The Return of LegoMann

It was officially one month since Drew went missing. I never really knew the kid; my friends and I spent most of our time playing video games together instead of actually meeting up in person. I suppose it was because of our backgrounds, I mean—Matthew was quite the trouble maker. I was facetiming him while he was shoplifting a bag of chips. I asked him what on earth he was doing, and he simply responded, “Oh, my parents aren’t letting me eat dinner.”

From then on, we got into a deep conversation and I figured out he had been abused. I felt bad for him and I wanted to help, but he lived all the way in Florida. Impressively, he got away with his mischievous ways Then there was Christian, a portly boy who always wore a mask when we met on Skype. Matthew and I urged him to take it off, but he simply refused. He later blurted out that he had a type of skin cancer. Not a deadly kind, but that was still enough to keep me from asking again. He said he got bullied for his appearance.

As for Drew, well, his personal life remained uncompromised. The last time I ever saw him was when we were having a group chat through Skype. Drew said he was hearing some weird noises. He wasn’t lying, I heard a few abnormal things coming from the background. It sounded like a wet paintbrush rubbing against rusted sheet metal. Or perhaps they were sharp talons… I could never decide between the two.

The chat escalated quickly when Drew whipped his head around. He began muttering to himself and stood up. I asked him where was going on and he simply told me he would be back in a minuet. A small amount of light seeped into the room as he opened the door. “What in the world?” was the last thing I heard him say before he stepped out of the room. Through the slightly opened door, I could see the silhouette of a figure. It was contorted with large spikes crawling down its hunched back and a large, sinuous snout. At least, that what I thought about when I first saw the figure. I am truly not sure what it was. All I know is: it had to do with Drew’s disappearance.

I wanted to warn him, I wanted to scream at the top of my lungs for him to run. But, how could I? He was out of my voice’s reach. There was nothing I could do. That’s when I heard Drews faint cries for help. Then silence. Matthew and Christian and I immediately tore away from our computers. Drew was presumably in danger, or he already met his fate.

I later discovered Drew lived awfully close to me. A few blocks down my neighborhood, first house on the left to be exact. I was riding my bike when I saw an officer having a conversation with a married couple who were crying. I caught on to part of their conversation which confirmed my suspicions.

Officer: Where was the last place you saw him? What time?

Man: I, uh…we left around 8:30. We suspected our little boy would be in his room…playing video games or chatting with his…oh, god.

Women: Please, help us find him. *sob* He is the only one we have…*sob*

Officer: Don’t worry, I’m sure your son is safe. There were no signs of a break in, he probably just ran off. Er—no offense. Were doing everything we can. Mind telling me his name again?

Man: Drew…his name is Drew.

I rode off in the opposite direction, I had a lot on my mind. A handful to process. Could that have been the Drew I spoke with many times before? This seemed too convincing to be a coincidence. So, I told my friends. At first, they were skeptical, but then they started to believe me. Nevertheless, it was decided there was nothing we could do. Plus, we never even knew the guy. We just met him on a discord server a few weeks back and things we invited him into our group. Not to mention it was the authority’s problem now.

And so, a month passed. My two friends and I were minding our business on a private Minecraft server. Matthew was exploring an abandon shipwreck, Christian was trying to pull a Herobrine prank on Christian (I’m not going to tell you how it ended) and I was organizing the loot I mined, putting them into chests. That’s when I found out Christian stole my invisibility potions. Let’s hope their worth Matt’s reaction, I thought. I’ll just say they were worth it. Worth Christians entire inventory. Matthew is the violent type of guy, and I’m sure you know why.

Christian is the guy who does irrational things and talks to much. He even went as far as to make jokes about the bruise on Matthews left cheek. Oh, don’t get me wrong—Christian is a great guy. I suppose he gets that stuff from the people who bully him. Same applies with Matthew and his parents.

Its rare when they get along, of course. And I’m always there to break them up. The only time they’re ever together online is when I’m present. I’m not trying to assume they are fighting over me, but that’s the only possible explanation I can come up with. I am the only girl in the group, after all. Also, no need to apologize if you assumed I was male. That’s what I get for not giving myself an introduction straightaway.

My name is Amari. I am one of those “nerds” who have a fair amount of intelligence for their age. Games aren’t necessarily a priority for me besides schoolwork, but I like Christian and Matthew. Despite we live far away from each other, we still have conserved about our personal lives. I was a bit reckless and told them a little too much about my family and all, but they are respectful towards me. I feel like they understand me, unlike everybody else who I know in person. However, that didn’t stop them from being annoying at times.

 give me my stuff back goddammit!!

 That’s what you get for scaring me shitless >:(

 i swear to go I’m going to find you irl and…

 (that’s me) Would you guys just shut up? I’m trying to concentrate.

 if you don’t like us then just leave

 I never said I didn’t like you lol

 Yea retard.

 what did you just call me???

 Look at the chat dumbass.

 IF YOU GUYS DON’T, I’M GOING TO LEAVE!

 wait one moment Amari i wanna punch this guy with my large vocab

 Says the guy who doesn’t use good grammar…

All of the sudden, something mysterious appeared in the chat. The message read: LegoMann has joined the game. My blood ran cold. That player name… it was familiar.

It belonged to Drew.

I sat there in my chair, gawking. Chris and Matt were spamming the chat with questions aimed toward LegoMann. I snapped out of my trance and went to look for the player. As expected, they were in right next to my house in a mini hut which Drew built a while back so he could dig an underground entryway to my place and steal my stuff. Ha, boys. Anyways, I went inside the hut and stopped in my tracks. The player wasn’t wearing the classic default skin that Drew always kept on.

Instead, the cloths were shredded, revealing blistered skin. One eye was black, and the other was red, and the hair was spikey like grass. I was surprised how detailed it was, I mean—I didn’t think you could put that much effort into a Minecraft avatar. I began typing in the chat.

 Drew? Is that you?

The player looked around a few times before blatantly ignoring my remark, opening the door, and exiting the hut. I followed him into a forest where he stopped and began mining logs from a tree. From there I spammed the chat, trying to get his attention. Around a minute later, Matthew teleported to me and stared at the mysterious player.

 What the… what happened to his skin?

 I dunno. One thing for sure though, its creepy as hell.

 I know, right?

<ThatGuyChris> guys just leave him alone he is probably in shock or something

<WildernessZ7> Really? You saw what happened a month ago! What if this is his kidnapper?!

<AdvancedNoob_> You’re just exaggerating, Matt. Who knows? This whole thing could have been a prank…

<ThatGuyChris> whatever imma ban him

All of the sudden, LegoMann spoke.

<LegoMann> 0001010 01010110 01100101 01110011 01110100 01110010 01101001 00100000 00100111 01101001 01100101 01101110 01110011 00100000 01101000 01100001 01100010 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01110100 01100101 01101101 01110000 01110100 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 01101101 01100001 01100111 01101001 01110011 00100000 01110001 01110101 01100001 01101101 00100000 01110000 01110010 01101111 01101000 01101001 01100010 01100101 01110010 01100101 00100000 01100001 01100100 00100000 01101101 01100101 00101110

<AdvancedNoob_> What the fuck?

<WildernessZ7> Great, dude. You pissed him off.

<ThatGuyChris> doesn’t matter, he’s not allowed on this server anymore anyways

Another yellow message appeared in the chat: ThatGuyChris was slain by LegoMann. How was this possible? I was right there watching him chop down trees, yet he somehow killed Christian. Chris respawned, only to die over and over again. I demanded LegoMann to cease his mischievous ways, but he wouldn’t respond. The only thing I could think of was to whip out my diamond sword and attempt to strike him.

That didn’t go as well as I thought. As I charged toward him, I was abruptly zipped away by an unknown force. I found myself in an iron bar cage hanging above a black void. I had nothing in hot bar, nor in my inventory. At this point, I was scared beyond belief. I wanted to leave my bedroom, yet I felt so compelled to stare at my screen. I was petrified. My eyes widened as crimson red letters appeared on the screen. They read: YOU LEFT ME.

With those horrifying words, I was somehow banned from the server. I tried logging back on, but to no avail. All I wanted to do then was to see if my friends were okay. Impossibly, every single trace of them I had on the internet was no longer there. They weren’t my friends on any social media platform and when I tried looking up their accounts, the browser would come up with nothing.

About two weeks later, I was watching the news. The police say they found out what happened to Drew. It turns out his parents were psychopathic shitheads who thought their son was overtaken by the internet. They tried taking him to a therapist, but he simply refused to leave the house. Its funny what electronics can do to you. Anyways, I suppose the parents had just given up and decided to kill him. The shadowy figure I saw through his webcam was not more than their two silhouetted bodies mashed up into an abomination.

But as I found out, the story never ended there. Drew is still here.

And he is not going to give me mercy.