The Switch - jschlatt

1

I glanced over at the clock.

Already 2am?

I groaned, looking over to my college roommate who had already been sleeping for a while. Tomorrow was Monday and yet another day of school for the both of us. I don't know why I went into college to be honest. I always hated school with all the stress it brought me, but I also had NO idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was 19 and a college sophomore, with absolutely no future in sight. So instead of being responsible, and doing my work or sleeping, I've been watching YouTube. I loved the gaming section of YouTube and always thought about being a YouTuber, but I never started, and I know I would never become successful anyway.

I looked at the clock once more and then back to my screen with my favorite YouTuber. His name was Schlatt and I loved his sense of humor. I knew very little about him besides what was in his videos. I didn't even know how old he was, but he was still my favorite person to watch.

Reluctantly, I closed my laptop and plugged it in to charge for the night. I laid down, but I didn’t close my eyes. I just thought about how lost I felt in life. I stared at the white wall of my small dorm room, until I eventually fell asleep in sadness.

-

I woke up feeling like I was falling. I sat up in bed quickly and noticed a green wall in front of me.

What?

I rubbed my eyes, for a moment thinking that I had woken up in a different room. Then I heard a voice.

"Miki? Are you okay?" It wasn't my roommate's voice and suddenly the source of the voice sat up next to me in bed as well. I screamed.

"Woah! You're okay, Miki, calm down," the man said. For the first time, I finally got a good look at him, and he looked strangely familiar.

"JSchlatt?" The name slipped out of my mouth.

"MikGames?" He asked back, and laughed after a moment. "We're not filming, you don't have to call me by my YouTube name. Did you have a bad dream?"

My head was spinning, I didn't understand what was happening. My vision went blurry and I grabbed my head. Surely this was some sort of joke, right?

"Yeah," I lied, not knowing what else to say. "Just give me a minute." I stood up out of the strange bed and out the door. It led to a living room and it looked like I was in some sort of apartment. I fumbled around, still dizzy and confused until I found a bathroom. I went in and locked the door.

I looked into the mirror, feeling like I was going to be sick. I turned on the sink and splashed water into my face. I looked back into my own eyes.

Am I going crazy?

I touched around my face, trying anyway I could to prove myself that I was real.

After a few minutes of confusion. I decided the only thing I could do was walk out. I found Schlatt sitting on the couch waiting for me. As soon as he heard the door opened, he had rushed up to greet me.

He came to me and grabbed both my hands, looking down into my eyes.

"Are you feeling okay, love?" He asked me.

Love?

"Yeah," I lied again, pulling away my hands and walking past him.

"Well, Miki," Schlatt said navigating in front  of me again, "you know what today is?" I did not know.

"Of course!" I faked, my mind racing.

All of a sudden he pulled out a rose from God knows where and a card that read "Happy Anniversary". I was still so confused, but I tried acting legitimately. If this was a prank, they sure as hell weren't going to get any good footage out of me. As soon as it was revealed, I'll say I knew the whole time.

I opend the card and read his sweet message inside, claiming we have been dating for two years.

"Thanks," I smiled. The improv club from high school was really paying off.

Before I could say anything else, Schlatt interrupted me.

"Now I know we should spend as much time together as possible, so I thought we should both film right away, and then spend the afternoon together."

Again before I could respond, he cut me off again.

"I know, I know, you need to shower before getting on camera, so I'll use the office first." He smiled again. "See you soon." He gave me a kiss on the forehead and walked into another room, quickly closing the door behind him. I stood in shock for a moment and went back into the room I woke up in.

On the bed stand I saw my phone.

Finally something familiar. I picked it up and typed in my password. For the most part everything looked the same, except I had many notifications. I had so many text messages from names I barely recognized.

I opened the most recent conversation first.

Charlie
hey miki wanna play some jackbox tonight?

Oh nevermind, just talked to schlatt, enjoy your day together!

I was too confused to respond so I went on to the next one.

Ted
for very scientific reasons, how tall is your grandma?

That one was confused me whether or not I knew who he was.

The rest were all equally confusing. I ignored them all and opened Twitter.

My notifications were full. That was new for me. I went to my own profile to see I had 400k followers.

Am I famous?

That's when I realized this couldn't be a prank. This was real. No one could fake anything that well. I didn't know what to do, so I followed Schlatt's advice and took a shower. Afterwards I opened the closet to discover a beautiful selection of clothes. It took me a while to figure out what to wear, everything was so cute. I decided on a cute floral dress, and put it on, trying to forget everything that was happening. Just as I finished my hair and makeup, Schlatt walked in.

"You can go film now, I'm gonna take a shower." As usual, he left without letting me say a word.

I hesitantly walked to the room he had walked in before, and saw a gaming set up complete with a camera and microphone.

I sat down at the chair, not knowing anything about how to film, but before I could think my hands started moving, unlocking the computer and starting up OBS.

What's OBS?

My hands continued to work and suddenly I was making a video. After about an hour, something took over me again and finished the recording.

Curiosity took over me and I opened YouTube and went to my channel, discovering I had 990k subs. I looked at the number in disbelief. I don't know how long I sat there, but after what seemed like hours there was a knock on the door and I was snapped out of my trance.

"Come in," I said, closing everything on the computer.

"You ready to go?" Schlatt asked with a smile. I had no idea what he was talking about.

"What do I need again?" I asked trying to play it off as best as I could.

"Normal camping stuff I suppose, Mik."

"Oh, of course," I responded. He gave me a nod and walked out.

Once he was gone, I mumbled to myself,  "Just going camping with a person I've never met during a life I've never lived."