Zeb had been getting along great with his new roommate, Axl. They had quickly slid into a routine as if they had been roommates longer than only 3 months. It was as if they had known each other for years! As of now, they hadn't been able to find another roommate, and although they would have been perfectly fine with just the two of them, both of their low-end jobs and the rent didn't seem to agree with this idea, so they were still trying.
At the moment Axl was out, because every week he and his family seemed to have a get together some day of the week. Zeb had yet to meet them, but from what he's heard they seemed to be nice enough people. Zeb on the other hand was stuck at home cleaning up the mess in his room. It had been awhile since he properly cleaned it, and he could barely even see his floor anymore. As he was cleaning up the pile of papers and folders on his desk, he was surprised to find his old USB flash drive and broken laptop. He had already bought another one, and the flash drive only had a few files that were probably corrupted that he hadn't bothered checking on his new laptop.
He shrugged, and figured that it wouldn't hurt to check what was on it. Maybe he'd find something interesting, or embarrassing. When he checked the files on it, he wasn't shocked to see most of them seemed to be corrupted text files and the odd picture here or there that was glitched to no return. But what shocked him the most was the fact that there was a folder full of video files. He didn't remember filming anything at all in a the past few months, and they were all labeled to be made around a month before Axl had arrived.
The folder was called GoŠÐ AmßÄ Us, and he instantly became curious as to what they even were, or what it even meant. He eagerly clicked on one of the files, hoping that it wouldn't be corrupted enough for it to not show anything. No luck, when he opened it the sound was distorted and the images were heavily pixelated. He couldn't see anything of worth, and he nearly closed the video until he heard a familiar voice. Himself, in fact, saying things that Zeb had no recollection of saying at all.
"It is also, completely true." Zeb's own staticky voice said in a serious tone.
Zeb stared, trying to rack his brains and remember when he had ever filmed this project, but his mind came up blank. He continued to watch, hoping that more of the original video wasn't distorted. He watched the video as it skipped around in pixelated frames, until a rather clear image popped up again, a bald man, telling strange stories...About being Gods? Zeb wished that the videos hadn't been corrupted from when he stupidly spilled water onto his laptop, completely ruining it.
But his mouth dropped open at the last bit of salvaged video clip. It was quick, a flash, that Zeb had to go back and manually pause to make sure it was completely true. It was...Axl, and two other men sitting there comfortably in the flat. But that couldn't be possible...Zeb didn't know Axl on the date that this video was said to be created. It couldn't be true...Zeb quickly closed out of the video and nearly slammed his laptop shut before he stopped himself...
He really didn't know much about Axl, now that he thought about it. He had never met his family, and Axl rarely talked about his own life. He seemed very relaxed, and was rarely bothered by anything that ever happened to him, good or bad. One day he had arrived back at the flat with a black eye, and he was even smiling! Zeb never thought there was something off about the lanky man until now, after he saw those video files.
Instead of turning off his laptop and trying to forget what he saw, he instead opened up his internet browser and went on Google. He sat there for a moment, fingers hovering mere millimeters away from the keys, wondering if he should do this. He tried to reason with himself, saying that nothing interesting about Axl would pop up except maybe his Facebook account or something. Yet his fingers were telling him otherwise, and slowly he typed 'Axl Johnson' in the search bar, and hit enter.
He was right about one thing at least, Axl's Facebook was the first thing to pop up in the search. But it wasn't until a few more hits down that he found something that made his chest tighten and his breath to get cut short. It was an article from the local news, one that he was shocked to have not heard of, but there it was in big bold letters, and Zeb could only wonder how Axl had anything to do with this.
"SUSPECTED CULT OF 'NORSE GODS' FOUND DEAD IN THE FOREST"
Zeb hovered the pointer nervously over the article title, not really sure if he should read it or not. It could just be something different, silly. One of those mistakes that websites sometimes do and give you links to something completely unrelated to what you originally searched. But something in the back of his mind was telling him to continue, to read what the article had to say. So he clicked on it.
His eyes were immediately greeted with a picture of lined up body bags on the ground of what was probably the forest that this cult was found in. Scanning the article, he learned that people had suspected that these people were a family and what seemed to be friends of theirs in some cult where they claimed that they were 'norse gods' who had powers. And that all those earthquakes and strange happenings were their cause because they had to return to Asgard. They had been found in the forest all dead, without a single mark on their skin, and one man was tied to a tree. The only blood that was found was on the chest of the tied up man, and on the two people who had been found by the stone.
That's when Zeb's breath caught in his throat once more. Another link was leading to pictures of the people who were confirmed to be in the suspected cult, and other suspected members. Once again he wasn't sure if he should click it, but his body, just as before, seemed to decide for him and clicked on the link. As soon as the first picture popped up on screen, Zeb's entire body just froze. Staring back at him with an easy grin was Axl. The text at the bottom of his picture stated that he was one of ones found with blood from a cut on his hand. Zeb wanted to puke, they even had post mortem pictures. He scrolled, and quickly he recognized the faces of three others. The bald man who had been speaking in the corrupted video he had seen only a few minutes ago, and the two other men who had been sitting with Axl. All of them were Johnsons, and all were found dead in the forest along with other names. There were other people, who were said to have been found dead in their own homes around the exact same time that the ones in the forest were found. They were suspected to be apart of the cult. Zeb stared in shock as there was also a girl who had died on a plane returning to New Zealand. Doctors said that they had no idea what could have happened to the girl (her name was Gaia, he read from her description) because her body seemed to have been in perfect condition.
But all Zeb could think about was Axl. They had pictures. They had dates! The article clearly stated that they were some freak cult that was found dead! They were found dead…Just a day after Axl had moved in with Zeb. And the article had said that they suspected they had been dead since the day before. Zeb kept reading the descriptions. Mikkel, Anders, Tyrone, Olaf….The women as well, Hannah, Ingrid, Michele, Stacey….His eyes couldn't stop, he kept reading, kept trying to comprehend if this was some sort of sick joke.
"Zeb?"
Zeb let out a choked scream and shut his laptop with a slam. He immediately cringed, hoping that the screen hadn't cracked from the force of him closing it. He spun around to see Axl just grinning and leaning against the doorframe. Zeb couldn't help but let his eyes travel around Axl's body, trying to see something that wasn't there. Something that perhaps he hadn't seen before. Nothing. Just the same old lanky man that Zeb had quickly become friends with. His shoulders sagged in relief, but it didn't last long.
When Axl stepped forward to move into the room, Zeb noticed it immediately. He barely even heard the comment that Axl made to him about having such a messy room. The way he moved...It wasn't right. It was completely unnatural, the way he moved. Zeb wasn't sure why he didn't even notice it before. It was as if frames were being skipped. His body wouldn't in one place and in less than a second it would be in a place where it would have been illogical for it to be. He moved as if he were in a video. A poorly done video…And he moved quickly. It seems like in no time at all he was next to Zeb. He grinned at the shorter man, as if nothing was wrong.
"Something wrong Zeb? You look like you've seen a ghost or something!" Zeb couldn't help but notice a slight crackle to his voice. If he hadn't been paying attention he would have assumed that Axl had a bit of a sore throat.
And his eyes...Zeb couldn't help but step back a bit from how close Axl was standing. His eyes looked so dead...And almost...Glitchy? That was the only way he could describe his eyes. His entire face as well. It was as if it was all coming to shape, things that Zeb didn't notice. Everything about Axl was completely unnatural. Like he was made from a computer.
"Um...I-I'm fine." He stuttered out. He quickly grabbed his laptop and shoved it into his bag. "H-hey, I have something I go need to do. I'll see you later, yeah?"
Axl stared at him for a moment, eyes still flashing strangely, before settling back to their natural color and he responded. "Yeah, fine!" He grinned. Zeb wanted to cry because of how freaky it looked.
He quickly ran out the door and down the street, and he failed to notice how Axl had glitched through the wall and was standing on the porch, watching him run off with blank white eyes…
He sat down on a bench in the park, and quickly opened up his laptop, typing furiously. He was back on the page with all the members of that cult, and he googled the name of one member in particular, and he found what he had needed, and quickly went off again, arriving to a small looking home. Very quaint, he probably would have liked to look around if not for the importance of the situation. He knocked on the door, his breath still coming out heavy and his eyes darting from side to side as if he were expecting for Axl to suddenly appear next to him with that unnatural smile and his flashing eyes.
A woman with short blonde hair opened the door and stared at Zeb in confusion. "Umm….Yes?"
"Are you Dawn?" Zeb asked in his still winded voice.
"Yes...And...You are?" She asked, clearly trying to be polite, but at the same time weary and suspicious of Zeb's presence.
"I'm Zeb." She looked even more confused, and he continued. "I'm a friend of Axl's. Ty's brother." It was at the second name that a flash of recognition permeated her face.
"Oh! Well...Zeb." She said, still trying to be polite. "What brings you here?"
"I need to ask you something." And without warning Zeb simply pushed past her into the house and he quickly opened up his laptop again. "Has Ty been acting...Weird? Y'know in the past few days?" Zeb asked as calmly as he could.
"Weird? Um...No, not at all." She kept glancing at the door, clearly hoping that Zeb would take the hint, but he ignored it.
"Well that's what I thought with Axl...But something wasn't right...I mean...I mean...Well I found this article! Just look!" He shoved the laptop in Dawn's face.
She frowned as she skimmed through the article, before handing the laptop back with a sigh. "Is this some kind of sick joke that you and Ty's brother cooked up? I mean I heard from Ty that he and Anders were the type to do this. It's not funny, please leave." She rolled her eyes. "A cult, really? If that had happened it would have been more on the news." She started to shove Zeb out of the house.
"No, but-" Zeb tried to say.
"Leave." And Dawn shut the door behind him.
Zeb groaned, and he knew that he wasn't going to be able to convince her anytime soon. He didn't know what to do! But then he stopped. The files. Those corrupted files that were on his computer. Axl didn't appear until after those files were corrupted. It was a farfetched thought, but that was all Zeb had to go on. He opened up his laptop.
It was dead.
Zeb cursed, knowing that he'd have to run home to get his charger. He looked back for a moment at Dawn's house, hoping she'd be okay. He didn't like the feeling of any of this. It just felt as though something bad was going to happen, and soon. He turned away from the house and sprinted away once more.
Dawn sighed after she closed the door on that strange kid named Zeb. But she couldn't get that article out of her mind. It was sick. That kind of a joke shouldn't be happening...But at the same time she couldn't help but wonder if it was true. Some of the pictures she had glanced over didn't seem like something two broke idiots barely out of college could afford. She shook her head. It was clearly fake. They probably had Anders help out with it, he loved freaking Dawn out.
She sat down, completely intending to spend the rest of the day watching television until Ty arrived home. That's when she heard something strange. She sat up slightly, straining her ears. It was a high pitched, tinny whistling sound. She hadn't even touched the remote yet! She stood up and went over to the television, putting her ear close to it, trying to see if it was the culprit for such an annoying sound.
No, nothing. She frowned. The whistling was getting louder. It was coming in short bursts, with the occasional long shrieking whistle. She covered her ears, and went up to nearly every appliance in the house trying to find the source. Absolutely nothing. The sound was pressing in at her from all sides, but it seemed to be coming from absolutely nothing. It got to the point where she was finally ready to scream from the loud whistling when it stopped suddenly. She took her hands off her ears slowly, looking around in confusion.
And slowly, her eyes went to the door. Ty was standing there, completely still. Unnaturally still. And his eyes were white. Not even a natural white that you'd see in his eyes. A horrible, clinical, digital looking white. Those blank eyes penetrated her, and she couldn't move.
"T-Ty? What's wrong Ty?" She asked in a meek voice.
His head suddenly snapped to the side, in quick glitchy movements, and he was suddenly next to her, every movement followed by shadows of glitches. Dawn screamed when he suddenly gripped her arm too tightly. His mouth opened and the loud tinny whistle filled her ears again followed with what sounded like distorted noises that would come from a computer. Her arm was getting cold, and she was trying to wrench out her arm from his grip.
"Ty! Stop! That hurts! Ty!" She saw her hand turning blue, and then the tips of her fingers were turning purple. "Ty!"
There was a hand on her neck now, and the same penetrating coldness was choking her, and the whistles and strange beeps only grew louder and she choked and sobbed trying to kick her way out of Ty's grip. She felt weak, and lightheaded. She couldn't breathe at all, but the pain was ebbing away, and she was going limp.
And everything went silent.
Zeb should have felt more calm, knowing that Axl wasn't in the house when he arrived back at the flat. But instead he felt even more unsettled as he shakily plugged in his laptop and turned it on again. He kept looking behind him, thinking that Axl was going to appear again at any second. He didn't know how he knew, but he just knew that if Axl found him, it was going to end badly unless he deleted those damn corrupt video files off his laptop. He kept hitting keys in impatience as he waited for his laptop to boot up, and cursed in a low whisper as the file finally opened. He immediately dragged it to the recycle bin.
Nothing. The file was still there. He swore, and tried again. And again, nothing. The file wouldn't delete itself. Zeb groaned in frustration. "Not now, any time but now. Please?"
When he went silent again, his face screwed up in confusion. Was that a...whistling sound? Yes...It was some high pitched tinny whistle that you'd expect to hear in some old computer booting up. His face went from confusion to horror as he quickly returned to his computer desperately trying to delete the files again and again with no success.
"Fuck, fuck...No…" It stopped responding. His computer was starting to freeze.
The tinny whistling was getting louder, and there seemed to be multiple ones now, all getting closer and closer. Zeb swore again and ran up to his window and shoved the curtains to the side. And then he seized up. Standing outside, surrounding the house was every single person from that cult list. Axl was at the very front, staring directly at Zeb with wide, unnaturally white eyes. Everyone's mouth was half open, and the loud whistling was coming from them. Zeb finally was able to move and he all but smashed headlong into the table as he tried to close the files once more, so desperately. He could barely even control his mouse or even hear the whistling over the pounding of his own heart and the ringing in his ears.
"Please...Please...Just delete!"
It happened. It was starting to load, and Zeb almost felt elated about the fact that the files were finally deleted until he felt a hand on his back. His grin fell immediately, and he turned his head slowly to come face to face to Glitch Axl's blank white eyes and glitching features.
Axl just smirked.
And everything went blank.