.
[A cute boy suddenly arrives with a grim warning.]
.
Tyler is sitting in the backseat of the tax cab, on his cell phone, when the screams start.
The traffic is backed up clear to the horizon, and leaning out the window all he can see are taillights reflecting red onto the pavement, fenders, running pedestrians.
"Hold on, Evan" he muttered distracted and hung up to a distant "Wait, what's going on Tyler?"
Something was up.
Digging through his wallet he pulls out cash and hands it to the driver, then steps outside.
That wasn't light reflecting red on the ground. It was blood.
"Tyler!" A man with dark hair and blue eyes runs past him for a moment, then quickly doubles back to grab his arm. "We've got to go!"
"Who the hell are you?" Tyler shakes his arm free, still trying to see the source of the chaos over the cars.
The man stares at him, blankly. "It's me, Jon. Listen up, we've got to go. Those people up there," he gestures behind him to the still surging throng of people, "something's wrong with them."
"What?" is Tyler's brilliant response.
"They're fucked, man." Jonathan shrugs. "Listen, I don't know how to say it better, they're–"
A figure climbs ontop of a car several feet away from them and bends its head backwards unnaturally until it almost touches the spine, then lets out the most unearthly sound either of them had ever heard.
Blood leaking from it's mouth, hands as it leaps from car to car to land a screaming woman. Still screaming as her throat gets ripped out.
"Fucking zombies," Tyler finishes, eyes wide.
.
.
[The main character is re-imagined as a short-tempered ice cream truck driver.]
.
"Pity about Mini's YouTube career," Brian mutters as they leave the con.
"I know," Brock adds, "I never thought he'd actually quit. I wonder what he's doing now?"
"Uh, guys..?" Evan is several feet ahead and stops, turns, and looks at them both. "I think I can answer that."
"You'll take your motherfucking ice cream and you'll like it, you little brat!" comes from the curb where a small man is leaning out of a truck and throwing bars of chocolate at a group of laughing teenagers.
"Craig?" Brian yells and he runs over, Evan and Brock following close behind. "What the hell are you doing?"
The teenagers leave quickly, as Mini's friends try to help him out of the serving window Craig is half-straddling, having climbed it in his anger.
"I had to make money somehow!," he lets out, exasperated as the leg of his pants catches on a loose screw somewhere and he is left hanging there in Evan's arms, one foot dangling uselessly, the other stuck fast.
Brock climbs inside the truck from the side door while Brian is leaning over the window trying to loosen the pants without ripping the fabric.
"But, ice cream? Really?" Brian mutters, on the tips of his toes.
"Hey," Brock butts in. "It can be a lucrative business in the right environment."
Evan stares at them both. "Its the middle of January, in Boston. Are you both out of your minds?"
He looks down at Craig, held bridal-style in his arms, "If you needed help, you could have just asked, you know? We are your friends. You idiot." And smiles, heartfelt.
Craig just blushes.
.
.
[The villains and the protagonists characters switch roles.]
.
Evan wakes up staring at an unfamiliar ceiling in a room far warmer than it was when he went to sleep.
His clothes are far too loose, the light is too bright and – how is the sun in his window if his room always faced south?
He sits up and rubs his head. "Did I get drunk and –" stops himself, eyes wide. What the hell happened to his voice? It sounds so raspy now. Almost like he had been chain-smoking and .. is that a pack of cigarettes on the night stand beside him?
Evan groans and shakes his head. Maybe it was better off not remembering how he ended up here from last night. (But he clearly remembered going straight to bed after logging off his computer.)
He throws back the covers, well and truly prepared to pay a visit to the bathroom to rinse his face, then get the fuck out of here.
Where did ..? His hands slap to his chest, feeling his abdomens. How did he loose so much muscle in one night?
One hand darts straight down into the foreign underwear, and his eyes go wide.
That wasn't his dick.
From the other end of the house a door slams shut. (And he pulls his hands quickly out of his pants from habit more than anything else.)
"Get your lazy ass out of bed, Jon!" a voice Evan knows well yells, approaching quickly. "It's nearly eleven and you promised my mother you'd hem her dress up before she left and that should have been three hours ago!"
The bedroom door slams open, and Luke is standing on the other side.
Evan starts hyperventilating. His hand grips where his heart should be, and he hunches over, stubble he doesn't have scratching his chest as he struggles to breathe.
"Jon?" Luke is at his side, rubbing his shoulders and speaking a whole lot softer than he'd ever heard him be online.
"Jon what's wrong?" And Luke is pulling him into a tight hug and Evan just can't. He shakes, mouth moving, wordless.
In Canada, Delirious wakes up.
He blinks twice, gets up, pees, and is halfway through his morning shower before he realizes something isn't right.
"Wait a fucking minute," he takes a longer, second look at the mirror.
"Evan? What are you doing in – Oh."
And laughs. Loudly, the sound of complete mental abandonment.
"You've got to be fucking kidding me."
.
.
[All of the characters find themselves living perfectly ordinary lives for some reason.]
.
"I told you, you can't come in without a pass." The guard blocking the back stage of the convention rumbles, for the umpteenth time.
"And I told you," Brian swears, trying to push his way in. "I'm a fucking YouTuber!"
"I don't care what kind of fantasy character you 'think' you are, this area is reserved for authorized personal only, and you ain't authorized." The man pushes back, refusing to budge.
"I .. what?" Brian stops, stunned. "What the hell? Okay," he shakes his head. "Listen. There's supposed to be a meeting here for certain YouTubers here at one, and it's half past two already!"
"I don't know what to tell you," the guard relents. "But the only people back here right now are representatives from Chevron."
Jonathan wakes up, rolls out of bed, and boots up his computer.
In the two point four minutes it takes for his system to fully load, he manages to wake up enough to yawn, and stretch, one arm crossed behind his back as he twists in his chair.
The screen flashes once, and he's good to go.
He pulls up his chair and goes straight to YouTube. Or rather, tries to.
All that comes up is a 404 Page Not Found error, no matter how many times he retypes the address.
"Luke!" Jonathan yells over his shoulder. "What the hell did you do to my computer?"
Luke leans in the room. "I didn't touch your freaking computer. What are you blaming me for now?"
"I can't get on YouTube." The younger man mutters, as he tries the address again.
".. what's a YouTube?" Luke asks from behind him.
Jonathan spins his chair around dramatically slow, fingers still poised in mid-typing motion.
"Excuse me?"