Crystal Sands Stalking

The day started off like every other day. I got up, ate breakfast, got ready for school, and then I left. After the school day, I came racing home and up the stairs to my room. I was finally going to be able to play Animal Jam! I had waited all day for this moment. I just loved playing Animal Jam, as it was my favorite game. Was. I opened up Chrome and I typed Animal Jam in. The page loaded fast, which was sort of unusual. My computer was usually slow. I observed the page for a moment instead of logging in immediately. The page just looked so wrong. Yet I couldn't tell what was wrong with it. I let out a small gasp when I saw why it looked so… off.

I saw a long tall rabbit in the very back of the page. This rabbit was walking while holding something. The animation of this rabbit walking was basically nightmare fuel. It was not walking on all fours like how rabbits should, no. It was walking on two legs as if it were a human. Its ears were perked up and it was walking up to one of the animals out of the background. I didn’t want to watch it anymore because I soon realized what it was carrying. It was carrying a butcher type knife.

I looked away. I couldn’t watch it anymore. And.. I, out of instinct, logged in. After I had pressed the button I looked at the screen. The loading screen was completely normal! I didn’t really expect that. It sort of shocked me. Maybe I had just imagined the home screen? I mean, Animal Jam is just a kids game. Right? After the loading screen had loaded I realized I was in Crystal Sands. I looked around as if searching for something out of place. I did find what I was searching for.

I saw the sand had these like… Red stains. Then I noticed that there was no other person in the world with me. I could have swore there were people before… but I guess not. Maybe they all just left or something, I’m not sure. That doesn’t matter anyway. I moved my avatar over to the sand. Like standing on it. As soon as I did that my animal’s paws turned red. The red was the same shade as the sand.

“Is this.. Blood? On Animal Jam?” I asked myself aloud.

“Nah.. it’s just Animal Jam.” I muttered to myself, just staring at my animal’s now bloody red paws.

After about thirty seconds or something, I stopped staring and clicked on the world map. I pressed on Jamaa, but that annoying message of “This world is full” showed up. So I tried with another world. Same message. So I tried to go to an underwater world... And strange enough there was the same message. AGAIN! It was really starting to annoy me so I just stopped trying. I closed the world map and began walking around the beach out of boredom and aggravation. I honestly don’t know why I didn’t go to my den. It would have been a much better thing to have done instead of marching around Crystal Sands like I owned the place.

I should have been smarter. I wish I had been smarter. The more I walked around, the more I noticed how wrong Crystal Sands looked. There were red stains all over the sand now. And the more I moved my animal, the darker it got. Over time it just turned black. I stared with a shocked mystified look. Slowly, my animal started morphing. It started morphing into.. That rabbit. The one from the home screen page. And it wasn’t facing slightly away from the player’s screen. It was facing directly towards it.

Its eyes were black. No whites, and no color.. Other than black of course. Its ears were perked up, just like before. It was standing on its hind legs… Like a human. Exactly like before. Its fur color was a greyish black with a black nose. It had a crooked smile, the teeth that were showing were just so sharp looking. They were also jagged, facing a little bit outward. This rabbit humanoid figure thing was holding the same thing it was holding before- a butcher’s knife.

My adrenaline started pumping faster than the speed of light. I broke out in a cold sweat. Even though it was just a game, it was just scaring me. I didn’t understand how. Or why. A chat bubble appeared with some words. I moved my eyes away from its face and to that chat bubble. I got goosebumps as soon as I read what was said in this chat bubble.

“Don’t go downstairs.”

The hair on the back of my neck stood up on end. Shivers ran up and down my spine and my hands began to shake. I felt like crying due to those few words. Not even a few seconds later the Crystal Sands’ cheery bongo music faded to dead silence. I suddenly heard banging coming from downstairs. I stood slowly and with the most feared expression imaginable. I went over to the door of my room and was about to close it, but, something stopped me. I saw the rabbit from the game standing about ten feet away from my doorway. It smiled at me widely as I let out a gasp.

“Isn’t Animal Jam fun??” This humanoid rabbit creature asked me with a higher-pitched voice. After saying that, it slowly came closer to me. Though, it had only walked a few small footsteps before stopping.

I couldn’t hold back any longer and screamed.

“Aw.. but it’s Animal Jam. Where kids are inspired to be creative and work together,” Then added in more of a deeper pitched voice, “Right?”

“N-not if it has monsters like you in it!” I cried out.

The rabbit took another few steps towards me. I watched its every move as it watched mine. I wish… I wish I had been smarter about this. It came all the way up to me and grabbed my wrist with one of its hand-paws. It dug these sharp claws into my wrist as it dragged me to my computer screen. I struggled to pull away… And struggle I did. I never got away from it.

As my eyes began watering, I looked at the computer screen. Crystal Sands was just red. Every single thing was a different shade of red, and obviously, my avatar was gone. It made me move my hand onto the screen and suddenly I was sucked in. I looked around, the cartoonish look hurting my eyes. I looked down at my hands and saw they looked the exact same way as the rabbit’s hand-paws. Then a note appeared in my hands. It read...

“Your turn to get a victim or stay here, in this game, until the game shuts down.”

I shuddered, but yet I knew what had to be done next. I am writing this now to tell you that this is not a story. This is not imagination. This is my life. And soon… this won't just be my life, but yours as well.