The Days of the Grey

Do you think I would never play Roblox again ever since that incident? Well, I have to admit for two months I never touched Roblox, but after that  I decided to return. I just thought maybe things have gone right now, and then I could just leave those behind. Let it stay in the long river of history.

I was half right. Things did seem to go well for a while. At first I only dare to play other games, but later I found my courage to play Natural Disaster Survival again. As a saying goes, 'When the cut on you is healed, you forget the pain', I actually had fun and left all those horrible experience behind. I ran around the island, played one round and another, finding the old feeling of pleasure and old skills I once forgot.

Well, I never expected it would come back so fast.

I was on the top of lobby tower, overlooking the island in blizzard and fog. Then, it all happened like a dream. An object flew up from the island. As it got closer, I could see it was a Robloxian holding a balloon. But oddly enough, even if they have the balloon, they aren't supposed to fly out of the island. But it seemed like they were free to fly anywhere they like.

They flew towards me, getting closer and closer. As soon as I saw their name tag I was shocked as if I was hit by a lightning strike.

The Robloxian landed gently in front of me. 'Hi, my friend.' They said.

I was facing to Grego18.

'I wish you still remember me,' he typed in the chat, 'though again, you ignored my warning.'

'It's you.' I said, 'Long time no see. Well, I believe your warning is out-dated.'

'Perhaps.' Unlike last time we chatted, he talked in a calm tone. 'My old warnings don't seem to be important anymore. I just want to invite you this time.'

'Invite me?'

'Yes, you're invited. To spectate what is going to happened next.'

The grey figures who approached to my screen flashed in front of my eyes for a millisecond.

'What do you mean? Is this related to the grey logo?'

'Of course. Or, formally, the Days of the Grey are incoming.'

'What? How do you know that?'

'There are always detectives doing researches, even if bad endings would come to them.' He typed in the chat, 'I don't want you to be one of them. I only want you to be a spectator. Just watch and record what happens if you like - with no further investigations. I don't want you to get into of this, that's bad for you. Promise me, you will wait and see.'

I stared at him for a while, searching words in my mind to reply him...

'Goodbye.' Before I could talk, Grego18 spoke first. 'I'm sorry, but I'm afraid this is the final goodbye. There will be no more questions, but facts and consequences. See you.'

He disappeared. For months I never had such a strong feeling, coming to my head, making me dizzy. What was the last time? Yes, when he spoke to me last time, I had that feeling too. Now I had no mood for playing. I closed the tab.

The chat popped up on the website. I opened it, and I found a message from Grego18, who was already offline. It was a link to a user called 'The Grey'. Yes, one space in their name. Weird.

The user had nothing special, a total default Robloxian who just newly joined. I closed the tab.

Below the link in the chatbox, Grego18 simply said: Bookmark it.

I knew nothing could happen if I kept messaging him. He was already gone. I chose to follow The Grey silently, and wait.

"When the days of the grey have come, feel the grey."

"Hello people, you like city games? Well, play them as much as you can before next Tuesday, because they will all be blown up then. All of them, including RoCitizens. Have fun, before everything turns grey."

I don't know for what reason I would check my feed, and what I saw was this new one posted by The Grey. Meanwhile, his avatar updated too. Grey was all over his body, and a weird grey mask on his face.

I clicked the chatbox. Grego18 was not there. I looked up my friend list, and he was not there. I attempted to Google him. I failed again. Like what he said, he went away and disappeared.

I checked The Grey's profile. He didn't gain any friends or followers, nor followed anyone else. Looks like he was alone - a terrorist, or a wannabe?

But just like Grego18 said before, the days of the grey are coming. I believe that.

What could I do now? I would wait and see.

Tuesday. I booted up my computer and joined one random server of RoCitizens.

Nothing seemed to be wrong. Everything was going smoothly. Looks like no one was aware of the upcoming attack.

Is it coming right now?

I read the chat. Everyone is minding their own business. I wandered around aimlessly, not sure if Grego18 was telling truth.

I looked up at the tall buildings. Will they fall down?

Birds were singing to my ears. It was so peaceful...

..But why all the bars suddenly disappeared at onc-

A nightmarish blast sound bumped out of my speaker. I quickly looked around, and found a car got blown up. When it was burning down in flames, a Robloxian rushed outside with fire on him.

And that was just a beginning.

More sounds of explosions started to come out. They were faint at first, but getting louder. I mouselocked to see what was happening, and found the buildings from far away were blowing up and falling apart.

The explosions expanded and got nearer. From outside to inside, buildings were incredibly destroyed in the blasts.

In a flash there were only bricks and broken parts floating in the air.

And that was not done yet.

The cars, as if they were automatic, rushed and hit the Robloxians who were running everywhere in shock. When they hit the Robloxians, they exploded and blew the people into pieces.

And all the streets started to boom, as if there were explosives under the ground. When the land was blown up apart things all began to fall. Holes appeared on the streets, people and things fell into them. When they died, they never appeared again - the number of the players was decreasing rapidly. The rest survivors ran on the streets, some were on fire, others were trying to find a shelter - like mice.

The whole server became chaos.

A large number of grey figures spawned from no where, and quickly spammed the chat with words I was familiar with. When they started chasing people, I started to fear and run away.

At last I found that there was only me in the server. All the grey figures started approaching my screen, like last time they did...

Before I was drowned by them, I saw a grey Robloxian in the sky with a name tag above their head.

'The Grey?'

The game crashed.

At that moment, I saw the despaired faces again.

When I returned to the game page of RoCitizens, it all changed. The thumbnail became a block of total hazy grey. It was also dislike botted. The description was only filled with three words:

Depression. Despair. Grey.

I clicked the game section. Among hundreds of games, quite a few had been sabotaged - of course, the city games.

Suddenly I realized something and checked my feed. Yes, The Grey updated his feed. A new warning of a new attack.

'Enjoyed your blasting time? Well, if you are a PvP lover, you're gonna enjoy more. Same old time - next Tuesday, for a greater surprise. Grey is for sadness, while it also creates a kind of power.'

For two days Roblox.com was under construction. When I was able to get onto the site, those damaged games had been cleaned up - deleted, not restored.

I tried to find The Grey's profile. It was still there. And for the first time, he gained population. He had a large number of followers now, but 0 friends though.

The problem wasn't solved. The days continued.

Roblox wasn't strong enough to make everything go well this time.

Tuesday.

I wasn't sure which game The Grey would choose, so I just came to Natural Disaster Survival.

It was a mess.

Everyone was given weapons like a sword and a gun, and everyone is killing each other. What's worse, everyone had bombs too, and the bombs blew things away. Both the island and the tower were falling apart.

The Grey made the game a PvP game, what's the point?

After a while an explosion blasted at the bottom of the tower, and it slowly fell into the sea. I quitted this chaos.

I went to see other games. Well, they were all burning. Even peaceful games like 'Adopt Me' or 'Meepcity' became madness too. I felt like the desire of killing and attacking others was released in everyone's heart.

Meanwhile, the site was under attack. The advertisements all became blanks of grey. The bar on the top became grey, and multiple games has been totally vandalized when their thumbnails became grey. Some of the titles were even changed into 'Grey'.

A new notification showed up, telling me I'm in a new group called 'Fight back'. I never joined a new group though, and the number of my groups had already reached its limited. Needless to say, The Grey gathered everybody into his group.

I checked the group, and I guess all Roblox players were in. There were two ranks: 'The Fighters', and 'The 1st Enemies'. I was in 'The Fighters'. Plus, most people were in 'The Fighters' rank, only a few are in 'The 1st Enemies'.

In the description The Grey wrote:

'Roblox is now experiencing a serious economic crisis. Because of this, Robux have been re-given. Now, some powerful and rich people gained most of the Robux while the rest receive nothing, which is totally unfair. As fighters of freedom, we must unite and fight back. We must use all our hacking tools to fight against the enemies, and attack Roblox to release pressure.'

I checked the message wall. It seemed like everyone is unaware of what The Grey had done to start the chaos, but they were all complaining about the 'injustice' and discussing how to deal more damage to the 'enemies' and the site. I don't know what The Grey lied to the people to fool them and gain their trust. I will never know about that. I'm only a spectator, a blinded one.

Because of all these chaos Roblox Inc. is now breaking apart. They send announcements every day but ended up being under so many attacks that all their related sites are hacked.

The chat ban is disabled and people swear, bully anywhere they want. Everyone is aggressive. They fight each other for ridiculous reasons. Robux. Skin tone. Religion. Difference. Hate is spreading in the air.

Are they all mad and furious like the color red? No. Deep inside them their hearts are filled with grey, the color of depression, sadness and despair.

Why there are so many attacks happening here and there?

Why people are so hopeless and helpless inside?

Why is this place now like a hell of mayhem?

Why will this happen?

Why so sad?

Why grey？

Why?

-

I have no idea. I'm just a spectator, witnessing the dying of Roblox.

After all, when the day of doom comes, it will become a tiny little grey spot in the long river of history.

JS7 2019