Carbon Copy

I had just graduated high school and was planning to head off to college that fall. I had done well enough in high school that I had a couple of different college scholarships at my disposal. However, not every school that I looked at was willing to give me a full ride. After much thought and delegation I decided to attend the University of Wyoming. Why would I apply to such a college you may ask? Well for one thing, the college is in the middle of nowhere! Literally, when you drive there, all there is wide open planes without a town in site. Truly, the college is its own town. I liked this aspect because, it allowed me to put some distance between me and my parents who lived at least 7 hours away. Not to mention that they also had the degree in mechanical engineering that I wanted. So that’s where I went.

My freshmen year there was going better than I had expected. I was making new friends, doing well in my classes, and enjoying my newfound college freedom. I even got along with my roommate, which now that I look at it, is somewhat of a rarity. As fall break neared, I was actually looking forward to seeing my parents and sleeping in my own bed. However, nature decide that I didn’t need to go home. The day before we were ready to leave, a bad snow storm blew in dropping several feet of snow. I called my parents and told them that I couldn’t make it back home for break. As expected, they were disappointed, but where understanding.

As we spent our time moaning and griping that we couldn’t go home, some disturbed students decided to take advantage of our frozen incarceration. This consisted of building snow forts, throwing snow balls, and drawing obscenities on cars. However, I had no interest at all in going out into the thing that had crushed my chances of going home. In my frustration, I decide barricade myself in my dorm room and game on my pc until my eyes fell out of my skull.

I sat at my computer for hours and hours, playing five or six different games, switching between them periodically. I lost track of time, was it three or six AM? “What does it matter anyway”, I thought to myself as I struggling to keep my eyes open. I went online to check my email before I went to bed. As the email homepage loaded up, the usual ads for weight loss tips and credit scores appeared into view. Finally after what felt like hours, my email had loaded, no thanks to the schools crappy internet. As I scrolled through my heavily cluttered inbox, I sadly didn’t see any of emails from my parents. I then proceeded to delete at least some of the spam that was plaguing my email account. Then, I noticed an email from one of the online flash game sites that I frequented. It read:

Dear Dan Lotus,

This is our list of this month’s most played games!

1. Carbon Copy
2. Box Head
3. More Rooms
4. Thing Thing Arena

From: puzzlevoid.net

I had played almost every game that site had to offer, but never “Carbon Copy”. If this game was number one on the list, how have I never heard of it? I could hear my bed softly calling my name, but curiosity had gotten the best of me. I clicked on the game link to see what this “Carbon Copy” was about.

A new tab opened and blackness filled the screen. The usual puzzlevoid.net logo appeared, but no game had loaded. “I swear, the internet at this school is retarded,”. I quickly hit the refresh button on the browser to reload the page, but nothing changed. The screen appeared exactly the same, game must be down or something. Suddenly, a red button appeared with text under it:

Proceed to game site

With apprehension, I clicked the button. I usually stayed away from games that make you go to an external link. They always seemed sketchy and where bound to give you virus or something. But, for the game to be that popular, the site must not be that bad.
To my relief, the site was well designed and looked like it was professionally done. The game loaded and the title slowly came into focus:

Carbon Copy

Play

Load level

Options

I pressed play and watched as the title screen faded away and a new field came into view. There was a series of empty textboxes with words beside them. It was a personal information field! Why the hell does a simple flash game need an information field? I was way too tired to care about the consequences of giving out one’s personal information at that point, I just wanted to play the stupid game! I quickly filled out the field without giving it much thought and pressed the submit button. A white field appeared and a little black pixilated stick figure materialized in the lower left corner of the screen. Instructions came on the screen: [to win, use the left and right arrow keys to control Him and dodge the falling rocks, when a rock is going to crush Him press space bar, this will pause the game and copy Him to a safe spot, you can only copy Him four times]. Why does the game keep calling the stick figure Him? Was the developer really that lazy?

The game started out pretty slow, I easily dodged the falling rocks with a click of the arrow keys. After a short time the game paused and displayed level 2 in the upper right hand corner. The rocks now started to a fall at a faster rate. This cycle continued until level 6, the rocks started to fall at an incredible speed. To survive, I had to copy Him 3 times just to get through the level. However, I found out that you are penalized for copying him, which the instructions neglected to tell me. Every time you copy him, he become lighter in color, so by the third copy, he was almost invisible.

Level 7 loaded and I was ready to go, but nothing happened. The rocks did not fall. A few seconds passed, and still nothing happened. Did the game freeze? Did I somehow win? Suddenly, all the rocks fell at the same time, giving no way to escape! The entire monitor screen went black for a few brief moments. A dark and twisted red face made of very fine pixels appeared on the screen. The face looked emaciated and rotting, bits of flesh falling off showing the exposed bone beneath. Its eyes were like doll eyes, cold and lifeless. The mouth opened revealing decayed and missing teeth. The head began to speak in a low, blood curdling voice:

You killed him!
You killed him!
You killed him!
You killed him!
You killed him!

Each time the voice grew louder and louder! A deafening electronic beep emanated from the pc tower, and everything stopped. The voice stopped. The head stopped. Frozen on the screen, the eyes stared at me, lifeless and still as though it peering into my soul. I threw my chair to the ground and ran as fast as I could out of my dorm and into the snow. I could still hear that chilling voice in my head saying that line over and over again: you killed him! You killed him! You killed him! The image of that face will forever be etched in my memory.

A couple of hours had passed and I had finally start to come back to reality. Why would someone create something like that? Was it meant to a prank like those scary maze games? As I walked back to the dorm, I was hoping and praying that my computer had been shut off or destroyed. I finally got the door of my dorm room and stopped. I heard the voice of my roommate and his friend. The computer must be off right? I walked into the room and tried to act calm, but my roommate new something was wrong. He told me that he saw me run out into the snow and just sit there for hours. I explained to him what had happened, the game, the face, everything. He then proceeded to tell me that I was “full of it” and that such a thing could not have happened.

A couple of weeks passed. I tried to forget about what had happened that day, I just couldn’t not matter how I tried to suppress it. In my dreams I would relive the nightmare over and over again. I would wake up in a cold sweat, scared out of my mind. My grades started to slip and my social life became non-existent. I hadn’t used my desktop since the incident and had resorted to using the computers in the school library.

After three weeks, I had had enough. I had my roommate boot up my desktop and see if there were any abnormalities. He came to me with a puzzled look and told me that my computer was fine. Cautiously I sat down at my desktop and opened the web browser and went through my history. I scrolled to the date that it happed and expanded the file, but the web page wasn’t there. I know that I hadn’t deleted or wiped my history. How on earth could it not be there? So, I did the stupidest thing I could think of and try to find the game again. I went to my email and looked for the update I had received from puzzlevoid.net, but that too was missing. What the hell is going on? Was I going crazy, did I just make it up? No, I know what I saw and it was real. I Googled the name Carbon Copy over and over but didn’t find anything relating to a game. It couldn’t have just disappeared, it existed and must still be out there! I had to prove to someone that I wasn’t a basket case that something really did happen!

Another week went by just like the others had. I gave up my search for Carbon Copy and felt my life starting to return to normal. I compartmentalized the event in my mind and promised myself to never let it come up again. That night I went with my roommate and his girlfriend for pizza and I actually enjoyed myself. I felt like a weight had fallen of my chest and that I was finally free! I went back to my dorm to study for a calculus test that I had the next day.

It was around 11:30 that my cell phone beeped. I ignored it and continued studying. Again my phone beeped, still I did not look at it, and if it was something important they would have just called me. I assumed that it was just my friend asking me to give him my notes. Thirty minutes had passed, nothing else mattered in the world except my calculus book. I knew the definitions and everything, I was going to ace this… the phone beeped not once, but five times in succession. I picked up my cell phone and look at the LCD readout on the front: 7 new text messages, blocked number. I flipped it open and my heart stops in my chest. All seven texts read: You killed him! I threw the phone against the wall, snapping it in two. No, no no no no no! What have I done to deserve this? What does this sick and twisted bastard want!

I don’t know what time I fell asleep that night, but it was not restful. I was awakened by the sound of someone knocking on our door. “Police, open up!” I opened the door, still unsure of what was going on. He asked me if my name was Dan Lotus, I said yes and he told me to come with him. He took me down to local police station and sat me in an interrogation room. He tells me that there has been a series of murders. Four teens ranging from ages 14 – 17 went missing a week ago. Their bodies were discovered in an abandoned house. The cause of death was asphyxiation. Why was he telling me all this? Did it involve someone that I know? He then told me the reason why I had been brought in.

When they were conducting the investigation and collecting evidence they discovered a series of envelopes. Inside of them they found what looked like some kind of diary. There was also an envelope that had a name and an address on them. It was my name and address, and inside was both my phone number and email address!

Months passed by, but no progress was made in the case. They dropped me as a suspect, because no evidence, besides my address was found. That game ruined my life. Rumors and lies where spread about me, how I was a killer, a deranged psychopath. I had to move to a new town, a new college, and find a new name. I started over, trying to forget the past.

From time to time I still check the internet and the newspapers, hoping that He has been captured. To this day, police still look for him. Somewhere out there, Carbon Copy still exists.