Alright, let me make this clear, I’m not Erik. Before you guys freak out, no it’s not a psychopathic Axel or anything that’s taken over or whatnot.
Hi nosleep. I’m Erik’s older brother, Lyon - nice to meet you.
Let’s start with why I’m on Erik’s account. You know those idiots who write down all their passwords in some little notebook? Yeah, my brother’s one of them - and he keeps the damn thing right out in the open on his desk. Oh, and the fact that I’m one of those asshole brothers who occasionally goes into those little notebooks and changes his little brother’s passwords just to fuck with him. Yep. I admit it.
Seriously, the guy’s security is pathetic. I bet he didn’t even link an email account to his reddit. I myself don’t really use reddit - but since I hadn’t seen Erik in about a half a year (his term just ended so I came back from New York to visit him and the rest of my family), and his little red notebook was just sitting on his desk - well, I couldn’t resist temptation.
Though, now I’m actually kind of glad that I’m such a jackass brother. Like Erik mentioned in his other posts, he isn’t exactly the most technology adept person in this city - so when I realized that he had actually posted on a forum? And not only that - he even replied to some of your comments? Shit was getting real. Then again, Erik’s going for a minor in English - so I thought, “Oh, my wimpy little brother finally managed to get the balls to put one of his stories onto the Internet? Time to read.”
I was just as shocked/horrified/scared as most of you redditors. Let me explain further. Erik was certainly not an antisocial guy, but after Axel’s accident, he kind of closed himself off from the rest of us. He wasn’t kidding when he said our mom had to drive him to his college - who do you think was the one who hauled him into the car? He did get better over the years, though I don’t think he ever confided to anyone as much as he did with Axel (this is why I keep telling him to get a girlfriend, but he never listens me). Given the facts that I was: 1) again an asshole brother, and 2) studying on the other side of the country at the time, you could say that I haven’t had much insight on my brother’s life recently.
And then I come home, just barely putting down my bags when I stumble upon this shit on my brother’s account. For reference, I’ve never heard anything about demonic emails or an infinite number of souls being crammed into Axel’s body, so I’m just as lost as you guys are. Sure, I knew that Axel got into an accident, went into a coma, woke up screaming, and then got sent to a hospital. Done - nothing about Erik making a deal with obviously the most trustworthy person on the internet.
Now don’t get me wrong. Some of you are probably going like, “How shit was your relationship with your brother?” It wasn’t - yeah, I was mostly an asshole, and he was a wimp, but despite that, we were still brothers. Brothers with a normal brotherly relationship - not the best relationship but far from the worst. When the accident happened, I was hit just as hard as everyone else. Except for Erik. I knew he never fully recovered from the accident, though now, after reading his last two posts, that kind of brings everything to a new level.
Literally. I don’t know why, but Erik has this mentality of “fixing his own problems.” You know, when you watch those animes, cartoons, TV shows, or whatever, the hero or some other idiot is always like “I need to fix my own problems” and wanders off into the enemy fortress alone? Yeah. Like that. I was reading your comments, and a lot of you guys recommended that he bring a friend along - which in my opinion is probably one of the smartest things you could have done other than not going at all. I’m willing to bet you my house he didn’t. Not only that, this stupid mindset was probably the reason he didn’t tell anyone else about the email or deal or whatever after it happened. Aside for the fact that he might have been labelled crazy too.
Didn’t make me feel any better when I saw that “update” he posted yesterday. For all of you who don’t know what the update was, it basically said: “It was a trap, that wasn’t him; help me, help me please,” if you just read the capital letters. As the guy’s brother who currently resides in the same house as him, I can tell you it didn’t feel exactly that warm and cuddly when I realized what it said.
Oh right, I haven’t even gotten to the creepy part yet. You know how his post said he was going to meet Axel at noon? Yeah, I arrived at 6 PM - after he posted his update. And you know what? He was sitting at the damn table eating a slice of pizza. Perfectly normal - he even gave me a hug and said, “Hi.” Of course, at the time, I had no idea about any of this shit, so I didn’t really pay much attention to it. And, to add on more to it, he didn’t mention a word about going to visit Axel or the call he received etc. etc. etc. Apparently not to our parents either - I asked my mom about it this morning, and she just gave me a funny look. This probably goes back to his mentality I was talking about earlier - though, after that update, he should be acting at least a little bit weird, right?
He’s too happy. In fact, the happiest I’ve seen in a long time - a long time meaning since the accident. He spoke more words at the dinner table than the past four phone calls we’ve had combined.
I thought he had finally managed to move on past the accident. If he wasn’t bullshitting the past two posts, that’s obviously not the case.
The thing is, I can’t find anything wrong with him - and that disturbs me more than anything else. If he’s begging for help, why the hell is he laughing and talking like nothing’s wrong in front of his family? If someone were threatening him, I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t be that natural (don’t get me started on his acting skills). If so, at least not this happy.
So yeah, now you guys are probably going, “Alright, so your brother’s really happy, cool. Good for him, stop being an ass - loved the creepy story, k thx, bai.” Trust me, I wouldn’t be posting just because he was acting happy.
You know how I said I changed his password and that he didn’t have an email to get it back? Yeah, so after reading those posts, I, uh, didn’t change his password back. I know, I know, it’s really bad - if Erik had been kidnapped and reddit had been his only outlet, I would have basically screwed him over. Unfortunately, I wasn’t thinking about the consequences at the time, since I was a bit too preoccupied with the fact that my brother had screamed for help over the Internet.
Needless to say, after I finished reading what he posted, I stared at the screen for a bit, logged out, walked out the door, and made sure my brother was still sitting in the couch watching TV. Course he saw me and beckoned me to come over to sit by him, so the fact that I had changed his password kind of escaped my mind for a bit as I tried to find something wrong with my brother as he yelled his ass off at the basketball players on television. I found nothing.
That changed this afternoon. I was in my own room (my old one, at least) when I heard a frustrated shout and a loud crash in the room next door - aka, Erik’s. I ran into the room, thinking that some supernatural being or whatever had flown through the window and kidnapped my brother.
Instead, all I saw was Erik standing up with his chair knocked over behind him and the remains of his laptop (an expensive one) at his feet. He was panting, and when he turned around to look at me, I saw something feral in his eyes. The first emotion other than cheeriness I’ve seen from him since I’ve arrived in California.
I’ll tell you for a fact, that anger wasn’t human. It took all my willpower to break my gaze with his and move over to gather the pieces of the broken laptop. Erik didn’t even move to help - yet I felt his gaze burning into the back of my shirt.
And now, after I’ve finally managed to refit the top half of the laptop back into place and successfully reboot it, I’ve found something else.
You know how when you turn off your computer or something without proper procedure or shit and chrome pops back up with the message like “Chrome didn’t shut down properly - would you like to reopen your old tabs” and stuff? Yeah, I clicked that - and only one tab popped open.
He was trying to find a way to delete a reddit post without logging on. Without logging onto an account that wasn’t backed up by an email account.
I haven’t given him the new password yet - and I’m not sure if I ever should. After all, who would want to delete their last cry for help?
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