Guilt

I'm a smart person. I know my way around the internet. I don't fall for scams and I know a virus when I see one.

But I wish I wasn't.

It all started two weeks ago. I was talking with my friend, Josh, on Skype. We lived on opposite sides of the country so this was really the only way we could talk. Just then, I got a friend request on Steam. It wasn't someone I knew in real life, but since I was a frequent trader in TF2 and DOTA2, I had gotten used to random friend requests. I added the guy and asked him what was up. He immediately sent me a link:

"hey my freind wants to buy ur items but he cant add you on steam so heres his porfile http://steamcommrnity.com/id/trace"

I immediately knew something was up. Not only was the message poorly worded, but he didn't even spell steamcommunity right. I was pretty sure this was a steam scam, so I just unfriended the guy. But then I got an idea. A sinister idea.

I copied the message (fixing up the grammar errors) and sent it to a person I knew on Steam. A person I hated.

His name was Ollie, but everyone knew him by his online alias, tech9. He was a total prick--always thinking of himself so highly, always putting people down, always insulting everyone. The only thing I had to thank him for was introducing me to Josh. I messaged him the link and soon after he went offline--a probable sign the phishing scam had taken his account. I talked to Josh for a while more and went offline.

The next morning I woke up and immediately opened Skype to talk with Josh some more. Strangely, he was offline. He was almost never offline. I got kind of scared for a moment and ran to the phone. I dialed his number and hoped he'd pick up.

No answer.

I rationalized that he was just gone. People leave, right?

So I waited.

And waited.

For an entire week. Nothing. He never answered the phone, never went online on Skype, nothing.

Then, two weeks after the blackout, I got a call from his home number. Elated, I answered the phone and heard the familiar voice of Josh's mother.

"Hello?"

"Josh's mom?  Is that you?"

"Oh!  Thank god you answered, Chase!  Josh just ran away last night!"

"I haven't even heard from him in two weeks!  What the hell is going on?"


 * audible sigh*

"He's been so distraught.  A virus got into his computer and completely destroyed it!  All his files, his games, everything.  That was the only thing he ever did in his life.  He just sat up there in his chair all day, typing away.  It happened two weeks ago, and ever since then he's just been so distant.  Even more than usual.  He just sat up there in his bed all day, doing absolutely nothing.  Then, last night, he just...he just vanished!  Out of thin air!"

"Calm down.  Did he leave a note behind, anything?  Any indication of where he'd gone?"

"No...nothing.  He just left."

"I...I don't know what to do."

"I don't either."

I hung up.

I knew this was my fault. The phising scam, as I knew, was a fake steamcommunity site. When you signed into the fake login page, it stole your Steam account and sent the same phishing link to all your friends. It also spawned tons of other malware on your system, perhaps even enough to brick your entire computer. I already lost my little brother, I wasn't about to lose my best friend as well. I got some supplies together in preparation for what I had decided to do: drive from South Carolina to Oregon to find Josh.

I drove, and drove, and drove. It took me almost two days but I finally got to Heppner, Oregon, Josh's hometown. I drove to Josh's house and prepared to knock on the door. Josh's mother answered, tears on her face.

"What's wrong?"

"*sniff* Just, read this."

She handed me a newspaper. On the front page was the headline:

"23-year old found dead in lake"

And a selection from the article:

"...23 year old Josh Harper found dead in Teal's Lake...no signs of struggle...declared as suicide by county coroner."

I couldn't believe what I was reading. I knew he was lonely, but suicide? That almost seemed overboard!

Silent, I walked out of the house and to my car. I felt...horrible. Like it was my fault. Like...like I was a murderer. I was crying all the way home. Crying so hard in fact, I didn't even notice that I veered off the road into a ditch.

I awoke on a hospital bed several hours later. The doctor leaned over my bed and told me I had crashed my car and broke my leg. I was only conscious for a couple minutes before I slipped into the realm of sleep.

I awoke on a different bed several more hours later. A bed in a car headed into a mental institution. As I had later learned, they thought I had tried to commit suicide myself by crashing my car into the ditch.

As I walked into the institution, I was utterly shocked.

To see someone I hadn't seen in almost four years.

My brother.

Author's Notes
Woo pseudo-sequels. To those who get the ending: Congrats! To those who don'tI really don't have anything to say. :(