It's All It Took

A gaming console, a game, and a controller… That’s all it took.



Call of Duty: Black Ops II was a game that made over 50 million dollars on launch night alone (November 13th 2012), it is also a game that a young 23 year old man became rather addicted to. This man’s name was, Jason. Jason bought Black Ops II on launch night, and dashed home full of excitement and joy. Jason could not wait to pop that disc into his new Xbox 360 that he’d bought just for this game.



As soon as, Jason barged through the door into his empty pitch black house he ran up to his room slammed the door shut, leaving an echo throughout the house. Jason slammed on the open button on his Xbox, set his headphones to max volume, and began to play. Once, Jason started to play, however he chose not to start story mode, but instead begin with multiplayer since that was what the games were known for.



Jason was ecstatic as the screen loaded and he entered his first game. Jason played and played, making new friends, and getting better at the game. Suddenly, though, the room lit up without a moment’s notice. Jason looked around his room to see if one of the lights were acting weird on him, but the lights were fine, and everything seemed normal.



Jason shrugged off the odd moment and continued playing. Jason only got through a few more games until the room suddenly became dark. This time, Jason didn’t even take the time to check if something was wrong, but instead kept playing.



Jason was so happy now, because he was making his way to the highest rank extremely quickly, but of course another stupid distraction bothered him once more. He was in the middle of a very important argument with a 13 year old when he suddenly felt a weird warm tingly sensation reach from the top of his legs down to his ankles. Jason was annoyed, but he kept pushing on simply because he was perseverant… And he liked the game of course.



After some more games, Jason wasn’t bothered by these odd annoyances. Sure they happened over and over, but he just didn’t care anymore, until everything around him became blurry, and distorted. “I must’ve forgotten to wear my contacts.” Jason thought to himself. This minor issue wouldn’t stop him from playing the game like a pro, however.



Jason kept playing even, though he could barely see what was going on around him, until everything suddenly became silent. Jason took a second before standing up and stomping towards his shiny new Xbox 360 and slapping it on its side. “Work you stupid piece of junk!” Jason yelled in frustration. This is when, Jason noticed something very strange. He couldn’t hear himself yelling. Jason breathed in and out before trying to speak once more. Nothing, he heard nothing. Jason screamed as loud as he could while ripping off his headphones, but he still heard nothing.



<p class="MsoNormal">Jason was scared half to death and threw his headphones and controller onto the ground, which triggered Xbox menu telling him the time and date. The time was, 5:30 A.M., which wasn’t bad considering he picked up the game at around 12:30 A.M. What really got, Jason was the date, it read: 10/20/2012, One week after he started playing.

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<p class="MsoNormal">Instantly after reading this, Jason’s throat grew dry and bitter, and his knees collapsed beneath him. Jason just lay there not being able to move, and fitting all the little pieces of the puzzle together.

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<p class="MsoNormal">He started playing, he got addicted, the random changes in lighting was day turning to night, the odd sensation reaching down his leg was when he need to you know “go”, the loss of eyesight was from staring at the T.V. too long, and the hearing loss was from the headphones being on too loud. Jason was dying, alone on his floor.