ILSI Death Plan

Yesterday I had a really strange experience.

Recently I went to a water park. Since then my piercing has produced a bunch of gunk, and my ear lobe has swollen up a lot.

Anyway yesterday I went to sleep at 1:00am and woke up at 7:45am. My swollen ear felt very painful, but I was tired of sleeping on my right hand side, so I arranged some pillows in a way that I could sleep on my left without my ear touching anything. After some time I eventually must’ve drifted off to sleep.

I was meant to be visiting my mum that day, but the plan was for me to catch public transport to her place. Maybe she changed the plan and came to pick me up? I just woke up so I haven’t checked my phone. I roll out of bed and start getting dressed.

As I’m getting dressed, I somehow put a mesh top on instead of a tshirt and have to take it off and try again. I really don’t react well to being suddenly woken. My ear is hurting a lot, and when I touch it I found out that the swollen part has burst and is covered in puss. Also, my back hurts for some reason.

My roommate lets the guests in and I leave my room to greet them. It’s not my mum, it’s a straight couple I don’t recognise. Well, I don’t recognise anybody, I have prosopagnosia, and my roommate seems to recognise them. I guess I’ll roll with it.

You know when you’ve been suddenly woken up in the middle of a dream, sometimes the dream you were having stays with you and clouds your perception for a bit? The couple seem to be under the impression that I agreed to go exercise with them somewhere, and they want to know where we’re going. I’m baffled and don’t remember agreeing to any such thing (especially because I have a doctors appointment to get my ear looked at and then I’m visiting my mum). But being groggy, I kinda just assume that I’m not understanding the situation. I apologise to them “sorry, I just woke up and I think I’m still dreaming a bit”.

The man says “if you don’t want to exercise, then how about you show us what kind of games YOU play” and gestures at my PC. I thought that this was a super weird thing to say, but they repeated the request and I was completely bewildered so I agreed.

I go back into my bedroom to fire up my PC, but my furniture has been re-arranged. My desk has been moved to in front of my wardrobe. My keyboard and mouse are sitting on a folding table that’s been set up where my desk used to be, and my monitors are placed haphazardly on my desk across the room.

So I’m thinking “wtf, I guess I sleep-walked and re-arranged my room? That would explain why my back is sore. This is going to take hours to undo.” I leave my room to tell my roommate what I’ve done. While I’m talking to my roommate, my mum buzzes up and enters the apartment.

After I finish talking to my roommate, I go back into my room with him and my mum. My bed has been made, with all my spare cushions I keep on a shelf moved to my bed. My plushies have also been re-arranged? I ask my mum if she made my bed, but I know she didn’t because she only just arrived.

I figure I’m losing it. Maybe I’m hallucinating, still waking up? If I leave my room, think awake thoughts, and then go back in, surely this will end and everything will go back to normal?

Nope, upon re-entering my room, my monitors have been moved to their usual location, but my desk has been fully disassembled into parts. Everything is set up on the folding table the way it’s usually set up on my desk. I consider going to bed and hoping that when I wake up everything is normal again.

Then I notice that my phone has the Uber Eats app open and an order has been placed. Did the ghost that re-arranged my furniture get hungry?

The text that says “Your food will arrive in 5 minutes” changes to say “Your death will arrive in 5 minutes”. I don’t think Uber offers self-assassination services, so I figure my phone has some kind of a virus and this is a prank app. I exit the Uber Eats app.

I briefly see that a new app with the Uber Eats logo has been installed, but it’s called “ILSI Death Plan”. Almost immediately the app’s name is replaced with ⬤⬤⬤⬤. I figure my phone is infected with a virus. The app opens itself and starts showing me directions to some kind of electrical facility, and then a video indicating where I need to go in the facility and what live wires I should touch.

While this is happening, I borrow my mum’s (hopefully uninfected) phone and Google the name of the app. As I type, each keypress feels like a small electric shock, but I tell myself I’m just not used to the iPhone’s taptic engine. Wikipedia says that the app is a prank app that relates to a creepy pasta. It describes what the app looks like and what it does, and it matches what’s happening on my phone. I figure if it’s just a prank it’s probably nothing to worry about, and (feeling overwhelmed) decide to lie down on my bed.

When I next awoke, it was 8:45am. My room was back to normal. But my ear lobe really had burst and there was puss in my hair.