(Since Fanfiction is being weird, I have done a bit of editing to this pasta.)
To make things simple, I am referred to as "Yumi" and my friend as "Odd."
So we're both fans of the show Code Lyoko. We're the typical fangirls: we ship, we cry over little moments in the show, we make fanstuff. But what we do most is roleplay. Of course, we roleplay as Yumi Ishiyama and Odd Della Robbia respectively, as they are our favorite characters.
Okay, I'm kind of lying. We still love them, but... not as much as we did before. I can explain why...
So it was a normal day. Odd and I were Skyping as we usually do, and at the same time I was also adding the finishing touches to a fangame I was developing on my own. Both Odd and I had been beta testing the game extensively, and I was near ready to send her the final version of the game that I would send her before I released it on Tumblr.
"Odd, I got the last game ready!" I told her excitedly, and both of us made a little cheer.
"I'll be ready in a few," she said, getting up and going off for a few seconds. We still had the call going, so I took the time to send her the file, known as "FML the Game . exe."
I should probably explain what FML means before I get into details. FML stands for Friendly Memorable Love, which is an alternate universe of Code Lyoko that I initially made on Tumblr. It started with me roleplaying as Yumi, whose world had been destroyed in a huge XANA attack. Odd later joined in as - you guessed it - Odd. To this day, we still roleplay as them. But of course, we had our moments of torturing them extensively to our own amusement.
Odd came back, and soon she had the file downloaded onto her computer. Both of us started up our games when we were both ready, and soon the title screen came up with the usual options of NEW GAME, OPTIONS, and EXTRAS.
We both started up new games, and we chose our obvious muses as our characters. But things began to go a little weird when we got to the first level.
Odd told me that her Odd was giving her a strange look, and when I asked her if I could see, she got her webcam and pointed towards his sprite. Odd looked a little tense, as if he knew something was going to happen.
"Hey, I never made that..." I muttered. I looked at my game, and for some reason, Yumi had the same expression that Odd had. "What the blazes is this?" I said, frowning. I had never made these graphics at all. But we shook it off and continued playing.
The game was a sidescrolling platformer, taking elements from the game Gimmick!, Sonic the Hedgehog and Mega Man. I had designed some levels to be what I called "rhythm parkour." Rhythm parkour was basically platforming... except it was in time to music and everything had to be done to the second. This is important later.
The first level was just a normal city, with Odd/Yumi having to fight thugs while escaping to the rooftops. When we played it, everything was normal with only Odd or Yumi giving us the occasional frown or so. Once we completed the first stage, it came to a boss battle.
The first boss was a shoutout to a game I had played called Sexy Parodius, as it was a giant squash. Small platforms were there to help us beat the boss as it tried to crush us by landing on the platforms. Since we had known this game from top to bottom, we beat the first boss easily and broke out in giggles when it exploded. Then a cutscene began to play.
The first cutscene was supposed to be Odd or Yumi finding the other trapped inside a airship, and one of them was to jump onto the wing and try to get in to save the other, but fail to as the villain of the game, a XANA from a different universe, appears and attacks the hero(ine) viciously and they are sent flying into the unknown.
But this time, Yumi clung to the wing and looked at me.
"Don't you think you've caused enough trouble?" she asked in a text box. Underneath the text box was an area where I could type up an answer. I asked Odd if this was happening to her, and she said that it was. So we decided to type in our answers: mine was "lol nope" while Odd's was "wat?"
The text boxes closed at Odd/Yumi gave us a look that clearly told us they they felt betrayed.
Then the second level started. This level was a set of islands. Yumi/Odd's sprite crashlanded onto the sand of the first island, and were brought out of being knocked out by a coconut falling on their head. They got up and then we finally mowed through the second level and got to the boss... but not before we were stopped from going into the boss area by a wall of vegetation. I had never put this in the game. So we did whta any sensible gamer would do: we hit it until we broke a hole in it. The second boss was a huge seagull about the size of an ostrich, and it was possessed by XANA. We beat it by shooting it in the head several times with either the fan or Lazer Arrows. Soon we defeated the seagull, and it burst into a pile of feathers.
Another cutscene began to play. This cutscene was supposed to be a bunch of angry natives grabbing the player character and casting them off onto a boat because it turns out the giant seagull was their god. But instead, the natives captured Yumi and she was brought to an altar where she was set down and soon wood was piled up around her and they burned her to death. But instead of being a sprite, it was incredbliy graphic and I saw Yumi's skin practically melting off. The same thing was happening to Odd, and she was shocked at the scene.
"Yumi?" she asked, looking at me.
"W-what?"
"Y-you didn't... put this in, right...?"
"I didn't do it! I swear!"
The third level... oh god. I had never made this level at all. But it was a rhythm parkour level. Or it looked like one, because the screen was slowly shifting right. As Yumi/Odd ran, the speed increased and the background slowly began to appear. We were not prepared for what was next...
The background was reddish and fire and lava blazed all around. Dead bodies littered the area, and it was apparent that Yumi/Odd was scared from their expression as they ran. A sound clip suddenly played.
"THIS IS WHAT I LIVE THROUGH EVERY DAY THANKS TO YOU!" she yelled at me. It felt like she was right next to me, and I rubbed my ears. I checked my speakers, and they were at my usual volume level. Odd told me the same had happened with her game. But that didn't matter right now. Suddenly, out of the ground behind the character, XANA burst out in what seemed to be a demonic form of the Scorpion from the DS game. Yumi/Odd began to run faster as XANA began to chase them throughout the level. But Yumi/Odd began to become tired, and a few seconds later, they collapsed on the ground crying. XANA stood over them, and with his tail, he began slashing up Yumi/Odd. But soon me and Odd... we were forced to go through the same pain our characters had. We felt every single cut and slice that Yumi and Odd received. When it finally stopped, Odd had fallen out of her chair and I was trying to keep myself up on the table. I only managed to get one look at the game before I fainted on the floor.
What did I look at?
It was Yumi grinning like a maniac and laughing despite her appearance.
I groaned, feeling an intense heat later on. Something was shaking me, and I finally woke up.
It was my friend... soon to be fellow prisoner... Odd.
"Yumi?!" she gasped.
"Odd?!"
We stared at each other in shock, meeting in person for the first time.
"H-how did we get in here?! It looks like... oh god..."
"We're not in the game, are we?" I griped, looking around. Sure enough, we were in the game. Two sets of footsteps came up behind us, and chuckled. They sounded so familiar... but who were they? I sat up, and gulped.
It was our muses. Odd and Yumi stood over me and my friend, and they were mutilated as they had been some time ago.
"Now," Odd asked. "do you want to know what it feels like to be us?"
"To be tortured mercilessly..." Yumi continued.
We got up and bolted, our characters pursuing us all the way. We were caught.
But we didn't die. Our wounds kept regenerating, allowing Odd and Yumi to endlessly murder us.
Now I know what it feels like to be them...
Police have confirmed Odd and Yumi, two best friends over the internet, to be dead after disappearing from their homes mysteriously one day. Officers on the scene found that their computers were running a game allegedly by the filename "FML the Game . exe..."