Phobia of 99'
Chapter 1: I Love My Friends:
The sun bled orange and purple across the suburban sky, a lurid watercolor painting typical of late summer 1999. Inside the rickety treehouse they built, a testament to adolescent ambition and questionable carpentry, Cody traced the peeling Korn sticker with a calloused thumb. The air hung thick with the scent of pine needles, stale Doritos, and the faint, metallic tang of an old, forgotten soda can.
"Dude, seriously, 'Follow the Leader' is way heavier than 'Issues'," D'White, or DW as everyone called him, insisted, adjusting the brim of his backward baseball cap. His flat-top was immaculate, a testament to his mother's meticulous grooming. He was always trying to cheer people up, a human sunshine amidst their collective teenage angst!
"It's got that groove, you know?"
Shawn, perched precariously on a swaying beam, strummed an imaginary guitar. "Nah, man, 'Issues' is where it's at. Nu-metal angst, deep cuts, feels..." He winked, the class clown persona firmly in place, though his eyes, hidden behind slightly smudged glasses, held a flicker of something else—a secret symphony no one else heard.
"What???" DW exclaimed.
Cassandra, meticulously reapplying clear lip gloss, scoffed. "You guys are such Neanderthals! Pop punk is clearly superior..." She smoothed her dark t-shirt, tugging at the sleeves as if to hide some perceived imperfection. Her glasses occasionally slid down her nose, revealing the faint hope in her eyes when she glanced at Cody.
Loriaith, small and almost invisible in her oversized sweater, scribbled furiously in a worn notebook. "…It's all a cacophony of adolescent male posturing anyway," she muttered, a faint Irish lilt to her voice. She liked to write, liked to observe, a quiet sentinel guarding a mind brimming with thoughts.
Zahar, quiet as ever, sat by the entrance, carving aimlessly into the wooden floor with a dull penknife. He nodded along, mimicking DW's casual posture, a ghost in their boisterous circle. He just wanted to blend in, to exist without being noticed, a silent pact with himself against the relentless tide of forgetting.
Suddenly, a dull thud echoed from the woods below.
"What was that?" Shawn asked, dropping his invisible guitar.
"Probably Mr. Henderson's ancient Civic backfiring again," DW scoffed, but a nervous tremor in his voice betrayed his bravado. "Or maybe a raccoon raid! Heh.."
Another thud, closer this time, accompanied by a faint, metallic scraping.
"Sounds... different," Loriaith observed, her pen hovering over her notebook.
"I'll check it out," Cody should say, pushing himself up. His short, spiky black hair, usually tamed into a loose bun, threatened to fall. He rarely volunteered for anything, a quiet observer of life, yet not a participant. DW, ever the loyal best friend, immediately joined him.
They descended the creaky ladder, the humid air of the forest floor prickling their skin. The shadows lengthened, twisting the familiar trees into grotesque caricatures. They walked a few paces, twigs snapping underfoot, until DW let out a surprised grunt.
"Whoa. Check this out!"
There, nestled amongst a patch of overgrown ferns, was a box. Not a cardboard box, but something alien. It was obsidian black, with no visible seams or hinges, and seemed to hum with an unheard frequency. Intricate, geometric patterns, like glowing green circuitry, it pulsed across its surface, defying any known material on earth. It felt cold to the touch, yet vibrated with an internal heat.
"Freaky," Cody whispered, reaching out a hesitant finger. The patterns flared brighter at his touch.
"Definitely not Mr. Henderson's Civic," DW agreed, pushing his glasses up his nose. "What do you think it is?"
"Eh. Only one way to find out." DW said. Cody grabbed one end, DW the other. It was heavier than it looked, but they managed to hoist it, the strange humming intensifying, making the hairs on their arms stand on end.
Back in the treehouse, the others crowded around as they placed the box in the center.
"What in the hell is that?" Cassandra breathed, leaning in.
"Ah shit, my phone died.." she said.
"Looks like something from The X-Files," Shawn joked, though his usual bravado faltered.
"Maybe it's ancient," Loriaith mused, her eyes alight with academic curiosity, "an artifact, perhaps. Look at these symbols..."
Cody ran his hand over the box again. This time, as his fingers brushed one of the green patterns, the box shuddered. A faint click echoed through the treehouse, and then, with a soft, ethereal sigh, the top of the box dissolved, not opening, but simply ceasing to be. A swirling vortex of incandescent green light erupted from within, expanding rapidly, swallowing the air, the treehouse, their screams.
"Oh fuc—" Zahar said.
The world twisted into an impossible kaleidoscope of colors and sensations. Gravity became a suggestion, sound became a texture. They were caught in a maelstrom of raw, unfettered distortion, the familiar fabric of reality unraveling around them. It felt like being stretched thin across an infinite canvas, then snapped back into a jarring, agonizing singularity.
Then, darkness. Cold, complete, and silent.
Chapter 2: Where Did You Go?
Cody:
The silence was a thick, suffocating blanket. Cody woke to the taste of dust and ozone. His head throbbed. When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in the treehouse. He was in an impossibly vast, sterile white room. It stretched into the distance, rows upon rows of identical, miniature school desks and chairs, each perfectly aligned, each desk bearing a single, blank sheet of paper. The air hummed with an expectant, terrifying quiet. His hair, usually pulled back, had fallen down, the spiky strands framing his face. He felt exposed, raw.
A whisper, insidious and cold, slithered into his mind. You are not enough. Never have been. Never will be.
He turned. A figure, tall and gaunt, stood at the far end of the hall. Its form flickered, a distortion in his peripheral vision, like a television tuned to a dead channel. It had no discernible features, just an oppressive presence that radiated judgment. It began to move, slowly, deliberately, between the rows of desks, its form blurring, elongating, shrinking, a shapeless blob of pure disapproval. Each step echoed with the soft rustle of invisible paper.
Panic flared. Cody's throat tightened. He looked down at the blank paper on the desk in front of him. A single, perfectly formed ink pen lay beside it. The whisper intensified, growing into a chorus of disembodied voices, each one echoing a past failure, a missed opportunity, a lingering regret. Too slow. Too quiet. Always observing, never doing. She won't ever look at you that way.
He bolted. The silent rows of desks seemed to multiply, stretching endlessly, trapping him in a labyrinth of unmet expectations. The shadowy Critic followed, its pace relentless, its whispers growing louder, coalescing into a single, booming pronouncement: "FAIL!"
Cassandra:
The world reformed around Cassandra as a funhouse of horrors. She stood in a vast, dimly lit chamber where every surface—walls, floor, ceiling—was a mirror. But these weren't ordinary mirrors. Her reflection stared back, not as she was, but grotesque. Her eyes were too large, her nose twisted, her mouth stretched into a rictus grin. Her carefully applied makeup was smeared into a clownish mask. Her glasses were gone.
A cold dread gripped her. Ugly. Disgusting. Unworthy. She reached for her face, her hands trembling. The reflection mimicked her, its distorted fingers stretching, elongating into claw-like talons. The mirrored walls seemed to bend and warp, each reflection showing a different, more horrifying version of herself. Some were skeletal, others bloated, some with teeth too sharp, others with skin peeling away.
A low growl emanated from the reflections, a guttural sound that seemed to come from her own throat.
She tried to look away, but everywhere she turned, a monstrous Cassandra stared back, always a fraction of a second ahead, or behind, her movements. One reflection in the distant corner began to separate from the surface, stepping out, shimmering and translucent, a spectral doppelgänger of her worst fears. It began to stalk her, a perfect, terrifying embodiment of her self-loathing, its lips moving, but no sound coming out—only the echoes of her own deepest insecurities ringing in her mind.
He'll never love you. You're not beautiful. You're a fraud.
Shawn:
Shawn awoke on a vast, circular stage, blinding spotlights searing his eyes. The air smelled of cheap hairspray and stale popcorn. Beyond the stage lights, darkness stretched into infinity, but he could feel them. Thousands of eyes. Thousands of unseen faces.
Then, the laughter started.
It wasn't a gentle chuckle or a kind giggle. It was a cacophony of sneering, mocking guffaws, echoing and multiplying, surrounding him, pressing in on him from all sides. It resonated in his bones, vibrating through the stage floor. It was the sound of every bully, every cruel joke at his expense, every time he'd been forced to be the class clown when all he wanted was to disappear.
He tried to speak, but only a squeak escaped. The laughter intensified, a roaring ocean of derision. Spectral figures, faceless and formless, began to emerge from the darkness at the edge of the stage. They pointed at him, their forms shifting, taking on the vague, distorted outlines of his tormentors from school. They didn't move towards him, but their presence was overwhelming, their silent mockery a physical weight.
"Stop!" he screamed, his voice swallowed by the tidal wave of scorn. He clapped his hands over his ears, but the laughter simply burrowed deeper, directly into his mind. He was trapped, spotlighted, humiliated, and utterly alone, a puppet on a stage for an unseen, merciless audience.
Chapter 3: Go Home:
The Interlude: Lore Note 1;
As Cody fled through the endless exam hall, he stumbled. His hand landed on a loose floorboard. Beneath it, tucked into a hollow, was a small, desiccated piece of parchment. It was brittle, stained with something dark and ancient, and covered in elegant, looping script. He barely registered the words, his mind consumed by the relentless Critic, but a few phrases burned into his memory:
"...they called me The Listener, for I drank deep of the lamentations of the young, their burgeoning fears a vintage unlike any other. The purest vintage, steeped in hope and terror. The Box… a vessel… a snare for the most exquisite of harvests..."
Loriaith:
Loriaith found herself on an infinite, blindingly white plain. The sky above was an impossibly vast, immeasurable, but empty expanse of the same stark white, devoid of sun, clouds, or any discernible feature. There was no horizon, no distant mountain, no sheltering tree. Just endless, oppressive openness. She felt tiny, insignificant, exposed. Every nerve ending screamed for shelter, for a wall, a corner, anything to break the vastness. Her long-sleeved sweater felt flimsy against the invisible chill.
The quiet was profound, deafening. It stretched out, absorbing all sound, making her feel utterly, terrifyingly alone.
Then, a shadow began to fall.
It was immense, an impossible blotch against the white sky, growing larger, darker, slowly descending. It wasn't a cloud; it was too solid, too malevolent. It seemed to embody the sheer, overwhelming weight of the sky itself, slowly, deliberately, pressing down on her. The ground trembled faintly. She looked up, her heart hammering against her ribs. There was no escape, no place to run, nowhere to hide. The shadow expanded, encompassing more and more of her vision, a silent, crushing judgment from an indifferent, infinite cosmos.
Zahar:
Zahar awoke in a house, but it was wrong. It was his house, yet devoid of life. The colors were muted, drained to a sepia tone, as if seen through old, forgotten film. Every object—the worn armchair, the faded curtains, the photos on the mantle—was indistinct, smoothed over, as if scrubbed clean of detail. The faces in the pictures were blurred, featureless. The air was heavy with the scent of dust and something else, something… absent.
He walked through the silent rooms, his footsteps echoing in the oppressive quiet. His sister's room. The bed was made, toys neatly arranged, but they were featureless, generic shapes. The vibrant life, the laughter, the arguments—all gone, replaced by a terrifying void. He tried to remember her face, her voice, but it was like grasping smoke. He felt a creeping numbness, a horrifying certainty that soon, he wouldn't remember his own name.
A soft, almost imperceptible shimmer rippled through the air in front of him. It was the absence itself, a creeping void that began to slowly erode the edges of the room. The details on the wallpaper began to fade, the lines of the furniture softened, then blurred into formless gray. The shimmer advanced, slowly, steadily, consuming everything it touched, turning memory into dust, existence into nothing. It wasn't a monster that hunted him with claws or teeth; it was the chilling, inexorable oblivion of being utterly, completely forgotten. He felt his own essence start to fray, the edges of his own identity blurring in his mind.
The Lore Deepens: Lore Note 2 (Found by Zahar);
As the shimmer of oblivion advanced, Zahar instinctively grabbed at a book on a shelf. It crumbled in his hands, but a thin, almost invisible slip of paper fluttered to the floor. Its script was identical to Cody's note:
"...the harvest of adolescence is sweetest, for their identities are still forming, their fears pure. They bloom with such vibrant terror, unaware that I am the Gardener, tending to their dread. The others... they grow too old, their fears calcify, their terror becomes too mundane. But the young... ah, the young are a feast. They cling to their memories, unaware that I am the one who plucks them, one by one..."
Cody, Cassandra, and DW Group Up
Cody, his lungs burning, stumbled through the endless hall of desks, the Critic's whispers a constant barrage. He squeezed his eyes shut, wishing he could just stop, give up, let the shame consume him. But then… who would be left?
He forced his eyes open. The Critic was closer, its form more solid now, a towering, faceless examiner. As he looked, a small, dark shadow darted across his vision. It was DW, looking disoriented but unmistakably himself, being chased by the same amorphous shadows he had encountered—but here, they were translucent, blending with the judgmental figures. DW seemed to be running from the vague, shifting faces of a hostile crowd.
"DW!" Cody yelled, his voice hoarse.
DW's head snapped up. "Cody! Man, am I glad to see you, this place is messed up! Can't catch a break, everyone's a stranger!"
Then, a shriek tore through the sterile air.
Cassandra, her face streaked with tears and a faint trail of blood from where she'd bumped into a warped reflection, burst into the hall. Behind her, her monstrous reflection pulsed, stretching into a grotesque caricature of her own insecurities, trying to physically grab her.
"It won't leave me alone!" Cassandra sobbed, pointing a trembling finger at the mirror-spawn.
"What is that thing?" DW gasped, dodging a shadowy figure that lunged at him.
Cody's mind, usually slow to action, sparked. His hair, having fallen around his face, gave him an almost primal, wild look. He saw their fear, felt his own, but a new, defiant spark ignited. Failure for himself, maybe. But for them? No.
"We have to go! We need to find Shawn!" Cody yelled, memories of Shawn's earlier note, a snippet about feeling like a clown, flashing through his mind. "He's probably in some kind of nightmare cafeteria or something!"
They ran, a desperate trio, their combined presence momentarily pushing back the individual horrors. The Critic's whispers faltered, the mirror-spawn recoiled slightly, and the anonymous crowds chasing DW seemed to disperse. There was strength in numbers, a faint flicker of hope.
They burst into a new space, and the sound hit them first—a wall of deafening, cruel laughter. It was Shawn's world. He was on a grand stage, bathed in isolating spotlights, curled into a ball, whimpering, as faceless figures pointed and mocked from the surrounding darkness.
"Shawn!" Cassandra screamed, rushing forward despite her terror.
"They won't stop!" Shawn cried, his voice breaking.
Chapter 4: The Plan
Cody looked around. The stage was circular, vast. Beyond the spotlights, the darkness held the invisible, laughing audience. The stage itself was littered with props: a distorted microphone stand, a single, garish clown nose, a bright red, oversized umbrella.
"Okay, okay," Cody said, thinking fast, his wild hair falling into his eyes. "We need to make them stop laughing. Distract them!"
DW, ever the performer, despite his own fears, saw the microphone. "I got this!" He grabbed it, though the laughter seemed to physically buffet him. "Hey, you nameless chucklefucks! You think he's funny? Check this out!" He launched into a completely off-key, nonsensical rendition of a popular Backstreet Boys song, complete with ridiculous dance moves, making himself look utterly foolish. The laughter faltered, confused.
Cassandra, seeing the umbrella, had an idea. She snatched it up, its red surface warped and uneven. With a surge of adrenaline, she climbed onto a nearby speaker and swung the umbrella at the nearest shadowy figure. "Leave him alone, you creeps!" she yelled, her voice trembling but firm. She wasn't hiding from her reflection; she was facing it, fighting for her friend.
Cody grabbed the clown nose, feeling a surge of reckless abandon. If they want a clown, I'll give them a clown. He slapped it onto his own nose, and then, with a primal scream of frustration and defiance, he charged into the darkness, not at the shadowy figures, but at the edge of the stage, leaping and tumbling, making himself a spectacle. He was no longer afraid of failing; he was embracing the chaos, the imperfection. His black hair flew around him, a storm of defiance.
For a moment, the laughter died completely, replaced by a confused silence. The shadowy figures recoiled. Shawn looked up, his eyes wide.
Then, from somewhere deep within, Shawn found a flicker of his true self, the secret musician, not the forced clown. He took a deep breath, stood up, and belted out a note, raw and pure, a defiant melody that wasn't a joke, but a declaration. It cut through the silence, echoing with a haunting beauty.
The laughter, when it tried to resume, was weaker, fractured. The illusion was breaking. The entity couldn't feed on this new, defiant energy.
Lore Note 3 (Found by Cassandra);
As the collective mockery of the stage began to fracture, a loose floorboard on the stage shuddered. Cassandra, still clutching the umbrella, kicked at it. Beneath, another parchment. This one glowed with a faint, malevolent light, the script more urgent, more triumphant:
"...they break, they shatter, their fears become my sustenance. But some… some defy. They find solidarity. They call it 'love', 'friendship'. I call it a defect in the harvest. Such a pity. They learn to ignore the whispers, to find strength in each other's trembling hands. It is then that I must gather all my strength. To consume them whole, to ensure no such defect ever spoils my crop again. The exit… it is merely another trap, a final, delicious course before they are fully rendered down into oblivion."
Chapter 5: The Retreat and Defiance:
The entity's realm began to tremble. The stage lights flickered wildly, the walls of the exam hall seemed to ripple, and Cassandra's monstrous reflections flickered out of existence. The white plain of Loriaith's prison began to crack.
"It's working!" DW yelled, his voice filled with renewed hope. "We're screwing with its food supply!"
A guttural roar, not human, not animal, echoed through the merging environments. The entity was enraged, starving. The very fabric of their prison strained, groaning under the pressure.
They ran, a determined group now, finding Loriaith huddled on a cracking piece of white ground, shivering. "What's happening?" she whispered, looking up at the collapsing shadow-sky, her eyes wide with terror.
"We're fighting back!" Shawn declared, his earlier fear replaced by a fierce resolve. "We're not letting it feed on us anymore!"
They found Zahar in his fading, desolate house, almost entirely consumed by the black void. He was transparent at the edges, his face a mask of resigned terror, trying desperately to remember his own name.
"Zahar! Don't let it win!" Cody shouted, grabbing his arm. Zahar blinked, his eyes focusing, the touch a sudden anchor to reality
"Remember… you're Zahar," Cassandra insisted, pulling him forward. "You're our friend! We're here!"
With each step, their collective defiance seemed to ignite a painful reaction in their environment. The ground under them buckled, the air shimmered with an unseen force, and the walls of reality began to crumble. The entity's rage was a tangible force, but it was also a desperate, dying gasp. It couldn't feed on their unity. It was starving.
They pressed on, guided by an instinct that told them where the 'exit' was—a shimmering, unstable portal that pulsed with a dangerous, chaotic light. It seemed to appear in the distance, a beacon through the collapsing nightmare.
"It's over!" DW cheered, a genuine smile splitting his face. "We made it!"
They surged towards the portal, the ground disintegrating behind them, chunks of reality falling into an endless abyss.
Just as Shawn, the last one in line, was about to step through, a dark, viscous tendril, like an oil slick come to life, shot out from the collapsing ruins of the environment. It wrapped around his ankle, pulling him back with terrifying force.
"Shawn!" Cody screamed, reaching out.
Zahar, who had been hesitant, still fragile from his near-oblivion, saw it. He saw Shawn's fear, the last, desperate lunge of the entity. A memory, clear and sharp, of his sister's face, of his own fear of being forgotten, flashed through his mind. No. Not again. Not for him.
With a sudden, explosive surge of courage, a desperate need to make his existence matter, Zahar launched himself forward. He grabbed Shawn's arm, yanking him with all his might towards the portal.
"Go! Get out!" Zahar roared, his voice suddenly strong, resolute. He pushed Shawn forward, into Cody's waiting arms.
But the tendril, the last vestige of the entity's power, coiled around Zahar's leg now, dragging him back into the collapsing void. The ground beneath them shuddered violently, large boulders of dissolving reality raining down. The portal, their only escape, began to shrink.
"Zahar! No!" Loriaith screamed, tears streaming down her face. Cassandra reached for him, but the ground between them fell away.
Zahar looked back at his friends, his face a complex tapestry of terror, resolve, and a fleeting, triumphant sense of purpose. He saw their desperate, outstretched hands, their anguished cries. He knew they would remember him. He had mattered.
Then, with a final, heart-wrenching scream, he was pulled under a deluge of crushing rock and fading light. The portal flared, a desperate final chance, and then snapped shut.
Chapter 6: The Aftermath:
The afternoon sun, now a gentle, golden hue, filtered through the leaves of the oak tree. The familiar scent of pine and stale chips filled the treehouse. They were back!
Cody was the first to realize. He looked around, his eyes wide, breath catching in his throat. Shawn, Cassandra, DW, Loriaith… five of them.
Only five.
Silence had descended, heavy and thick, punctuated only by their ragged breathing. The phantom pain of a severed bond echoed in the space.
Cody walked to the center of the treehouse. Where the obsidian box had been, there was nothing. Not a scratch, not a lingering hum, not even a phantom green glow. It was simply gone. As if it had never been there.
Loriaith began to sob, a quiet, broken sound. Cassandra covered her mouth, her shoulders shaking. Shawn stared blankly at the spot where Zahar had last sat, the image of his final, defiant act seared into his mind. DW sat down heavily, tears silently tracking paths through the dust on his cheeks.
They looked at each other, their faces etched with a shared, unspeakable horror. The carefree innocence of 1999 was shattered, replaced by the crushing weight of a memory no one else would ever believe, a sacrifice no one else would ever know.
They had escaped, but a piece of them remained trapped in that impossible, terrible place. They were bound forever by the ghost of their forgotten friend, a silent promise to remember the boy who, in the end, refused to be erased. The sun set, plunging the treehouse into shadow, but the darkness they carried inside would never truly lift.
We didn't win, only survived.