I Got a Silver Play Button in the Mail (short horror story)
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
There was a large package on my doorstep when I came home one afternoon. This was odd, as I couldn't remember ordering anything online. Recently. Upon closer inspection, I saw a sticker on the box with the YouTube logo. Now I spend a lot of time on YouTube and as a result, have seen a number of play button unboxing videos. The box looked to be about the same size is what I've seen online, So I assumed that had to be what was inside. But I don't run a YouTube channel. Sure, I've uploaded a couple videos that I've shot with my phone, but there's no way my cat chases be or brother spills. Coffee on lap videos could garner enough subscribers toward the play button. I checked the address to see if the postman dropped it off by mistake. Maybe one of my neighbors is secretly a YouTube celebrity, all the enough, So no, it was very clearly addressed to me. My full name address, apartment number, city state and zip code. I took the package inside and fetched a razor to open it inside with the black box emblazoned with the YouTube logo on white that I have seen in a number of videos. Removing the cover revealed the congratulatory form letter from Susan Lodges. Ski. Setting it aside, I removed black foam protecting the award itself. It was an award for 100,000 subscribers. A silver play button. The channel on the award was not one I was familiar with, at least not one I could recall ever having visited and certainly not a name I would have chosen for my own channel. Your life 55 for 32 doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but I thought I should check it out. Maybe I'd recognize someone in one of their videos, like if it was actually run by a friend or neighbor and they put my address down. Is there contact for some weird reason? If that was the case, a little heads up would have been nice. I sat down on my computer and pulled up the YouTube channel in question. When I saw the banner, my heart skipped a beat. It was my living room. My I scale the page 101,022 subscribers, five video thumbnails were showing on the home page. All of them showed various views inside my apartment, I clicked on videos and was greeted with page after page of similar thumbnails. Living room, kitchen, bedroom, bathroom. There must have been over 1000 videos of links ranging from a few seconds to hours. They all had names that we're just dating time like 2016 Dachau for Dachau four 8 25 32 and if you counts were all over the place. Some had a few 100 views, while others had hundreds of thousands. When I clicked on one, titled 2017-10 Dash 10 3 43 57 I was showed a high angle view of myself sleeping in my bedroom. The video only lasted about 30 seconds, and nothing happened. But I was a mess. A number of emotions were hitting yell at once shock first leaving me stunned and dumbfounded, then fear after realizing I've been the subject of some voyeuristic sicko who been filming me for God knows how long. Then anger pushed. The other society took over its first act to slam both my fist down on the keyboard, I stood and rushed to the bedroom where I scanned the wall. The camera had him a bit at to get the angle of the video. The well itself was clean, white, with no signs of anything having been mounted to it. The very top of the wall where it met the ceiling, there was a strict wallpaper with floral decide that stretched down about six inches. I climbed onto my dresser, knocking a number of personal items to the floor so I could feel the paper for any clues. Sure enough, I felt a small boat hidden in the pattern. A public closer inspection. It was whole no larger than a pin. I pounded on the spot with my fists, trying to break the drywall to get whatever device might be hidden behind it. If you saw the blows created an opening large enough to get my hand inside the wall and feel around, it didn't take long to find and grab a thin wire connected to the camera. I couldn't believe what I was holding its tail leading into the wall and towards the ceiling, my hand clenched thin wire, and yanked as hard as I could. There was a little resistance, but the wire broke free of whatever it was attached to. I stared at this small device in my hand. For a few moments before I climbed off the dresser. The initial wave of anger had passed and fear had once again regained control. What recordings did this person have of me of my friends and family who have visited Christ? My ex girlfriend and I had been in this apartment for months. I need to alert someone, but I had to get out of the apartment first. I pocketed the camera and grab my phone keys and wallet before bolting out the door. Part of me wanted to stay and find the rest of the cameras, rip them out. But the logical part of my mind told me to leave the evidence there for the cops. I felt like I needed to put some distance between me and the apartment, so I sprinted down the block to the nearby Laundromat before calling 911 on myself. The operator asked me the nature of the emergency that I stammered. Someone's been watching me, spying on me in my apartment. I found a camera in my wall. I need help. The red had only served to get my adrenaline pumping more and it left my mind swimming. I was panting as I told the operator, what I have found, starting with a package on the doorstep to the YouTube channel to the camera, I punched out of the wall. After about 10 minutes, a police cruiser arrived in a laundromat, and I hung up with the operator. The deputy had been given a CliffsNotes version of what I recounted to the operator, and he asked me to elaborate. I had calmed down a bit and was able to explain a little more clearly. What happened depend Choate. My concerns. I produced the camera that I had turned out of the wall. The deputy examine the tiny camera and exposed buyers from where it was torn off its controller. He handed it back to me, or you returned to my apartment so he could investigate any possible threats. On a suggestion, I gave you my dorky and waited in the parking lot for him to verify there was nobody inside. He pounded on the front door and shouted, Sheriff's department, Is anyone inside? There was no response. So used my key to open the self locking door knob and pushed the door open before cautiously entering. After a few minutes, he emerged after finding nobody inside and called me over. I tentatively returns to the apartment, and the deputy followed me back inside, asking me where I found the camera. I let into the bedroom and pointed out the whole life. Beaten into the wall, he drew his flashlight and expected the whole where he stood for a few moments before asking if I found anything else, I mentioned that I hadn't looked for anything else after finding it. But there were videos from other angles on the site that we could pull up and see if we could find anymore. With a nod, he holstered his flashlight and followed the box in the living room where my computer sat. I had left it on the video of my bedroom when I attacked Keyboard, but now it was off. This was all to me because I don't have it set to go to sleep or understand by. I mention this. That's a turn. The computer, Bachmann and the deputy pulled me away before I could grab the mouse, telling me that if I hadn't turned it off when someone else might have and there could be fingerprints on the mouse or desk. The feeling of sickness returned, I thought to pull up the YouTube channel on my cell phone and find one of the angles. That way, the play button was still sitting on my coffee table, so I typed Channel name into YouTube, search far and was pulled it back up. But there was no header image. It also showed that there were no videos. It was the correct channel, but it was no empty, the deputy suggested. I check my history to see if I could find the video that way, but when I pulled it up, it showed the three dots on the thumbnail, indicating the video had been deleted. I was left speechless. They felt as though I was being made to look insane. If it wasn't for the fact I still had the camera, I pulled out from the wall earlier. I'm sure the deputy would have written me office. Some lunatic. To his credit, he was professional the whole time. He called in a detective who took my statement several photographs of the hole in the bedroom, a second pinhole we were able to locate in the living room along with the play button. They also dusted by mouse and desk for any fingerprints. Apartment maintenance was called to give the investigator access to the attic crawl space to see if they could locate whatever the camera had been attached. Teoh or the camera in the living room, or any other cameras, for that matter. The research, however, turned up nothing but insulation and spiders. The possibility that someone had come into my apartment after I left in my panic reclaimed their remaining equipment and shut down my computer was a possibility. I have been going for almost 20 minutes. My neighbors were questioned, but nobody had seen or heard anything after I had left. Not that they were really looking in the first place, The detective suggested. I stay somewhere else for the night, and I couldn't have agreed more. My parents didn't live too far away, so I decided to just go there. Plus, I still had some clothes at their house, so I didn't need to take anything from my apartment with me. The detective gave me his business card and said he would be in touch and to call if I could remember any other details I should kiss hand as well as deputies, thanking them for coming to my aid. Before leaving for my parent's house, I recounted the story to my parents that evening. My mother was understandably upset, and my father was livid. We stayed up most of the night talking about what might have been recorded and what people might have seen. There was no audio on the singular video I had been able to watch, and I hope that was the case with the rest of them. And nobody had ever approached me on the street or at work about the videos, so they were likely not even seen by anyone. Locally. I have prophesized that videos and subscribers to that channel may very well have been just thoughts, artificially inflating the channel's number until it reached the point that earned an award. Although why I was being targeted like this would still be on me. I stayed with my folks for a few days and called out of work. I just needed to get over the panic and recover. Thankfully, my parents boss and co workers were all understanding, given the events. Eventually I needed to return to my apartment. My dad came with me, as if I could tell him otherwise. Everything inside the apartment was untouched, my computer home quietly in the living room from when I had turned it on, the lights in the dining room and bedroom still burned, and the play button was still sitting on my coffee table. Obviously, the plan for me was to move out as soon as possible. We collected what I thought I might need in the immediate future, leaving the rest for whatever moving company we hired to box and bring to my parents house until I found anyplace my work clothes, toiletries, laptop and TV were all that made the cut. The rest would arrive in cardboard at some future time. It took me a while to find a new place that fit my budget. Of course, living with my parents for that duration made me feel safe. They also didn't seem to be in a huge rush for me to move out right away. My dad was apprehensive about me being on my own again so soon afterwards, but understood that I was an adult. My mom, on the other hand, was a lot harder to convince. She tried every play in the book to get me to stay home, do my laundry, feed me. I didn't even need to pay rent, which isn't the attitude she'd had when I was 20 living at home. In the end, it was about two months before I left home. For the second time, my new apartment was in a completely different part of town. My commute to work was about 20 minutes. Slaughter longer and I had to pay for water separately. But that was the worst of it. It was bigger and have a natural kitchen. The day I got my key. I have the movers bring my still box stuff to any place. It's funny how you never really realized just how little you have until it's all professionally packed into boxes and carted into your empty living room. I am packed over the course of a love, deciding on things as they came out of the box. If I should keep give to charity or toss. When I came to the box of the play button, I pondered it. It was a symbol that represented the invasion of my privacy by over 100,000 people, and it made me feel uneasy at the thoughts. But on the other hand, it was still a play button. Sure, a lot of people have them, but I doubt any got one without even trying chuckles it myself. But that last part, ultimately, I decided to toss it. Well, I probably could have gotten over feelings I got when I looked at it. It was no reason to put myself through that. So I put it back into the box, came in Tora for labels with the addresses on them and the YouTube local and tape it shut. I didn't want anyone seeing it in the Dumpster and thinking, Hey for you to button. I took it and several other things with me into the garbage behind my new building and bid it. Good riddance. I hold it. As I rounded the corner to my front door, my heart started to race and my mouth dried up. As my knees started to shake. Someone had left a gold play button on my step