the hall. April Lucas was standing at the end of the hallway, also frozen. Her expression was the exact same as before-- and when I turned my head, there she was again. The woman in the grey suit, also frozen like everyone else, in mid-stride.
It hit me how inhuman she looked when I was fully taking her in. She didn’t have ears, or a thumb and forefinger, while the knife in her hand looked almost plastic. I started forwards in a daze, eager to pull the weapon from her hands to see how a blade that looked fake could kill me so many times with brute force.
"How many times have you lived through tonight?"
Nick was standing behind me, his arms folded.
I started to answer, but once again, words were appearing in front of my eyes, though this time they were caught, scrambled, and wrong. This time, there were multiple.
**What do you mean?**
**I haven't noticed anything weird.**
**Someone is trying to kill me! Behind you!'**
Swallowing hard, I blinked, and the strange words faded slightly, before disappearing. "What do you mean?"
Just like in my dreams of Seven, I was back in their bedroom, walls of white surrounding them. This time, I saw their trembling hands, and an odd device pressed against their knees.
It was a tablet of some sort. In Seven's hand was a pen, and with several strokes, they began to sketch out my best friend's face in outlines, before adding swirling eyes, and a mouth which didn't make sense, which was too big for his face. And above that, a large speech bubble: “Tonight,” more words were scrawled across black and white pages in the back of my eyes.
“Your whole life. How many times has she changed it?” He said. “When I was fourteen years old, a woman in a grey suit came into the hospital and stabbed me through my chest. Then I woke up like normal, and nothing had happened. I thought I was losing my mind, until I had to live through it until I was let go." He spoke in a hiss. "Following that, I choked on a piece of chicken, I was murdered by my secret second twin, and my personal favorite, hunted and killed by our whole class on my 15th birthday.”
My face was drawn underneath, less artistic, more of a blur of shadow with not many facial features.
The drawing of me didn't speak, and neither did I. "It happens to you too," Nick said. But this time he was speaking for himself, while the version of him, Seven's drawing, turned forwards, his eyes drawn in manic and terrifying swirls. He didn’t speak, but his lack of speech was terrifying, just a speech bubble, and three ellipses, his sketched face becoming more animated, and then human. Followed by a black page, and three more ellipses.
Then another. Three ellipses on each sheet of white, and then dark.
…
I could see the story being written out in front of my eyes, and I was part of it. "I'm sorry." The words appeared again, this time sketched out. But this time they were forceful, in full control of Seven's pen. “I don’t know what else to do except keep dying, and then maybe…” he broke out into a sob. “Maybe we can get out of here. Because there is an out. There's an exit."
He twisted his head around, and behind me, April Lucas and the woman in the grey suit began to move slowly, bleeding back to life. April's hands twitched by her sides, balling into a fist, while the woman's fingers tightened around the blade. "I just don't know where it is." And inside my mind, Seven's body was trembling, knees jolting together. But it wasn't fright, I thought, as their pen hit the screen, and something cruel sliced into my gut, as he thought back the control from Nick. It was excitement. I didn't even see my friend, only his words stretched out across the page, as our creator grew more and more manic, scribbling into our eyes, turning them into abysses of pooling black. I didn't see the knife in his hands, only my own blood staining his fingers.
Inhaling sharply, blood once again filling my mouth, I waited to be dragged back.
It took ten seconds of waiting, fully aware I was bleeding out, that my body was dying.
And yet when I died, my mind was still awake. I was still thinking, still trying to figure out how I was thinking without a physical body.
The world jolted around me. This time I could see it for what it really was. An abyss of darkness with no way out. Only the school, my house, and a long winding road dipping into nothingness, everything beyond drowned in shadow, lonely oblivion. It was 8 pm once again.
I was on my bike, surrounded by fireflies buzzing in my face.
But this time I knew what was going on, as the words **GAME OVER** faded from the backs of my eyes.
When I was a kid, Sunny, Max, Johnny, and Liam weren’t random kids picked out to be my crushes.
The jobs my dad got, all the town's I moved to.
They were multiple choices.
All those times I was killed by the woman in the grey suit, I was the final girl in someone’s sick idea of a game. Seven wasn't editing me, or my life. They had dragged me into their own horrific creation and were taking me back to the last save point to do it all over again.
...
So, yeah.
This is my account of being part of (and escaping) one of the biggest cover-ups in gaming history. You might have heard of it.
Most of our accounts have been deleted, but I figured telling the world will stop them from doing this again. Because they’re still out there, looking for participants. They either scam you with kindness or drag you off of the streets when you’re least expecting it.
When I was 16, I did not live freely like the rest of you.
You could call it a lot of things. Loss of free will and the ability to choose. I can say that now.
I did not have control over my own life and what happened to me. My fate was in someone else’s hands.
It had been happening my whole life.
But I don’t think I was fully aware of it until I was around the age of eight years old.
It started with subtle things I would only notice if I paid close attention; my popsicle turning into ice cream, and my dolls changing hair color. Spaghetti would turn into soup, and pizza would become garlic bread baguettes and tacos. But as I grew up, these edits became easier to register. Especially when they were happening actively. I would be riding the school bus, and then suddenly I would be in the back of my dad’s car. Mom would be taking me to a birthday party which was at a swimming pool, and then it was at the park, an amusement park, and then the beach. It’s not like the world around me changed. The exact same events took place—predetermined events which could not be altered. It was just me and my life which was edited. At times, it was annoying.
I was ten years old when I got my first crush. Sunny Pearson, a redhead who sat in front of me in class. But then it was Max Jacobs, and then it was Johnny Markham, followed by Caine Roberts. Eventually, it was settled that my first crush would be Liam Carson. But I still remembered every other crush, as well as the feelings which came with them. I remembered the butterflies in my stomach with Sunny. The tingling in my fingers and toes with Max, and straight-up disgust with Johnny and Caine.
It was like living multiple different lives in multiple universes.
Scary for a kid, but also weirdly cool. I could brag to the other kids in my class that I had lived the same ten minutes over and over again until my editor was happy. But then I would be thrown into some kind of institution for crazy children.
So, I figured that was a bad idea. It did get significantly worse as I grew up. As kids, we don’t really see the true reality of something being terrifying because we don’t understand it. I wasn’t scared of the edits, more curious. In some cases, they could help. Like, I would be cycling down the road and suddenly go too fast, flying over my handlebars and skinning my knees. Sometimes they would help me, taking me back to the moment I decided to go faster, and then slowing me down so instead, I cleared the hill easily, avoiding the rock jutting out of the ground. Getting older though, I wanted it to stop. Because what kid wants someone else to have control over their life? At Jessie Eaton’s twelfth birthday party, I made two friends.
Hannah and Ruby.
I spent all day with them, exchanging secrets and giggling over boy talk. We had just decided that we were going to have a slumber party of our own when I was abruptly yanked back to the start of Jesse’s birthday party.
This time Hannah and Ruby did not talk to me.
When I went over to them to greet them, the two girls exchanged weirded-out looks, told me my swimsuit looked stupid, and left me on the edge of the pool. What’s crazy is I remembered the friendship which blossomed between us in those few short hours it takes kids to make friends. I had this feeling that we were going to be friends for a long time—that maybe it would last a lifetime. Before I was pulled back to the start of that day, and this time the two of them became the exact opposite.
That is when this thing started to get to me. When personal friendships and relationships were edited and cut to suit this phantom entity playing around with my life.
I experienced my dad getting three different new jobs, and we moved to three different cities when I was thirteen. I remembered each one. I remembered the middle schools I attended and the friends I made. Before I was dragged back to the town I was born in.
Whole parts of my life were cut out, friends becoming strangers and strangers becoming friends.
It started to drive me a little crazy.
On my thirteenth birthday, I was hunted down by a woman in a grey suit, chased into the forest, and stabbed in the gut. I remember her steel grip on my neck choking the breath from my lungs, the cruel teeth of her knife plunging in and out of my stomach until warm wetness was tainting me, soaking through my nightshirt.
This woman never spoke to me. She never said a word when she murdered me. I went through this three times. Three versions of me screaming for my parents who were never home, throwing myself into a run that was never fast enough, and always, always going into the same forest I knew was my final destination. I started to wonder if being murdered was my fate.
If this thing in charge of my life and actions wanted me to suffer. Before the fourth time. Where I shut my bedroom window and decided to sleep downstairs. I waited for her to appear, for her looming silhouette to loom over me like it always did, pulling me from slumber and catapulting me into a chase that had ended in me bleeding out on the forest floor with no air in my lungs to scream for help. This time though, there was no woman in a grey suit.
I slept soundly downstairs and was woken by my mother returning from work with a giant birthday cake and presents wrapped in bright pink. I thought the thing would stop hurting me, stop forcing me through the same traumatic events, cutting and pasting and editing them to make them progressively more torturous. But they didn’t stop there. Oh, no.
Because if someone can kill over and over again without consequences, as well as the ability to cut it out like it never happened, why wouldn’t they?
So, in real life if you had the ability to do it to a real person… you would.
I remembered every single time I died.
I remembered every edit, every significant thing severed from me.
At fourteen years old, I fell out of my bedroom window and bled out in my mother’s arms.
I was forced to relive it over and over and over again with certain edits put in place as if this entity, this thing, was adding and removing small things. The flowers on my bedroom table became a bowl of fruit. My cell phone in my hands became a notepad. Everything from my steps to my choices in what I was going to do, changing and evolving until I never even went into my bedroom. Instead, I stayed in the front yard and read a book under the late summer sun. Still, though, I was haunted by memories I had from past edits. I could remember falling directly onto my head, the wind in my face as I plunged down, down, down, and my own sharp breath when impact slammed into me.
I had been completely paralyzed under something sharp sticking from the ground, blood seeping from my ears and ruining my mother’s dress who sobbed into my hair and screamed for an ambulance.
I remembered feeling fuzzy but also weirdly at peace. Like I could close my eyes and everything would be okay. I died. I remembered the confusing and dizzying blur of darkness and nothing enveloping me before the whole thing was severed from me; a full memory cut to pieces and, only existing in fragments still haunting the back of my mind. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't confide in anyone. Whenever I tried to express my thoughts, I found myself struggling to articulate them effectively.
It was like the words were stuck in my mouth, unable to escape. I attempted to explain it to my mom using the analogy of cutting, copying, and pasting, a concept we learned in school. But when I tried to communicate my suspicions that someone was copying and pasting my actions, and playing with my mind like I was their own personal Barbie doll, the words failed me. It felt like having a mouthful of dust that I would never be able to spit out. Their presence was always there, following me no matter what I did or said. Words disappeared a lot, even if I spoke them mentally thousands of times. To Mom, and then to Dr. Luke, who was worried about my educational development when I spent most of my time sleeping in class.
Because that is what this entity wanted me to do. They wanted me to sleep—so I slept.
And when I tried to speak to anyone about what was going on, it was as if my own sentences were erased from my mind before I could speak them aloud, leaving me feeling confused and scared. It was similar to that feeling of walking into a room and forgetting why you entered in the first place. I felt blank and helpless, unable to express myself. Eventually, I discovered this thing’s name.
It wasn’t a “thing” at all. It wasn’t a god or an all-knowing and all-seeing entity. They were human like me. I woke up one day suddenly with the knowledge that the person controlling my life was called Seven—and they did not have bad intentions. They were just… curious.
I saw glimpses of Seven.
Not them in particular, but their life. I saw their room which confused me. It looked like a bedroom from the angle I initially saw.
But when I started to see more, splinters of tiled white walls and odd-looking machines, I started to wonder if Seven was in the hospital.
It would make sense. From what I saw, Seven was always kneeling on the floor with something pressed to their knees. I never saw what it was. Because Seven only existed in small snap-shots in my dreams, pieces of them drip-fed to me. For a long time, I thought they was in the hospital. But then I would see the glass sliding doors of her room opening up and a man my dad’s age would appear with a strained smile, announcing dinner was ready.
And when Seven jumped to their feet, I was seeing twinkling fairy lights strung across an unmade bed, a pale blue rug, and posters on tiled white walls. Seven was my age. Which made me wonder how exactly had this control over me and my life. If an average teenager somewhere in the world was able to edit my life to suit them personally, how could I stop them?
Spoiler alert: I didn’t. Well, I couldn’t. I had no idea where Seven was, and it’s not like I could tell them to stop out loud. They already had my mouth and words, every thought which came into my mind was predetermined by them. I guess I was just living vicariously through them. There came a moment as I grew up and more and more things about my life were changed and erased completely before I accepted it.
I had no choice. I did have a rebellious phase where I lost my mind a little. I became obsessed with snatching back control over MY life and living for myself. I stepped in front of a bus on my way to school—only to be snapped back to five minutes before leaving the house.
I shaved all my hair off, and almost immediately, just as my mom’s eyes were growing to the size of twin saucers, I was thrown back to minutes before, and this time anything sharp in my vicinity was nowhere to be seen. My attempts became obsessive. It became a sort of game I was playing with them, to see if they gave in.
I slapped my then-boyfriend who I didn’t even like in the face and flashed to the whole school, so Seven made me home sick instead. I doused our place and lit a match, convinced if I made a statement as big as an explosion, that Seven would understand. But I thought wrong.
I was naïve. Before I even felt the heat of the explosion, Seven took me all the way to the beach where I was sunbathing under the sun.
Nowhere near home.
I had already been killed multiple times by the woman in grey when I was fourteen—hunted and murdered on my birthday, thrown off of my bike’s handlebars, hit by a bus, hit by a car, a truck, and my own school bus.
I had drowned in the sea, the lake, and my best friend Nick’s pool. I had stuck my own hair straighteners in my mouth, sliced open my throat with a splinter of a mirror, and held my whole class hostage with a super-soaker.
And all of those were Seven.
They could do all of this, all of this fucking craziness, turning me into a murderer in one instance, and then a victim. And wipe it all away, leaving me with the memories. Fifteen years old, and I was completely desensitised to both death and life and tired of both. I was done. I was done fighting. And when I made that clear, throwing up my white flag and stopped trying to take control, Seven stopped trying to murder me to try and punish me.
I started to live my life as they laid it out.
I didn’t even blink when my cereal changed from Frosted Flakes to Peanut Butter Pops. I stopped noticing edits. Or I did notice, but I just didn’t care.
We got a transfer student from Australia called Lucy, who became Adam from Canada, and then Kenji from Japan.
In sophomore year, I saw the woman in the grey suit again.
This time she was our new guidance counselor.
Seven thought they could get a reaction out of me, but I was way past being scared of a monster from my childhood who had been cut and sliced and severed until they only existed inside my memory. Still, though, I wondered why Seven had made her the exact same.
The exact same strict blonde ponytail, and narrow nose, her collar popped open slightly, and one button missing on her suit. I had been the one to tug it off in my struggle to escape her. I remembered all of those instances, exactly ten versions of me reaching out, the air being sucked from my lungs as her grip tightened around my throat, pressing the right amount of pressure for me to suffer-- and grappling with her suit until a button came loose.
Maybe Seven only had that version of her, though it was still eerie hearing her speak after only seeing her as a mute shadow chasing me into the night. “How are you doing today, Smith?” Her name was Mrs. Stoke. When she leaned across the desk with a smile, she smelled like the pine trees I had died underneath. I had to see her every day, both in passing and during sessions I didn’t even know what I was there for. I had to nod and smile and tell this monster all of my problems while Seven made no attempt to edit and cut my memories.
I often wondered why they didn’t. If they could alter my life to fit their taste, why did they leave me with the memories? I quickly came to realize throughout my life that it was just me who was being played around with. The people in my life stayed the same, while in my perspective they changed. Things like accidents and deaths were things that couldn’t be changed. My dad died when I was eleven years old, and at the time I thought the phenomenon playing with my life would bring him back like they could bring me back. But things like my dad’s death and my best friend’s cancer diagnosis could not be changed or edited.
I could die multiple times and be brought back as many times as Seven wanted, but I couldn’t go back and cut out when Nick revealed he had something on his brain, which turned out to be benign, a grade two brain tumor that was thankfully treatable, though still had potential to spread and become malignant. It didn’t. Though it could have. This was my first proper slap in the face. I could be edited and fucked with, while the people in my life had their own fate—their own path. Nick’s path was his.
He discovered he had a potentially killer disease at the age of fourteen years old, fought it, and won.
He told me just as we were saying goodbye, and the expression on his face told me everything I needed to know. Nick was scared—no, terrified. And he didn’t want me to worry, so had told me at the probably the worst time, when I had to head home to help mom prepare catering for a BBQ she was holding. “I’m sick, so I need to be in the emergency room for a bit, but I’m okay!” He said quickly, before jumping into his dad’s car. When I managed to register his words and follow him right to the window of his car, demanding to know what he meant, Nick’s smile disappeared. “It’s nothing,” he said before rolling up the window and signalling his dad to drive. I didn’t find out what he meant until later that night when Mom came into my room and wrapped her arms around me, told me exactly what it was, and that Nick was going to be okay, leaving me to sob into my stuffed toys.
I had naively hoped Seven would take me back to right before Nick dropped the bombshell, and instead have him say something completely different.
But no. I was never taken back, and that day went on to become a concrete moment in my life—and completely unchangeable. I started to understand that the people and the world around me could not be changed. It was just me.
I was very, very wrong.
I didn’t think I had been created by this person. Because the concept of being created and imagined up as a character in someone else’s narrative was crazy. I was not a fictional person in a story. However. I did think my life had been hijacked.
We had our junior prom and as usual, Seven was in editing mode. I started the evening in shorts and a t-shirt, barefoot. Then I was cycling in my prom dress, struggling with my heels on the pedals before they were completely edited out.
Yes. Unsurprisingly, it was hard to peddle in heels and a dress. It took me falling three times for Seven to realise that.
This was the last time. I could sense their eagerness to get this perfect. The early June heat scorching my back felt exactly like it had the first nine times, a light breeze grazing my cheeks and playing with stray strands of my hair. The sky was cloudy, and I was being attacked by fireflies, tiny buzzing balls of light dancing in my eyes. I already knew exactly where the night ahead would lead me.
I wasn’t technically allowed to go to prom due to too many tardies.
However, after reliving the same night nine times already, I knew Mrs. Clay, who was in charge of prom invites would eventually let me in for a single sympathy dance. I wasn’t sure why Seven had taken me through ten different versions, but I wasn’t complaining—and it’s not like I could, anyway. Walking straight into the chorus of Take On Me which I had heard for the ninth time, I once again drank in the theme of the dance. Under The Sea. The dance floor was awash with varying shades of blue balloons, two well-made thrones set up on the stage for our 2015 King and Queen.
Pushing my way through my classmates who were kitted up in pretty blue dresses and suits, I navigated my way towards the refreshments table, bracing myself for Mrs. Clay’s presence. According to the last nine times I had re-lived this dance, she made herself known when Cassie Lennox spilled punch all over herself.
Cassie’s squeak of annoyance rang out, just as I was reaching the table. I could see Nick leaning against the table, idly snacking on a mini sandwich. In the previous instances, he had been tearing apart the dance floor.
I wondered why things were different.
“Smith.” Mrs. Clay folded her arms across her animal sweater she really shouldn’t have been wearing in this kind of heat. “You’re not on the guest list,” she said over another 90’s song blasting. She was a little more friendly this time, unlike attempt eight when she dragged me from the hall herself, shouting at me for disturbing the other students. Fixing me with a stern smile, the teacher cleared her throat.
I could tell she was distracted by some of the varsity team spiking the punch behind me. I already knew what effect their spiking would have on the student body. But it was just beer. Mrs. Clay seemed to be torn over grilling me and stopping them. “Smith, students who have failed to meet requirements to attend prom are not supposed to be here.” Her narrowed gaze flicked behind me. “Robbie Altrez, I can see that beer in your hand!”
“Relax, it's Coke!” The boy laughed.
During the third, fourth, and fifth instances, it was Pepsi instead, and Robbie Altrez had been a lot less chipper.
Visibly uncomfortable now, the teacher was clearly freaking out over whom to yell at. I took my chance. “I know I’m not supposed to be here because of my tardies, or whatever I’m in trouble for,” I smiled, unlike the other times when I protested and started yelling at her.
This time, Seven was making sure I was as sweet as possible. Maybe she really wanted me to have this dance that I had found myself craving. I had relived the same three hours over and over again to get a dance that was either cut short, ruined by the teacher, or cut off by a slow song. “But can I have one dance?” I wasn’t wearing shoes, and she noticed that, raising her eyebrows. I did like the heels I started with, cute silver slip-ons. The teacher opened her mouth to no-doubt question my lack of shoes, but with her actually listening to me, I started to plead.
Just like every past instance, but this time without screaming at her like a banshee.
“Please!” It was when her expression contorted, her lips quirking into the slightest of smiles, that I knew I had swayed her. “I just want to dance to one song and I’ll go,” I said. Nick had caught my eye in the crowd and was waving manically. I waved back, unable to resist a grin. He looked confused. I told him I’d stay home and watch movies. In the sixth instance, he had come over himself and dragged me into a manic dance, ignoring the teacher. “One dance, and then go.”
Mrs. Clay shot me a glare before twisting around to go and wring the varsity guy’s necks. I found Nick at the refreshments table making his way through the dessert options. When I sidled up to him, he shot me a smile, biting down on a mini-cheesecake. The boy looked to be lost in thought, his gaze drowning in the crowd of kids jumping up and down to a dance track. I expected him to be his usual happy self, repeating the same thing he said in every other instance, “Aren’t you supposed to be at home watching scary movies?” But the words never came.
Instead, he offered me a smile. There were tiny differences in his appearance compared to the other instances. Instead of the same stripy suit that I was used to, he wore a simple white shirt and pants, strands of light brown falling in sleepy eyes. It was his freckles that had attracted me to him. When I was a kid, I used to spend hours joining them up in a dot-to-dot until his cheeks resembled constellations.
“You made it,” Nick murmured.
“I did.”
“Did you cycle in a dress?”
I leaned back. “Yes.”
“Was it hard?”
“Maybe.”
I caught his gaze and something in me, what were my actual words, couldn’t resist spitting out a question that was never in any other past instances because I didn’t have to say it. This was the first time Nick wasn’t acting like himself, “Are you okay?”
The words surprised me because they were mine, and Seven had allowed me to say them.
“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I be?” His voice was slightly slurred, and I remembered the varsity guys were spiking the punch. But that wasn’t for another hour. Mrs. Clay had already chased Robbie from the room, so it didn’t make sense that Nick was getting drunk this quickly.
Seven wasn’t in control at that moment, and I turned to him slowly, with my own free will, my own thoughts, and found myself staring at a face I didn’t know—or at least one which resembled my friend, but wasn’t him. In the dull blue lights, Nick wasn’t looking at anyone or anything, staring into the crowd with a curl on his lip, occasionally sipping from his punch. When I followed his gaze, his eyes seemed to be raking through the crowd. He was searching for something. I was surprised when he nudged me with his elbow. “Hey, so… after this, can we talk?
Nick took another sip.
“Outside.”
Something ice-cold crept down my spine when my best friend turned to me with an expression I didn’t recognize, haunted eyes which reminded me of my own, staring into the mirror at home after reliving the exact same events.
“And you’re 2015 King is…” Mrs Wilma yelled into the microphone with way too much gusto for a woman of her calibre.
Nick.
It was always Nick.
“Nicholas Highcliffe!”
The hall collapsed into applause, and a bright spotlight found my best friend’s face, illuminating handsome features. In past instances, he had been amused and yet surprised. This time, I noticed he rolled his eyes which was odd. I don’t think I had ever seen him react like this during the other times. My best friend turned and dumped his drink.
“You’re kidding. Did you vote for me?
His tone didn’t match his words. The boy’s words were joking around, and I expected a laugh like every other time when he’d elbowed me playfully. I have been trying to think of the best word to describe my best friend at that moment, and it would be… unnatural.
Somehow, he didn’t belong next to me, or in that room, like he had every other time. His presence felt like a glitch, a problem I couldn’t look past. Nick suddenly looked more of a shadow, a silhouette, then a human. Still, though, the same words came from my mouth in the exact same tangled slew as every other time. But this time I was self-aware that there was something wrong with him, and he wasn’t good at hiding it. “I didn’t,” I said.
Which was a lie. I always voted for him. When I tried not to, the ballot wrote itself, anyway.
“Fuck.” Nick groaned, tipping his head back with a sigh. But it looked almost forced, out of whack. Too fast. Like he had been put on two times speed. “Is it because of *The Thing?”*
Nick had been referring to his cancer as “the thing” for a while now. The thing was a very small monster hiding in his brain, around the size of a raisin, which had needed both surgery and chemotherapy. It had been caught early and he had been in remission for almost two years—- had lost his hair during chemo, and grown it all back again. But still, for some reason, our class still referred to him as “the kid who got cancer' so let’s all feel sorry (not sorry) for him. This included him being student body president, as well as having his own designated spot during pep rallies and games. It was as cute as it was kinda cringe. Nick's words, not mine. There’s not a lot you can say to someone who has cancer, when the cruel, yet universal answer we don’t vocalize is, “I am so sorry it’s you and not me.”
It's not cruel, or rude.
It's human.
Our classmates had taken “I’m sorry it’s you and not me” to a whole new level.
I leaned against the table with a shrug, allowing Seven to take control of my mouth. “I’m gonna say it’s because of the thing.”
When he scowled at me, I nudged him. “Well?” I smoothed down his shirt and tie, noticing my hands were shaking. When my fingers delicately fixed his collar and tie, I noticed Nick was staring directly at me. He wanted to say something. “What are you waiting for?" I spouted out the same words which were always on the tip of my tongue.
"Your crown awaits.”
Nick shot me the side-eye. “Please don’t make me do this.” But just like every other time, he slowly made his way through the crowd, before jumping onto the stage. Nick allowed the teacher to crown him with a mocking bow and then took the mic. “I am okay now, by the way,” Nick said, with a shrug. When he caught my eye, I nodded.
“In case any of you haven't noticed, which is all of you since I've been given this for the third goddamn time…” he muttered into the mic, though his words definitely caused alarm bells in my ears. I lifted my head to try and find his gaze, but his eyes instead bore into the crowd.
“I really am okay. I’m not dying. So, this?” He gestured to the crown. “It doesn't really belong to me, but…sure, I'll take it. Thanks, guys.”
Smiling awkwardly, Mrs. Wilma took the mic, but he pulled it back. “And…”
Okay, maybe he was drunker than I realised.
This didn’t happen during the other times. Nick just took his crown and shook his head when he was pressured to make a speech.
This time though, my best friend seemed like he had a lot to say, very clearly intoxicated with alcohol I was sure didn’t even exist yet. “Can we please remove the memorial from the boy’s shower room? I’m not dead, guys. I’m okay. It was THIS big.” He tucked the mic in his armpit, using his thumb and index, to indicate the size. “They caught it, and I am okay. I've been okay for a while, if you actually pay attention. So please treat me like a normal person, all right?"
The crowd answered in a low murmur, and my best friend cleared his throat.
“Also—"
“Okay, Nick,” Mrs. Wilma was getting flustered. “Thank you.” But Nick didn’t let go of the mic. I gestured for him to get a hold of himself though he just smiled and winked. Still the same attitude as the other instances, though I couldn’t ignore a certain look in his eye. When prom queen was announced, Bree Cassidy, an out and proud lesbian who organized the prom herself, Mrs. Wilma caught my eye. “Smith.” She spoke into the microphone. “You are not supposed to be here. Please leave.”
Ouch.
So, maybe things weren’t changing after all.
Nick, who had taken a seat on his “throne” which was underwater themed— awkwardly holding his “trident” which was just a hockey stick covered in blue streamers, cupped his mouth with a grin I couldn’t trust, especially when I knew it was fake.
“Stay! Your king says so!”
The teacher shot a warning look at him before pointing to the door.
I did want to argue, but being dragged out of prom was an embarrassing thought.
So, I waved half-heartedly to Nick, blew a kiss at Bree, who was making a speech and headed towards the door. That is what I always did.
This time though, Nick caught my eye before I left, twisting his head around. He didn't say anything, though his expression told me everything I needed to know. "We need to talk." his eyes said. "Now." My best friend’s gaze lingered on me before finding our classmates once more, his expression contorting back into what I thought I knew. What I thought was familiar. When I made it back onto the corridor, my head was spinning. But they were my thoughts. Not Seven’s. I wanted to go back in there and drag Nick off of the stage.
I wanted to go and down a soda, because I had not drunk anything in hours, and for some reason Seven was against the idea of hydration. Now that I had semi-control back, control I had not felt for a long, long time, I wanted to do everything Seven had stopped me from doing.
I found my fingers grazing my own face and lips and cheeks, and yes, I was real. I was thinking my own thoughts which exploded into my mouth and slipped from my lips when I dared speak them. Words I wanted to tell my mother at the age of eight years old when I was scared I was losing my mind. Starting towards the exit, I planned to wait on the football field for Nick.
Before the doors on the other side of the corridor were flying open, and April Lucas was stumbling forwards. April was one of the quiet kids, usually keeping to herself and barely making eye contact with anyone. I found myself panic-stricken as the girl took long strides toward me before situating herself three inches from my face. “Tell them to stop,” she whispered in a cry. The girl tugged violently at her hair, her wild eyes barely meeting mine, instead lost elsewhere. “Tell them to stop!”
Something strange popped up in front of my eyes, suddenly, a tangle of words barely registering in my mind before I blinked and they were gone.
But the words I had seen were suddenly in my mouth.
“Tell who to stop?”
April grabbed my shoulders, squeezing for dear life. “Seven.” She whispered. “I can’t take it anymore. I can’t take it, I can’t take it! You need to tell her to stop!" When she faced me, there was something wrong with her eyes. Her nose was bleeding, not bad, but significant enough for her to realise, her eyes widening." They're going to kill us."
Before I could respond, the girl was stumbling away, sobbing, clawing at her hair like she was trying to scalp herself.
Turning to shout the girl's name, I caught a sudden flash of movement in the corner of my eye. I knew what it was, or who it was, from the ponytail swishing from side to side. My childhood nightmare had come back to haunt me. I never knew these were the events that followed prom because I had re-lived my prom night almost ten times. Twisting around, I found myself face-face with my guidance counselor, also the woman in the grey suit. This time she did not bother to hide behind her façade.
I glimpsed the familiar sliver of silver poking through the knuckles of her fist, the exact same knife which had killed me multiple times. I didn't even make it to the classroom. It's amazing how fast you can get from A to B fuelled with adrenaline. I don't remember screaming or crying out, just knowing that I was inevitably going to die, and be dragged back to 8 pm, cycling in my dress, and shooing away fireflies.
I was only thinking one thing when my guidance counselor shoved me against the door I was trying to get through, slamming my fists against it, screaming with no voice. *Why?*
I spoke to Seven, when the ice-cold blade was plunged into my gut over and over again, beads of warm red filling my mouth and dripping down my chin. Why are you doing this to me?
I dropped to the ground when the woman's fingers untangled from my hair, letting me slip to the floor with a wet, meaty smack. I was trying to drink in her features and try and find a person, a soul, behind those empty dark eyes boring into me. But I just found the dark. Dead.
Again. This time, though, I was aware of my death. I was aware of the dark swallowing me up. I expected Seven to edit me once again, taking me back to 8 pm. But when I opened my eyes, I was standing up. Back at prom. Back leaning against the table, with Nick at my side. His expression was back to normal; the normal which was amused, the curl of his lip and spark in his eyes. But there was something... wrong.
The world appeared to be frozen, flickering. The air in front of my face looked to be buzzing with an invisible current. Everything was still.
The crowd around me was frozen in time, some of them dancing, chatting, and spilling drinks. Before I could fully understand what I was doing, I was pushing my way through my frozen classmates, and back out onto the hall. April Lucas was standing at the end of the hallway, also frozen. Her expression was the exact same as before-- and when I turned my head, there she was again. The woman in the grey suit, also frozen like everyone else, in mid-stride.
It hit me how inhuman she looked when I was fully taking her in. She didn’t have ears, or a thumb and forefinger, while the knife in her hand looked almost plastic. I started forwards in a daze, eager to pull the weapon from her hands to see how a blade that looked fake could kill me so many times with brute force.
"How many times have you lived through tonight?"
Nick was standing behind me, his arms folded.
I started to answer, but once again, words were appearing in front of my eyes, though this time they were caught, scrambled, and wrong. This time, there were multiple.
**What do you mean?**
**I haven't noticed anything weird.**
**Someone is trying to kill me! Behind you!'**
Swallowing hard, I blinked, and the strange words faded slightly, before disappearing. "What do you mean?"
Just like in my dreams of Seven, I was back in their bedroom, walls of white surrounding them. This time, I saw their trembling hands, and an odd device pressed against their knees.
It was a tablet of some sort. In Seven's hand was a pen, and with several strokes, they began to sketch out my best friend's face in outlines, before adding swirling eyes, and a mouth which didn't make sense, which was too big for his face. And above that, a large speech bubble: “Tonight,” more words were scrawled across black and white pages in the back of my eyes.
“Your whole life. How many times has she changed it?” He said. “When I was fourteen years old, a woman in a grey suit came into the hospital and stabbed me through my chest. Then I woke up like normal, and nothing had happened. I thought I was losing my mind, until I had to live through it until I was let go." He spoke in a hiss. "Following that, I choked on a piece of chicken, I was murdered by my secret second twin, and my personal favorite, hunted and killed by our whole class on my 15th birthday.”
My face was drawn underneath, less artistic, more of a blur of shadow with not many facial features.
The drawing of me didn't speak, and neither did I. "It happens to you too," Nick said. But this time he was speaking for himself, while the version of him, Seven's drawing, turned forwards, his eyes drawn in manic and terrifying swirls. He didn’t speak, but his lack of speech was terrifying, just a speech bubble, and three ellipses, his sketched face becoming more animated, and then human. Followed by a black page, and three more ellipses.
Then another. Three ellipses on each sheet of white, and then dark.
…
I could see the story being written out in front of my eyes, and I was part of it. "I'm sorry." The words appeared again, this time sketched out. But this time they were forceful, in full control of Seven's pen. “I don’t know what else to do except keep dying, and then maybe…” he broke out into a sob. “Maybe we can get out of here. Because there is an out. There's an exit."
He twisted his head around, and behind me, April Lucas and the woman in the grey suit began to move slowly, bleeding back to life. April's hands twitched by her sides, balling into a fist, while the woman's fingers tightened around the blade. "I just don't know where it is." And inside my mind, Seven's body was trembling, knees jolting together. But it wasn't fright, I thought, as their pen hit the screen, and something cruel sliced into my gut, as he thought back the control from Nick. It was excitement. I didn't even see my friend, only his words stretched out across the page, as our creator grew more and more manic, scribbling into our eyes, turning them into abysses of pooling black. I didn't see the knife in his hands, only my own blood staining his fingers.
Inhaling sharply, blood once again filling my mouth, I waited to be dragged back.
It took ten seconds of waiting, fully aware I was bleeding out, that my body was dying.
And yet when I died, my mind was still awake. I was still thinking, still trying to figure out how I was thinking without a physical body.
The world jolted around me. This time I could see it for what it really was. An abyss of darkness with no way out. Only the school, my house, and a long winding road dipping into nothingness, everything beyond drowned in shadow, lonely oblivion. It was 8 pm once again.
I was on my bike, surrounded by fireflies buzzing in my face.
But this time I knew what was going on, as the words **GAME OVER** faded from the backs of my eyes.
When I was a kid, Sunny, Max, Johnny, and Liam weren’t random kids picked out to be my crushes.
The jobs my dad got, all the town's I moved to.
They were multiple choices.
All those times I was killed by the woman in the grey suit, I was the final girl in someone’s sick idea of a game. Seven wasn't editing me, or my life. They had dragged me into their own horrific creation and were taking me back to the last save point to do it all over again.
...
So, yeah.
This is my account of being part of (and escaping) one of the biggest cover-ups in gaming history. You might have heard of it.
Most of our accounts have been deleted, but I figured telling the world will stop them from doing this again. Because they’re still out there, looking for participants. They either scam you with kindness or drag you off of the streets when you’re least expecting it.
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