Abandoned Souls

-This story is being told in first-person, by a girl named Alana.-

It was a hot day in July, just short of a week ago. It was actually a good day for a while. Me and my friends were playing Roblox for an hour, but they had to go at one point or another. I stepped outside to get some fresh air, and then took a walk around the neighborhood. I wandered too far, and thought I was lost for a moment. Then I realized I was familiar with this street. Right in front of me was my parent's first house, up for sale.

I stepped inside and explored for a while. Then I walked into the study room. There was my Dad's old computer. I guess that he decided he didn't want it anymore after he couldn't do any work while taking care of me. I picked up the wires and dusty computer, then used my phone to find my way home. Why not see if it still worked?

Well, it worked, but also destroyed itself in the process.

I plugged it into the wall of my living room, connected the keyboard and mouse, dusted off the screen, and hit the power button. It turned on, and it had a web browser, so I tried to play Roblox. I downloaded the player, signed in, and, surprisingly, it was working well and up to date. It was too good to be true! I scrolled through the games, and found something odd. All of the games were the same thing. But they had no title, no description, just a picture. It was black, with a few specs of what looked like blood.

I joined the first game listed, and even though it said that there was nobody playing, there were players all around me. I spawned in the middle of a pentagram, and all of the players were translucent, almost ghostlike. All five of their names were simply x's. The first player was X, the next XX, after that, XXX, and so on.

I then realized, I was INSIDE the game. It was also weirdly the same style as my favorite anime.

The five players all said "Come play with us!" I said "No, Why would I?"

Silence.

I finally replied "I'm not playing with you demon kids, whatever you think PLAYING is!"

They all stared at me, with an unsettling look in their eyes. The player named XXXX took out a needle and thread.

I yelled, "Why do you have that out?! And what are you going to do with me?!"

The player named XXXXX calmly said "If you don't have anything nice to say, we'll forbid you from saying it..."

The player named X said, "You're just another doll for the shelf..."

Four of the players pinned me down to the floor, while XXXX proceeded to sew my mouth shut and sew buttons over my eyes. I tried to scream while half my mouth was still open, but nothing came out. I felt my lungs letting out air, but nothing came out of my mouth. Have you ever done that? Have you ever tried to speak in a dream, but all you say and hear is some ringing?

Anyways, I guess I passed out because the next thing I saw was that I was in a house, on a shelf. I could only move my head. Beside me were more dolls. My Dad told me about the people that lived in the old house before and what they looked like. The dolls looked exactly like the kids my Dad had told me about. One was a brunette with brown eyes, the other a redhead with green eyes and freckles. Then I saw that out the window was a black-and-white pixellated galaxy. It was amazing how Roblox could do this, or rather a seemingly hacked website pretending to be Roblox. Then, as one of the ghost players grabbed me off the shelf, another grabbed my neck and...

And... Well, I woke up in my bed, my Mom beside me, in the morning. I guess she got home but didn't notice the computer. I realized that all of that was just a dream-- No, a nightmare. Maybe I fell asleep after I opened up Roblox. Maybe the Roblox I opened was just fine, but I wasn't gonna take any risks. I took the computer, walked over to the city dump, smashed the computer open, then threw the remains into a corner of the dump.