The-Virus: forum

I will have to trick one of them into submission while the other plays camwhore. I'll just put the best ones here, and if need be can get rid of whatever's crap before this ends.

[image: media.discordapp.net]
[image: media.discordapp.net]
[image: media.discordapp.net]
[image: media.discordapp.net]
[image: media.discordapp.net]

Halloween in Torn had always been an event that John looked forward to. Aside from the obvious appeal of it being themed around the only holiday that really mattered to him, this one in particular was really the only time he came out to play with the others much. Combat in the game wasn't really his style, as he was more of a passive player, but this was one of the few occasions he felt it was really worth it. Although he was generally a quiet player, the others in his faction knew that, at this time of year, John's presence was more up to pace with other users.

This year in particular was especially important to him. His wife, Clara, had been the one who got him into Torn, and this would be his first Halloween without her since they were kids. Admittedly, John had been even less active in the game since Clara passed away that past year, nearly disappearing completely until recently. It had been a rough year, but after having time to process the loss, John was confident that this year's Torn Halloween would have to be the very best.

After quickly checking his wife's profile, adorned with the signature black rose of those who had fallen, John went to the forums to check the community events, forcing himself not to linger there too long. Nothing in particular caught his intrigue, but it did make him wonder which of the prizes offered were things he'd already had. It felt like it had been so long since the last Halloween, everything from before Clara died felt like a past life. Going to his inventory, he wasn't surprised to find that he had quite a few duplicates of certain weapons, and he had an idea.

"Making my own contest this year in honor of the dead. Below are the possible prizes," the post began coldly, as John was not exactly known for his way with words. Under this brief introduction was a screenshot of the items he had extras of, and he concluded the post with, "Write a story about why you think I'm running this contest. Deadline is midnight on Halloween."

His heart raced at the idea of what types of replies he might get, both excited and nervous for the endless possibilities. This would be so worth it, he thought, knowing that Clara would have loved the idea. Again, he found himself navigating to her profile, knowing that it could be hours before he saw any activity on his thread. When he got to her profile, though, his breath caught in his chest. Though the signature black rose was still there replacing the regular status icons, her last action now said Unknown. This alone wouldn't have seemed too odd, but there was now also a Level 1 loot timer on her.

Furious, John started writing up a message to the developers. When a new message came in, he ignored it, thinking perhaps it was something for his contest. As this was far more important to him than some contest, two more messages came in as he continued his unsent angry rant. He hit send, unleashing the burden of his rage to some poor unsuspecting stranger on the other side, and not feeling one ounce better about it. Immediately after he finished, he closed Torn for the night. This had been a terrible idea. He never should have come back, or at least not yet. He clearly wasn't ready to face this yet.

He tried to forget about it the rest of the night, and the next day came back with a fresh attitude and curiosity of what had been sent to him while he was gone. Logging in, he was surprised to find 6 new messages. The first one he opened was clearly a troll, some guy sent him a threat like "I know what you did" or something lame like that. John had expected plenty of that kind of thing, so he just moved on to the next. "HELP ME" was written in all caps, sent by a user whose name he'd never seen before. After that, he quickly flipped through the messages to find that unfortunately all of them appeared to be trolls. There was only one story on the forums yet, some poorly-written 'ghost in the machine' thing that quite honestly he felt dumber after reading.

Taking to faction chat, he expressed his disappointment with the human race momentarily, to which he got something along the lines of 'welcome to the internet'. He didn't recognize any of the people who responded in faction this time, which seemed odd. They had always been a tightknit group, and he'd only been gone a few months if that.

This time, he had the sense not to check Clara's profile. He hadn't gotten a response yet on the issue, and it wouldn't do him any good to feed his anger. Instead, he took to attacking the low levels he had the stats to pull off trick-or-treating against. Suddenly, the Faction tab turned green. Someone had posted a link, and without consideration for where the link led, John clicked on it. From there he was taken to a page to start a fight. Others were joining so quickly that he didn't take the time to bother asking what was going on before he joined the fight.

Nobody was attacking. Everything was still as John waited, taking in the Halloween-themed NPC that had apparently been added recently, since he didn't remember seeing it in the game last year. It had the familiar female base, but with some spooky black laced cosmetic stuff equipped, and no weapons at all. John waited for the fight to start, and switched to another tab to check a message that had just come in. There, his heart skipped a beat as he saw a PM from his dead wife's account, subject line "Don't let them kill me, John".

He knew the people in Torn could be twisted, but he never thought anyone would take something this far. Furthermore, he was enraged that the developers would be involved in a prank like this. He clicked the message to open it, prepared to screenshot it and vent his complaints to the forums instead, but for some reason it took him back to the fight he had joined. His frustration mounted when his browser wouldn't let him switch tabs.

Just as he went to click Escape on the fight, he saw the name of the character they were fighting. It was Clara's account. As he sat frozen in absolute disgust, the fight started. He could hear her screaming, begging him to save her, to help her, to stop them. It was so real, all that he could think to do was spam on the Escape button, to try and get out of this awful prank before it got any worse.

The third time he tried to escape, John felt a blunt pain in his chest. Onscreen, he saw the message "Clara hit John with her Fist in the Chest for 1 damage." His hand instinctively addressed the pain in his chest, only feel a sharp stinging pain. Checking beneath his shirt, he found a fist-sized burn in the flesh of his chest. Panicking, he leapt from his chair. His mind raced, trying to remember the last time he had a nightmare like this, how he managed to get out of it. "Just walk away. Just do something else. She won't attack you until you take action, as long as you remember that then the dream will too," he said to himself out loud, backing away from the computer but unable to turn his back to it yet. On screen, the fight waged on, Clara's screams growing louder and louder the longer it went on.

Finally, an obvious solution came to mind. He quickly moved to power down the computer, but Clara's voice stopped him in his tracks. "Don't let them kill me, John," she begged with more desperation than he'd never heard in his life. His hand shook, otherwise frozen over the power button as he considered. If it was Clara, if it really was her, if she was trapped, if he did nothing to help her and just ignored this...No. No he couldn't. This was a dream, but the true nightmare would be turning his back on her when she needed him the most. He couldn't do that again. She would still be alive if he hadn't turned his back on her to begin with.

Resolved that the only way out of the nightmare was to face this guilt of his, John stared at the fight that was quickly coming to an end. He had to face this, to put an end to what he'd started. Clara's cries grew weak as her health reached 20%, 15%, 10%. Nobody else in the fight was taking any damage. In fact, John was the only person that she had countered against. His escape. She would let them kill her before she would let him escape. "Don't let them kill me, John," she pleaded weakly as her health reached 1. He knew what he had to do. The same thing he had done that night, that night that he lost her.

John fired 3 IN rounds of his ArmaLite M-15A4 critically hitting Clara in the Head for 1 14:28:33
Clara hit John with her Fist in the Chest for 999999 14:28:34
Clara defeated John (+0.00) 14:28:34
Clara looted the temporary item Human Heart from John 14:28:34

John and Clara's bodies were found shortly after this. While John's was draped backwards over his chair with a massive hole in his chest and his heart still missing to this day, Clara's had been rotting for far longer with a bullet in her head. In real life, that was where the story ended, but in Torn City, this is merely where it began. The team that received John's complaint about his wife's profile having a loot timer worked tirelessly to determine the cause, but in the end it was never found. Instead, her profile was archived, hidden from the rest of the site as if it never existed. It wasn't long, though, before John's profile soon had the same issue, but with both of their profiles deactivated, it was decided instead to let John's profile remain a lootable NPC. After all, he already had lots of extra Halloween items, and there was no sense letting them go to waste.

Though the names have been changed, the story is true. In fact, to this day they say there's an NPC out there who, if you listen close enough beneath the din of combat, you can almost hear him scream...

Don't let them kill me

Thank you for running this ^.^

Can confirm that the people leading this charge are not only legit, but an absolute blast to be around.
Friendly, organized, and motivated asf.
100% will be healing every war for them in the future :)
Can't wait for more ^.^

Merry Christmas everyone! Special shoutout to my in-game spouse Byetu_Nel, my old faction lead Seldom_Seen, my BFF Queenwitch, and my good buddies Count_, Aguirre, and xedx. All have been there for me through thick and thin in-game and out. Good chance I wouldn't be here if it weren't for all of youz. <3

590

Definitely a smooth and flawless process. Fast service, super friendly dude. 10/10 would buy again if I could live on more than one island. Once that cloning device is ready though...

.

Bro change your first post so people stop doing this for you

Happy 1k bday

I'm definitely seeing a skeksi trying to eat that light

Can confirm that the people leading this charge are not only legit, but an absolute blast to be around.
Friendly, organized, and motivated asf.
100% will be healing every war for them in the future :)
Can't wait for more ^.^