1 Immersion

"This can't be real…" Ezekiel Mann mumbled to himself.

In the darkness of his small apartment room, he glanced at the time in the top right corner of his dimly lit phone.

11:07 P.M. It was almost midnight.

Ezekiel tapped back out of the chat group and checked the comment from before, which linked him back to NoobTube. He tapped the same anime profile picture of Y*uko from 'The D*sk M**den of Amnesia' and confirmed it was his longtime viewer.

"Commented seven minutes ago…"

Ezekiel went back to the chat group. He ignored the encircled picture of a red clenched fist and the name "Carpe Diem" resting at the top. Text continued to fill the chat room.

"StrangerDanger did it again!" typed RespectMyAuthority with an anime profile picture of Tan*a from 'The S*ga of Tan*a the **il.'

"Turn it to cinders!" typed WhyPyonWhenYouCanPyro?, who also had an anime profile picture, but of Farn*se from 'Ber**rk.' "More, more, more, more!"

"For the People!"

Ezekiel shivered under his ratty blanket. The encouraging "participants" kept typing as the live video of a young woman proceeded, taking the top half of the chat room.

This was probably the true identity of his fan: a woman in her early 20's wearing a face mask. She held tightly onto a box of matches and crouched once more, like a Slavic thug. Her pale hand struck the match head against the coarse side in a skilled and elegant fashion. The small teardrop of fire waved side to side as she tempted the "participants" watching through the camera before dropping the thin sliver of burning wood.

A geyser of flames burst out from the top of the transparent barrel. The grand spectacle looked like a controlled explosion of gasoline within the great emptiness of the old warehouse.

Yet, that was not the reason why Ezekiel felt horrified at such an unreal situation.

What caught his attention sat inside the barrel.

He saw a hot dog at the bottom of the barrel— no, he saw the blazing form of a dog, struggling against the fire and ropes that bound its body.

Rope filled four holes along the sides of the barrel, and the dog's efforts pulled it inwards from two directions as its final death throes stayed in focus. Even though they no longer breathed, Ezekiel heard the suffering cries of dogs. The phantom noise gnawed at his eardrums and vibrated within his mind.

"I'm sorry, but that's the last one!~" StrangerDanger apologetically announced. "Five was our limit for today."

The cameraman changed focus and moved all five barrels into view. He showed the flames long since then died down and slowly began to be snuffed out, like the lives of the animals they took. Their blackened bodies flattened in a heap at the bottom of the barrels, as the rope holding them upright turned to ashes. Dark soot ruined the transparency of the barrels, but the overhanging cloud of smoke thinned.

StrangeDanger pocketed the matchbox in her dirty and oversized black sports jacket.

"I'd love to do more," she smiled. "But there's a special someone I've kept waiting!"

"By someone, do you mean another beast?" wrote DontGetTooCocky, with a profile picture of A*i from 'Tyrann*cal R**sters.'

A few more "participants" gave guesses. After a brief moment, an UberNote appeared onscreen, with $300 attached.

"Is that someone a man?" asked the donor, BeautifulWifeToBe. "A man you can finally live a normal life with?"

Her profile picture was Iz*mi from 'B*ptism.'

StrangerDanger gave a melodious laugh and snapped her fingers.

"Yes. Yes, he is. Actually, he should already be watching!"

Ezekiel sank deeper into his mattress and glanced over at his front door. He could barely see that 7 feet away, the bolt hung in place. An unexpected sigh of relief mitigated his internal agony. When Ezekiel looked back at the video, he felt waves of revulsion finally hit his stomach.

"For my dear," StrangerDanger lovingly cooed. "I dedicate this to you."

She picked up a flamethrower offscreen and ignited a stream of combustion. The cameraman trailed his filming along the spurt and ended on the scene of two dogs tied together to form a grotesquely cartoonish heart. Their howls filled Ezekiel's cheap earbuds as the man distraughtly continued watching, as if perversely affected by the cruelty. StrangerDanger's manic laughter intertwined with the cacophony, somehow softening the emotional toll from the chaos.

"Ah… we hope death is painless, but suffering is the danger to living," LivingToSeekDeath morbidly proclaimed, with a profile picture of M*thias from K**ling me/K**ling you.

"Burn down the warehouse next!" demanded WhyPyonWhenYouCanPyro?

"Congratulations, newcomer! Your love with StrangerDanger is sanctified by the holy fires of Heaven!" BeautifulWifeToBe addressed directly towards Ezekiel.

"With you here, it's not just the 7 of us anymore!" commented RespectMyAuthority. "It's been too long since we've gotten new blood."

"Wait. He is no longer with us," noted LivingToSeekDeath.

Scarily enough, Ezekiel really did leave by exiting the app not a second later. The stimulation proved too much for his nerves, let alone his churning stomach. Sure, he played horror games where dismembered zombies gorged themselves on human entrails and he watched films with graphic body horror.

However, that was the difference between fiction and nonfiction. Ezekiel never saw such animal abuse, especially when live-streamed.

His obsessive viewer intruded his thoughts. If Ezekiel saw a woman like her without any prior knowledge, he could have easily fallen for her. She had long, smooth black hair like satin silk. Her homely eyes, like clay disks, held an aloof yet violent charm. Her lean figure sported breasts enough to fill his hands. Her compact bottom, shaped like a heart, led to her thighs thick enough to rest on, like a feather pillow. Beautiful was too simple to describe her.

Still, Ezekiel felt trauma instead of interest. The oversized black sports jacket she wore turned into a cloak of death. Her laughter surfaced, like the mocking jeer of a succubus. Rather than a woman in Ahdidyas sportswear, she was a demon, hiding in the dark of night.

He took a breather in the completely dark room, shutting his eyes and his thoughts from the world. Flashes of the chat room appeared in his mind. Under the shocking video and threatening, and demonstrable title, a red heart laid like a badge of honor. The profile pictures of the chat group lined alongside it.

They LIKED that video, clearly entertained by the monstrous footage. Not only did they like it, but there were thousands of others watching the livestream outside of the chat group, donating and commenting on the side of the video.

A blue flashing line at the bottom taunted him. "Say something," it said, daring him to object. Ezekiel lacked the willpower to look away, much less type anything. It was like a natural disaster, drawing his attention to a growing nightmare. He barely managed to remove his attention from it. Danger bloomed in his heart and he gathered enough survival instinct to move.

Ezekiel left his bed, turning on his phone's flashlight to navigate his apartment room. He made it to the door and flicked on the lights. Instantly, the precious light filled the room and soothed him. He rattled the door to check the locks and peered through the peephole.

There was nothing but the streetlights and glow from others escaping the darkness.

Ezekiel sighed and clutched his chest. He made his way to his bed, curling up in his ratty blanket.

It was too late to wander around and Ezekiel wanted the entire experience to fade away.

"It's a bad dream," he tried convincing himself. "Nothing but a dream."

He wanted to talk to his landlady, Eleanor Reudenstein, when she brought him breakfast in the morning. She was there for him 7 years ago, and she would be there for him in the morning.

"Is this real life, Elle? Please… I need you."

Ezekiel trembled in the night, wanting Eleanor to comfort him again.

Unseen to his eyes, a spy camera, fourth of the size of a fingernail, focused on him. Next door, a woman huffed heavily on her computer monitor as she listened to Ezekiel's moans through a recorder under his bed. Her face reddened with the mention of her nickname and an unhinged smile broke the mature image she had.

She zoomed in on his handsome face when he turned over before she continued the sloppy fingering underneath her skirt.

"Ezekiel… Ezekiel…" she crooned. "Ahn~, Ezekiel!"

Her whole body shook on the armchair when she peaked. She took a moment to rest and then grabbed more tissues to dry up the wet mess she made.

"Ezekiel."

She licked her lips and turned her attention to her phone.

There, the app, ProTube was open to the chat group "Carpe Diem 2."

Strangely enough, there was another livestream playing, focused on Ezekiel.

"So, girls, what do you think of his reaction?" she typed. "Didn't I groom a handsome man?"

A small picture of Y*no G*sai from F*t*re D**ry remained at the bottom left corner as the blue flashing line kept blinking on her screen.

A wave of replies answered her throughout the night...