* funnymouth has joined #ReferSales.
funnymouth: hello everyone tonight
funnymouth: i like to lik the bluud
funnymouth: out of in the person
funnymouth: i see ur handsome face dont b so sad about it
funnymouth: come on
funnymouth: 🙂
* funnymouth has left #ReferSales.
GhostJeorge: … Holy fuck, what the fuck
lemonlimeskull: Did that just happen?
GhostJeorge: Yes, Skull. Yes it did.

The first thing I should probably note is that I’m “lemonlimeskull”. In other words, that’s my screen name up there.

That was the first time I saw or heard from “funnymouth”, and for all intents and purposes, it should’ve been the last. Anyone who’s spent enough time chatting away knows that weirdos come and go. Folks pop in to ask insane questions or just to troll a populated channel.

What first struck me as odd about the funnymouth guy, however, was the fact that he came and went with no particular GOAL. He didn’t try to piss anyone off, and he didn’t ask if anyone on the channel knew how to fix his computer or remove a virus.

He just stuck his head in, rattled off some random text, and happily fucked off.

lemonlimeskull: So really though, what the Hell?
GhostJorge: Not c clue.
GhostJorge: *Not a clue.
lemonlimeskull: He’s in another channel if you want to find out.
lemonlimeskull: #bluud
GhostJorge: I do not, sir.
lemonlimeskull: XD
lemonlimeskull: Bitch.

I don’t know what results I expected from following this guy to another channel. I’m not the type that goes out of his way to annoy or argue with people. I’ll usually avoid it at all costs, though, once someone starts with me I don’t mind getting into it at THAT point.

I guess what I’m saying is I have no idea why I pursued this.

* lemonlimeskull has entered #BLUUD
lemonlimeskull: Hey.

He was sitting there in the channel by himself.

funnymouth: O)_(O
lemonlimeskull: 🙂
lemonlimeskull: So…
funnymouth: O)_(O
lemonlimeskull: So… you’re staring at me.
lemonlimeskull: That’s rude.
funnymouth: sorrey
funnymouth: i just do it
funnymouth: its okay
lemonlimeskull: I see.
funnymouth: O)_(O

I actually chuckled out loud at this point. He was weird and inoffensive.

lemonlimeskull: You can come back to #ReferSales if you want.
lemonlimeskull: We’re not going to boot you if that’s what you’re worried about.
funnymouth: O)_(O
lemonlimeskull: Or not.
lemonlimeskull: Whatever, man, you just seemed interesting and I’m bored tonight.
funnymouth: i am broad tonight 2
funnymouth: i always dont
lemonlimeskull: … You always don’t what?
funnymouth: i always dont thats it
funnymouth: i always dont because they dont and theeennnn
funnymouth: i get silly
lemonlimeskull: O-kay. Well, seeya around.
funnymouth: O)_(O

And with that, I left. The act got old fast, and I felt either this was someone TRYING too hard, or a legitimate moron who was unaware of how to properly use a chat program. Sitting idly by yourself and popping into other channels for a split second seemed like a desperate bid for attention. I might’ve done that and laughed my ass off in or around the 90s, but yeah… Stupid.

GhostJorge: Hmm?
lemonlimeskull: Nothing. I seriously don’t know what he was saying.
GhostJorge: Ha. Welcome to the internet.
lemonlimeskull: What’s sad is that, besides you and me, that guy’s the only active user here all night.
* lemonlimeskull kicks Killjay and shouts “WAKE UP!!!”
lemonlimeskull: Blah.

Silence dominated the channel for about a half hour as I minimized the window and went about my business.

lemonlimeskull: Anyone on?

Nothing. Eight users in the channel, not a single one active.

lemonlimeskull: BORING.
lemonlimeskull: Why are you people so BORING?
funnymouth: O)_(O
lemonlimeskull: WAKE UP.
* lemonlimeskull puts everyone’s hand in a bowl of warm water.

It took me a few seconds to see it. Funnymouth again, staring again. I physically slumped my shoulders with a “not this shit again” sigh.

Then I noticed he wasn’t in the channel.

lemonlimeskull: ?
lemonlimeskull: …
lemonlimeskull: Anyone else see him?
lemonlimeskull: Of course not, because you’re idle.

Obviously, it was a glitch with either my client or the server. The message was kicked up from earlier in the night, at random. These things happen.

Still, it creeped the hell out of me.

After a few minutes of sitting there with a really cold, creepy feeling in my stomach… that “I shouldn’t have done something” feeling… I decided to stop trying to brave it out and just closed out the entire chat program.

Sure, I COULD have just hung out like everything was fine, but why bother try to prove I wasn’t spooked? Hell, nobody was even around to see me slink away.

After a few more hours screwing around on the web, I went to bed around 2:40 AM.

One thing I’ve always prided myself on is that I do NOT have nightmares. At least not regularly. Usually, if there are monsters or ghosts or nuclear wars in my dream, I get to control it and I have a great time. I’m shooting zombies in the face, outright telling ghosts they’re not real while I laugh at them, and if there’s some disaster, I always know how to get to the safe spot while every other MF’er fries.

I’ve had maybe four ACTUAL nightmares in the past ten years, and yes I’m completely serious.

The first nightmare of my adult life was in 2005. I’d just broken off a relationship with someone who had been with someone else for over a year behind my back. That night, when I finally DID get to sleep, I dreamt she was strapped down to a medical table while some sort of unseen, inexplicable creature sucked her brain out through an organic machine.

The brain screamed. Ceaselessly.

The second nightmare had me visiting a medical facility where they were experimenting with new methods of saving lives. There was a fantastic tour of this high-tech facility, lots of wonders of modern science, people in lab coats, etc. then, I was lead to a room where three car crash victims had been “saved” by their techniques. This included a slowly rocking young girl whose face had been completely distended and hung around her chest, and a woman who was nothing but a cluster of twitching severed limbs, all held together by a drawn-out, kite-like span of flesh.

The third came soon after the second. I was being accosted by two people – one who wanted to insult me to no end, and the other who kept trying to pinch and tweak me in absurdly ineffective ways. Thinking I could control this dream like others, I set the two men against each other, thinking it would be a sort of poetic justice.

Instead, the pincher became increasingly violent until he was pulling at the other’s cheeks, grabbing his tongue with a fist and furiously pulling at it until it came out… Then he pulled the fellow’s eyelids until they distended in some sort of grotesque prolapse.

I suppose what I’m getting at is that even when I DID have nightmares, I was never the actual target of any sort of horror. It’s always been a kind of empathetic horror related to someone else getting brutalized.

This night, however, was different. As soon as I fell asleep, I started dreaming. Basically, it was a recurring dream I have where I’m in the woods, just checking out animals and birds and generally acting chill. I lie in the grass and look up at the sky. It’s always a dream I welcome, because even if I’ve had a shit day, I’ll wake up happy and ready to start over.

This time, the script changed. I laid in the grass… but while I was staring at the sky, I felt something odd.

It was a cold, squirming feeling on my neck.

In the dream, I reached to my neck and pulled away a long, writhing earth worm. Earth worms disgust me. If I see one in the yard, I’ll specifically get a shovel and heap dirt over it simply so I don’t accidentally SEE it again.

Disgusted, but more or less content, I flung the worm aside and continued my dream.

Then… that feeling again. Clammy, wet, wiggling against the side of my neck.

I pulled another worm away.

Again, it happened.

The third time, the feeling of confusion and dread became so overwhelming that I immediately snapped myself out the dream. That’s what usually happens when shit gets real in my dreams. Game over.

I figured it out, though. At least, I thought I had. In the waking world, I felt my neck and discovered a slick, slimy film on my skin. Logic dictated that I must’ve been drooling in my sleep. Nothing to be proud of, but not exactly terrifying, either. My dreaming mind must’ve translated the icky feeling into an appropriate creature in the forest dream.

Perhaps more unsettling, though, was the fact that the bed around me seemed to have indentations. Four, to be exact. It was almost as of someone on hands and knees had been hovering over me as I slept.

There was any number of reasons that could’ve happened… but from then on that night, I slept very lightly. Any little thing, like the sound of a ceiling fan, would wake me up straight away. I had no real interest in going back to the woods that night.

When morning came around, I got ready to take off. To get out of the house and shake the cobwebs out. I only planned to check my e-mail real quick to make sure I didn’t have any pending transactions or questions I had to answer.

Surprise!

From: [email protected] Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 2:42 AM
To: Charles Watts

i had a good time to talk to you it can b fun aagain youll see what

i dont like stop it

As you probably recall, I hadn’t given this asshat my e-mail address. However, logicial answer, someone else on the channel must have. He obviously came back to #ReferSales, asked someone who I was, and that douche bag completely betrayed me, knowing I don’t give out my personal contact info.

Although…

The e-mail was dated 2:40. That was pretty much the moment I went to bed… when everyone on the channel was still idle.

Even though I well and truly KNEW I was taking some sort of bait, I responded.

From: Charles Watts Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 9:29 AM
To: [email protected]

Uhhhm, yeah bro. Not exactly sure I want you e-mailing me.

It was clear and to the point. There was no mistaking the message I was sending, and though it was snippy, I wasn’t goading him into replying by starting a flame war.

But, of course…

From: [email protected] Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 9:30 AM
To: Charles Watts

come on
dont be so sad about it

i know u can like it we will have fun a lot of the time

its okay even

And with that, I blocked his address. Really, I should’ve done that in the first place, but I still had some sick sort of interest in exactly where this was going. Maybe if I put my foot down, he would admit he was just screwing around and call me a humorless wet blanket. When I saw it was just the same old bullshit, that gave me the green light to go ahead and shut the guy out.

For what it’s worth, you can relax at this point. The blocking stuck. There was no follow-up message circumventing the ban.

After a few minutes, I assured myself that was all over and I went about my day. It wasn’t until I got home at dusk that the cold, squirming feeling in my stomach started all over again… and I had no idea WHY.

Well, that’s not entirly true. I had SOME idea.

I checked my e-mail.

Nothing from “funnymouth”, however there WAS an e-mail from Jorge.

From: Jorge G Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 2:03 PM
To: Charles Watts

Hey,

Refersales.com is fucked up. I can’t get shit to load. When you’re online please take a look ASAP.

Peace & Carrots,
Jorge
Bluud
LOLSKELETONSAdded by LOLSKELETONS

I let out a string of curses. Down time meant lost sales, and I’d been out all day with no way for Jorge to contact me. If I’d been a little less strict with my personal info, he could’ve just called me.

I loaded the site and waited for some sort of error screen.

Instead, it began to reroute to another page.

Bluud.com

From: Charles Watts Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 6:15 PM
To: Jorge G

Yeah, I see it. It’s redirecting to a website with a giant pixellated face with a messed-up tongue.

I think this has to be that funnymouth PoS. Did you give him my e-mail? With the domain in it?

C.W.

From: Jorge G Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 6:23 PM
To: Charles Watts

It’s a 404 page, not a redirect. I want what you’re smoking. All I get on Bluud.com is a “coming soon” notice.

I didn’t give anyone shit.

Jeorge

From: Charles Watts Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 6:25 PM
To: Jorge G

Har har har. Funny.

Then Jorge e-mailed me a screenshot of the site giving a 404 error… along with a “coming soon” notice for Bluud.com

He could’ve easily faked them… but why? I mean, if this was some sort of joke, it was pretty abstract and I didn’t get it.

When I looked at my website files, everything was normal. Nothing was out of place, and nobody had even logged in to change anything. I checked the domain name’s nameservers… the thing that routes a domain where it’s supposed to go… and nothing was out of sorts.

Still… there was this bloated, tongue-wagging face looking back at me with its empty eye sockets.

Then, I don’t know how I missed it in the first place…

Looking closely, the picture of that face wasn’t really pixelated. It was made of tiny letters, HTML code coloring each letter specific to the image.

Over and over again, the word that made up the image was right in front of me. “funnymouthfunnymouthfunnymouthfunnymouth” in a great cluster of nonsense.

I felt like spitting at the screen.

I unblocked his e-mail address and set about writing an incredibly profane and threatening letter. I didn’t really care if I got the site back at this point, I just wanted to get everything off my chest so I could feel like I was in control of the situation again.

Before I could finish the letter… I just got this weird, creepy feeling again. That “No, it couldn’t be…” feeling where you know you’re being absurd, but at the same time you know you’re right…

I stopped hacking out my death threats and checked the inbox.

From: [email protected] Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 7:00
To: Charles Watts

i see ur handsome face

From: [email protected] Sat, Nov 17, 2012 at 7:00 PM
To: Charles Watts

helo buddie