Dying to Breathe

10.4: make 'em pay

Penelope licked her dry lips; she wanted to laugh it off, half convinced it was all another joke on her. However, as she looked into Chloe's glowing eyes, she knew it wasn't something so simple. Seeing the doubt in her eyes, Chloe quickly pulled out her phone. After a few taps and swipes, she passed the phone to Penelope. At first Penelope didn't recognize her own blurred out face—the never-ending feed of videos and pictures showing a series of pranks from over the week. Widening her eyes in realization, she watched in horror as she witnessed the backstage shenanigans; the pranks ranging from spitting in her food and stealing her clothes out of the shower stall, to trying to push her down the stairs or crush her with falling objects. From a funny joke to death threats. Each video a response to one single dare with already thousands of likes and comments as well as hundreds of votes under it: I dare you to prank the new girl hanging around our golden elite.

It was terrifying. And mortifying.

Penelope's stomach churned as she shoved the phone in Chloe's hands. "What the hell?" She spat, feeling the nausea of shock mixing with the sourness of all her drinks from the night. She felt dizzy and out of breath as she stood up, shaking her head. "This is fucked up."

"You haven't even scratched the surface of how fucked up it gets." Chloe watched her, tilting her head. "What's worse is knowing it's all anonymous—you'll never really know what friends of yours has been witnessing all this, and even participating in it, without saying a word to you." Running a hand through the pink strands, her lips curled up into a soft, menacing smile. "However, since your little speech up there, I haven't seen a new video. Seems like you've scared most players into silence for now. Watching the worst of them turn into cowards when the threat gets personal and real is almost as entertaining as the dare itself."

"Fucking psychopaths." Penelope shoved passed Chloe, needing air before she asphyxiated right then and there. "I can't—"

"Penelope, my girl, why didn't you tell me you killed your sister?" A dark pigmented arm wrapped around Penelope's shoulder just as she took a step towards her escape. Looking up dizzily towards the baritone voice, she found Levi, dressed in a gold crown, grinning down at her, "Damn girl, you're messed up good."

Unable to refrain as the insanity of her situation spun in her head, Penelope snorted humourlessly, watching his easy smile with bewilderment. Was he in on it, too? What was it that she caught him saying that one time to Zoe? It was about the dare; it had to be. Or maybe she was just paranoid.

As she struggled through the deepening trust issues, her lack of oxygen caused something to snap inside of her—her body responding to the dissonance with a show of surprising ease. "You have no fucking idea, Levi." She laughed; her earlier desire to simultaneously laugh hysterically and scream bubbling back up her throat.

Why did she think everything would be fixed once she knew what was going on? She just felt more lost... angry.

Ruffling her neon hair, Levi smiled that warm, flirty, ever encouraging, and deceitfully trusting smile that never left his face, "It's alright, we all are." He caught Chloe's eye over her short height, "We took a vote; since you spilled it, you're in charge of it."

Clearly annoyed, Chloe's grey eyes hardened, "What did Elliot have to say about that?"

The corner of Levi's lips wavered, "What does El ever say about anyone? The bastard's colder than you."

"Whatever. It's done anyways." Chloe finally sighed, signaling for the bartender to pour them all another drink.

Levi looked down at Penelope, his lips in a large 'O'. "No! You're in on it now?" He grinned, "Oh fuck, man, I've been dying to tell you."

Closing her eyes, she forced back the sudden desire to strangle him and his persistent happiness to death. "If you'll excuse me now; I have to go play the fool for everyone." Opening her eyes, she spread her lips into a lethal smile before shoving Levi's arm off her. "Again."

***

The drinks Penelope downed lost all taste as she giggled into the next cup. The only indication that it wasn't water she was drinking, was how badly she spun whenever she looked up. Occasionally interrupted with odd requests from her schoolmates, she would stand up on her sea-legs, take a bow as she laughed, and perform whatever task was asked of her. She didn't want to think, feel, or even see anymore; and yet, the thoughts spun like a carousel in her head whenever she was left alone.

Millie would be so disgusted with her. But why did that matter anymore when she was gone? Why did anything still matter?

Where was she? Where did her sister go?

"Millie," She mumbled against the glass, "Whash'd do?" She slurred out. "Wha'dyou'do?" Pouting she blew air into the straw, making bubbles in the clear drink. Giggling, she hiccupped, "Make 'em pay."

"The only one you're making pay, is yourself." An unimpressed voice spoke out.

With her cheek on the sticky table next to where her wig lay, she turned to the person talking. Shushing them, she laughed as the blue and green colours of their costume swirled together.

"Give me your phone." They ordered. As Penelope grunted annoyedly in response, they muttered under their breath, grabbing the phone out of the waist of her skirt knowingly. Fiddling around with it after using her finger to unlock it, they spoke again, holding the phone up to their mouth. "When you wake up, Tor and the VPN will be done downloading. Turn on the VPN and go make an email from the site in your notes on the Tor browser. After you do that, go to the second website in your notes and create an account with the email you just made—make both the email and the account completely anonymous and never use them or the website links on a normal browser." Finishing the voice-to-text recording, they stuck the phone into her hand, curling her fingers around it.

"Pro-tip, L: if you're going to destroy yourself, you might as well bring people down with you." 

End of Chapter 10

A/N: Lord, the amount of research and creativity it took me to create this completely fucked up dark web social media app thing, is borderline insane (I even know what it all looks like in my head lmao). I hope it's worth it and that it scares the ever living crap out of you, once we get into it. (The dares I got whipped up for you... oh boys. Prepare for absolute chaos.)

Also, do be extremely careful and cautious if you ever use the dark web. Always use anonymous sources when using it. Take precautions and download the correct browser and VPN (and any other safety measure there is). It pretty much runs like the 90s internet, so I mean, my website is completely fictional for the moment. Lots of messed up things are on there, but it's also a great place for people who have no access to regular means of reaching out to the rest of the world--so it's basically a necessary evil.  

And last tip of the day: if you're doing challenges like the ones I'll be writing about, a good idea is to remember consent. (Does this person consent to me doing this to them? Would people consent to seeing me do this to myself or others? Do people consent to being completely traumatized for the rest of their life if this goes absolutely wrong? Do I consent to dying? And do the people around me consent to seeing me die?) LOL be careful, okay? Tiktok challenges alone can get pretty stupid and I'm about to amp it up to about 1000x. Therefore, please do not try to recreate challenges :)

Thank you for reading!