One particularly quiet weekend morning, I became bored after my parents left the house, and the only entertainment around was my shitty Acer with less than a gigabyte of RAM and basically no graphics card, so gaming was nearly impossible.

I eventually decided to boot up Toribash, even if it only supported 2-4 frames per second before crashing. I clicked "Free Play" because, even though I like multiplayer better, my internet connection was down for some reason. I thought that was strange, because it never failed on me before.

What instantly surprised me when I started a match was that Uke's arms and legs were both already dismembered, yet he was still standing on some kind of invisible force. I looked closer, and even though I was still at the starting frame, it turns out he wasn't standing. He actually seemed to sway a little, as if he were hung by the head. I notices his face was turning a little red, and he - - get this - - he closed his eyes as if he were sentient; as if he knew he were about to die.

My tori, however, was perfectly intact except for a disturbingly realistic head flame which I never had before. It even looked like it were actually burning my tori's face off, as it's texture was blackening, and the expression in its face was pained and frightened, unlike the smile originally given it.

I was scared shitless. I closed my laptop and nearly threw it out the window, but I stopped myself. I opened it back up, and I figured since Toribash was doing unexplainable things, I might be able to get on multiplayer.

I pressed the escape button and clicked on "Multiplayer". It loaded for ages, until it finally displayed but one room. The description was empty and the room name was "bet". I noticed there was only one player, with the name "Feed".

I entered, hoping that it might work better on multiplayer, and tried to convince myself that everything was just a glitch. When I went inside, Feed and I had a regular Aikido Big Dojo match, and I noticed he was exceptionally good. He didn't say anything though, which unnerved me a bit more. His textures were all black and he had void force and relax. His belt was custom, and it was blank.

When Feed inevitably beat me, all it said was something like, "0 Games Until [Blank] Belt!" which sent chills down my spine. He was either a hacker or some kind of developer. I was about to exit until he said, "Please stay. I need practice." so I decided it would be a good idea to play a few more games. He didn't say anything after that.

I ended up playing countless games with feed until I belted up, then I finally decided I should go and do something more productive. However, when I moved my mouse to close Toribash, it wouldn't leave the window and the escape button didn't work either, so I was stuck. Feed said, "Please, I need practice. I need to learn".

I tried replying to him. "No, I need to leave."

"You need to stay. I need to learn. How to be you."

"How to be me? What do you mean?"

"I need to learn", he said, and his textures flashed white and black, like a strobe light, until he went entirely invisible. Joints and all.

The match started again, and in a single turn, the invisible Feed had dismembered all of my joints and displayed the void-colored emote, "You shall not defy your rights. You shall suffer as I have."

Then, my power went out.

I tried turning on the computer, instinctively, but obviously it hadn't worked. I took out my phone and its battery was draining incredibly fast, it displayed a "No Signal" symbol. I went into my room, where the circuit breaker was, and immediately noticed a huge scribbling on the wall, saying "FEED". It was written in red ink, or, what my panicking mind assumed, blood.

I didn't understand what it meant. I looked out my window, and everything outside was completely white and void except for a single object, out in the distance. It was humanoid. It was utterly black.