Collector

I don’t really like admitting that I’m a hoarder, but that’s the simplest way I can explain it. I’ve been like this for years. I may have made myself come across like a casual in other threads. That’s not entirely true. I'm sorry if I asked stupid basic questions for hatevotes. Yes, I do think I'm pissing off a ghost tonight. I know that sounds stupid. But this thing can’t know what it knows otherwise. 

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Because this ghost emailed me and claimed to know me from when I was a kid, I guess something about that is important. Little kid me wanted souvenirs from everywhere I went. Adults would have to make sure that I left empty-handed. But I was obsessed and just a little too clever to drop that colorful rock from the camping trip.  

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Or that smooth seashell from the beach.

 

Or even that candy from the gas station. More than once. That I definitely bought!  

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When I graduated college a few years ago (barely), I dumped everything school-related into an external hard drive. Burnout hit hard, and I already hated school. Papers, slide presentations, sketchbook scans, videos, annotations, microblog screenshots for a one-off English project. Middle school through BA. Terabtyes and dresser drawers worth of stupid-kid-doesn't-turn-in-homework. I did not want anything to do with it. It ended up all over the desk in my parent’s house. 

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So the hard drive sat, buried in my old bedroom. I don’t need to tell you that giving up something is the same as forgetting. 

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Just last week, I finally had the time and willingness to start looking at some of it. An excuse to visit my parents, then an excuse to keep me house-sitting while they visit the East Coast somewhere. Like the beach we’re twenty miles from isn’t good enough.

 

Something about being “the only original owners left on the street” makes them keep this house and all the junk inside. 

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Lots of stuff that I remember. One picture that I don’t. A piece of scrap paper with a username and password for an email account. Not in my handwriting.  

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I logged into the account and it’s empty. 

The more I look at it, the more I remember why. This is from 2009. Middle school. I sent it to a friend so we could talk over summer vacation. I didn’t have a cell phone back then. We never got to do that. 

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But yesterday, when I logged in, I saw this spam email, and it’s impossible.

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[Note: see Attachment 2]

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Uh huh. Most boring, cliché, fake attempt at a copypasta scare I could get. Not impressed. 

I would just ignore this, but I'm bored.

 

Reading it is something to do besides looking at old history homework. Whoever wrote this didn’t know that this type of scare went out of style a long time ago. If they were really a hacker, they would have already threatened to doxx me for my credit card information already or just spammed a link to buy some cheap knockoff garbage. Even a fake dating match would be funny. 

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But then I notice that wording again. And anything funny stops. 

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“You'll have to sort this out soon. Just like that book catalog.” 

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Which was from my last big file cleanup project about two weeks ago. 

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“Bed in the corner next to the window. After the window, the bookshelf. Across from the bookshelf, the door.” 

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That is the layout of my old bedroom. The one I’m in right now. The one with a big window. The one in the picture this guy sent with the email. 

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“I will see those beautiful gray walls and stain them red. We'll havfe lunch at the beach agai. I wil lbrikng along an extra bottle of carrot     jouce and cookies to share.” 

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These walls haven’t been gray for ten years. They're been repainted and repainted again with whatever teenage me thought was cool.  

And that line about carrot juice and cookies also makes sense now. There's only one person who would remember all those things about my life. 

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Tommy. 

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But like I said, that’s impossible. 

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That field trip to the little resort town by the beach, in 2009, he went missing. No one ever found him. 

 

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You didn’t believe me when I said I was pissing off a ghost, did you? 

 

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You should. Because, on top of all of that, the sender’s email address is the address of my parents’ house. The one I grew up in. The one I'm in right now. 

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If this guy really wanted to scare me, why not doxx the place I actually live? Unless he knows that I’m here now. Which gets me in a whole lot more trouble. 

 

I think I know you, too. If you really are who you say you are, Tommy, I’ll be home. Midnight, right? Come say hello. I’m sure we’ll have a lot to talk about. 

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And everyone else here: you all like this spooky stuff, right? Grab some popcorn.  

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Link -> 

[Note: The link to a livestream hosting service is omitted for privacy reasons pending investigation.]