Feeling something off about the Video, I soon scrolled down on the page to read the responses in the comment section and saw that everyone was just writing this off that he had posted similar videos and never done anything.
The man was a fraud; everything was just a bunch of Hype. Scrolling back up and continuing the Video, the man continued to say how he planned to launch missiles at major cities and how he and his terrorist cell would destroy democracy and Eradicate the Western Plague.
The Video ended with a clip of a nuclear bomb going off, and the message "You will all feel my rage" flashed across the screen.
Just as I finished watching, my door creaked loudly as my brother let himself in and sat on my bed; he looked worried.
"Dean, someone can't just do stuff like that, right? Like we have drones that would shoot missiles down before they hit us." He looked freaked out. I was skeptical myself. Was it possible? Could someone like that really have that kind of power that could cripple us as a nation?
"Nah, it's impossible; we have drones and jets fast enough to obliterate anything before it was even 100 miles away from the coast," I said, trying to convince myself and Renton.
"Yea, but what if they don't, our city was on that list; what would we do in that situation." With fear in his eyes, Renton shivered, causing me to shove him by his head and push him off the bed to the ground.
"You are freaking out over nothing. You need to stop watching crap like that; remember the whole alien thing?" Bringing up a dark spot in Renton's past caused his face to get serious quickly.
"Dean, don't even joke about that; you know damn well aliens exist." Bouncing back onto the bed as if he hadn't been on the ground a second before, Renton rebutted.
His instant reaction caused me to shake my head and frown.
"Renton, you still think Bigfoot and Nessie are real, and as we know, honestly, you have a better chance of running into Bigfoot than this guy bombing our country."
He didn't look convinced. "Dean Gigantopithecus was real, and there is absolutely no proof that it's extinct. God, don't you ever pay attention when I tell you this kind of stuff?" While speaking, Renton reached over and placed his index finger over the camera on my computer.
"Also, you should cover the camera with tape as I do. You don't know who could possibly be watching you at any given time." With those words, my brother stormed out of my room, apparently pissed off because I had told him Bigfoot wasn't real.
The whole argument of what is real versus what is impossible has been a debate between my brother and me since childhood. He was a proud advocate for the Loch Ness Monster, Bigfoot, Chupacabra, and the Skunk Ape, but most of all, Aliens.
The Kid was nuts about all that stuff and would harp about it whenever he could. The only thing was that as much as he enjoyed researching and talking about it, he was extremely paranoid about the topic.
When he was younger, if a light flashed by his window, he would come running into my room saying, "THEY'VE FINALLY COME FOR ME. I DON'T WANNA GET PROBED." His paranoia was pretty intense when it came to aliens.
However, this was a bit different. The video this cyber-terrorist had put out may have some validity to it, but I was honestly too tired to care; it was almost 1 am, and I had to be up for a tournament series in 5 hours, so sleep definitely overtook conspiracy theories.
"I'm sure one day I will look back and lump this whole thing in with Renton being a stupid conspiracy theorist," I mumbled as I started my nightly shuffle.
I guess I had said that last bit a little too loud because not even a second later, there were several knocks on the wall my brother and I shared, signaling he had heard me
When I woke up the following day, I had 30-plus text messages and Friendspace notifications and could hear my dad downstairs watching the morning news. The topic everyone was blowing up my phone and the TV with was the terrorist video from last night.
It had gone viral overnight, and when I checked that view count, it had reached over 50 million views. The Comments that this is all a lie from last night were now replaced with Challenges. Internet "Trolls" or instigators were spamming the chat feed with "come at us" messages and "you won't, we dare you."
This is the problem with modern society when it comes to the internet. I had a term for people like that, Keyboard Warriors. They would make fun of people while acting all tough and then try to validate how tough they are, but when it comes to real-life events, they are the ones who would hide and wait for everything to blow over; however, online, they were gods.
No one could harm them, and they could talk all the crap they wanted without worrying about the consequences.
They also were a driving factor in events such as online bullying and cyber slander, one of the leading causes of modern-day suicides. And here they were, challenging someone who may very well take them up on their offer.
While they sit at their keyboards typing 60 words of hate a minute, someone could be plotting their death. This is why I hate the internet so much. Anyone can get on there, act like they know everything, and act like a badass who can't be hurt.
They all think they are invincible; sometimes, I wish I knew how to hack, then I'd teach them a lesson. Maybe I should take a computer class or something at the community college.
While debating that thought silently, my attention was pulled away by a car horn honking downstairs, signaling that my ride to the tournament had arrived.
On the way to the event, all everyone in the Car could talk about was the stupid video.
"I wonder how they would do it, like what kind of projectile weaponry they would use to attack us." My buddy Marco said nonchalantly.
"The question shouldn't be what they will use, but from where will they launch? It's not like they can just waltz into another country and be like, Heyyy, let me shoot off these rockets 'cause I'm awesome!" My other friend Jamie said to Marco, casually taunting him into an argument.
I just punched both of them in the arms since they were sitting on either side of me before finally voicing my opinion.
"I think you're both idiots; nothing will happen. It's just another terror hoax, just like that one hacker group always puts up. No one has that kind of power, and it goes unnoticed. Do you guys even realize that we have 24/7 monitoring of the entire world?"
"If someone 5000 miles away sneezes, we know about it. I HIGHLY doubt anyone with enough firepower to damage us is hiding in a mountain somewhere, waiting to obliterate our entire country with the press of a button. So can we please just let this stupid thing go?" The Car was silent after my outburst.
We rode in silence for the next hour until we got to the venue to play in the tournament, and guess what everyone was talking about?
That's right; it was the stupid video. I had just enough of hearing about this stupid thing, so as a precaution to stop myself from blowing up and starting a fight with everyone there; I put my studio headphones on and drowned out the world with my music.
I watched as multiple people pulled up the video to show their friends; when I had enough of it, I went outside. For the first time in months, I Needed a Cigarette. I don't even smoke, but I needed one.
Back when I was in high school, I used to think it was cool to do, so I would hang out with the other Goth kids and smoke, not thinking it was addictive. After I graduated, I never picked up another one; there was no reason to, but right now, I felt the urge for the first time in years.
I had the urge to smoke, and anyone who smokes can tell you what craving I'm talking about. It's like an itching feeling that can only be calmed down by smoking one of those death sticks.
The Venue for the Tournament was a convention center, so it was a bit of a walk to the nearest smoking area. Still, once I was there, I could bum a cig off someone, but I couldn't even enjoy that because everyone outside was ALSO talking about the stupid video.
By now, I had concluded that I must be the only person in the world who didn't believe this whole missile fiasco was possible.