"Well, Kaprice wasn't always an outgoing person you know. Ever since she got hurt I mean. She was bullied in school and her friends here started bullying her too"

"Fucking Jerks"

"Ain't we all"

We let that sink in,

"But then she found painting and it was a refuge to her. But I'm rambling, I'm sure you already know all of this"

"She never told me about the bullying but I'm not surprised"

"Yeah...Well anyway. She came to me and told me about this guy a few weeks back. This guy from GreenGrove named John West"

I smiled,

"I can already tell he's a handsome guy, judging by that killer name"

"Well she definitely wasn't lying about the sense of humor. I was happy for her. You know she spent most of her time in her room before meeting you and she still did. But it was comforting to not hear Heavy metal music and Billie Eilish on full blast throughout the night." he said with a weak smile,

"It was damn near the best thing I'd heard in a while to hear her laugh"

Outside It was getting darker now.

"Then, there's this time...I heard her talking and I thought that maybe she was online with you...But when I opened her door, she was talking to a plain sheet of canvas"

"Maybe she was thinking out loud"

"No no no, I mean a full on conversation. As if the paper was actually responding"

I looked at him, giving him time to go on but very impatient to hear more,

"I tried to get closer, but she held the canvas against herself and hissed at me."

"Whoa"

"Yeah, I thought it was a joke at first but then she tried to rip off her clothes and started repeating the same line..."

"Log in, Log off?"

He looked at me,

"Exactly," he said,

"I've never been a strict brother. Yes, I was hesitant about letting her do the the MeetFirst thing, but I figured that technology is growing and evolving everyday. And I hadn't seen her that excited about anything since she got a chance to show her paintings at the National Arts festival exhibition. So I let her do it."

Donald put his hands behind his head,

"But after that happened, I spent the whole night trying to research about the side effects of it, but I couldn't even find a Google image of the thing"

"Didn't she tell you that it's a BETA program?"

He scrounged his face in an attempt to sift through his memories,

"No," he finally said while rubbing his temples,"She made it sound like it was just some new dating app feature"

"It is, but it hasn't been officially launched yet. Kap, me and 498 other users were invited to test the program"

"Why, why would you agree to such a thing?"

His voice had a painful pleading quality to it.

I fixed my mouth to respond to his question. Desperation, I thought, loneliness. But what had either of those things led to, his sister missing, and possibly going insane.

"Then what happened"

"I woke up the next day and went to check on her. She was nowhere to be found"

"Not even a note or anything?"

"Nothing."

He stood as he said this and disappeared into the kitchen. He returned with a cup of coffee.

"I heard on the news that a bunch of people are just up and leaving the same way. Do you think those people are also part of the program?"

"There's no way I can tell you for certain."

He rubbed both sides of his face and sighed as he threw himself back into the sofa.

"This can't be legal, MeetFirst has to be answerable for this"

"It didn't seem like there were any sideeffects to the program, but..."

I told him about the hallucinations and seizures I had experienced. He stared at me, mouth slightly parted, eyes wide.

"So given with what you said about Kaprice..." I also thought back to the user in the Proton chat room who said he was experiencing weird stuff, "And what I went through. It seems like there maybe heavy psychological effects to the program"

I almost told Donald about the picture of the man with the H on his cap who had taken HornyAngel. But I realized that that wouldn't have eased his pain and it wasn't much to go on since his face was hidden from view.

My phone notified me that it needed to be charged. It was on 3 percent.

"Do you have a charger?"

"Classic"

"Damn, mine is a C-Type"

"I'm calling the police" said Donald

"I don't know," I said,"Do we have enough evidence to prove anything?"

"The fact that people who joined a freaky program are missing isn't evidence?"

"I wouldn't know how the police work," I said,"But it may be a lead at best"

"Whatever it is, they should know"

He pulled out his phone,

"Is it okay if I see her room?" I asked

"Sure, first door to your left...Hello? Yes, Officer Randolph...It's Donald Steinfield..."

I went to Kaprices room.

Before everything else, the first thing I noticed was the virtual gear on her desk. It was still connected to her laptop, a lazily blinking light telling me that it was asleep.

It wasn't a girls room, not the typical one anyway. Instead of pink, her bed covers and curtains were blue with yellow water flowers. Her carpet was a tan brown. On the walls were quotes about hope and determination, lost among paintings of nature, self portraits of her without a scar, her brother.

I also noticed that her gear was still connected to her laptop.

Just a few feet infront of her window was a canvas with a sketch. I approached it and took a closer look. I should've been freaked out by what I saw, but I was touched in a weird way. It was a sketch of me. I wondered why Donald hadnt taken a look at it when he found out she was missing. But I'm sure that was the least of his worries.

"Is there anyone there?"

It was Kaprices voice, but this time it didn't sound like a hallucination,

"Please, someone...anyone...help me"

Her voice, it was coming from the headset on her desk.

It should've been the last thing I tried since I had vowed to never do it again, but I put on the headset and opened the SimuDate portal.

Donald had entered the room at some point,

"After what we just found out, you still want to log in..." He said

"No," I said, "But Besides what happened a week ago I haven't been experiencing much else..."

The portal welcomed me as User #234.

I placed the mouse over the continue button.

"This is a bad idea, what if you also lose your mind after this."

If there was someone taking testers away, maybe if I was prepared for his arrival, I could stop him. If Kaprice was still alive, the police would beat her location out of him and have solid evidence to make sure everyone at Simudate rotted in prison.

"I have to fight for my happiness"

"That's a really nice sentiment," said Donald as he entered the room, "But I really doubt it fits into this situation!"

Donald reached for my hand with the mouse,but it was too late.

NOTE FROM AUTHOR:
THANK YOU SO MUCH DEAR READER FOR STICKING AROUND. PLEASE VOTE AND LEAVE ANY CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM IF POSSIBLE.

-EMOLYON