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"I ate his soul".
Four words. Four little words that had Kevin's heart squeezing inside of his chest and him currently sitting in front of his toilet, the acidic taste of bile fresh in his mouth.
He atleast commended himself for keeping his stomach while still dealing with... it. That thing which was part of the main reason he became a paranormal mercenary.
Kevin shook, taking deep breaths, his head against the palm of his hand. The front of his white button up and tie having gotten stained from some of the sick that left his mouth. Kevin's suit jacket layed a bit away from the bathroom door, him fortunately having been able to remove it before stumbling into the room.
He thought back to the past half hour or so, when he first joined the minecraft world. The zombie skin and the username, 'ZrrrXXXXmine'. Kevin let a shaky breath in and out, a small 'fuck' escaping from his mouth.
That entity had to be toying with him. The broken username and skin obviously showing that it thought of what it did to the accounts previous user as a joke.
The previous user...
Zander.
Years old guilt clawed at Kevin at the thought of the poor kid he made fun of. The one who apparently had his fucking soul eaten. Kevin couldn't even say he didn't mean to make fun of him, because in his immature teenage wisdom that's what he did. Atleast he didn't know Zander was dead at the time, not that he would've made the video had he known.
He remembers how excited he was at how easy it would be to get views, at how much he (now regrettably) wanted to essentially bully the kid. He remembers having wanted to add a funny 'prank' in the video, as a way to make Zander squirm if he ended up watching it, giving him anxiety over the torch count. Kevin didn't even really remember why he put focus on some redstone torches.
Wait.
Redstone torches.
There were redstone torches in the area that entity brought him to. Ones that were bringing up an old memory about a video he found on a minecraft gameband he got second hand somewhere.
Kevin shakily got up from the floor, grasping onto the toilet for support. He then stumbled his way down the hall to his computer, where he had been recording the encounter.
He quickly brought up the video, despite any possible danger of the entity being able to cause him harm through it.
"Please", Kevin desperately murmured to himself. "Please let me be wrong".
He quickly clicked to the end of the video, leaning forward to get a better look at the torches.
...
It was hard to see the last letter clearly due to the angle his character had been at but comparing it to the first letter allowed him to make out the word.
'SOS'.
Kevin completely collapsed in his chair, his ears ringing. He knew he recognized it, he remembers what he thought was just someone making a 'way too edgy' spooky video. The memory forcibly played crystal clear in his mind.
The placing of the torches, the text describing the pain he felt, describing how he heard him and his friends bodies collapsing, about how he tried to scream for his mom-.
Kevin couldn't even think about getting up before he turned and produced the rest of the contents of his stomach onto the floor. He barely registered falling out of his chair and landing on his knees as he choked up stomach acid.
The sounds of him choking, sobbing and hyperventilating filled the room as guilt filled his entire body, the old wound hurting as much as last time.
Last time when he found out about Zander's death. Last time when Kevin thought he made someone kill themselves.
Kevin had learned of Zanders supposed cause of death, a lot later in life. Thanks to a friend that had access to old autopsy records he was able to find out that it was thought to be some odd medical condition. That his heart just. Stopped. That he went out peacefully.
So the guilt was eating Kevin as he realized that Zander was tortured as he died, along with his friend. As he realized he made fun of two kids who went through agonizing deaths.
'Well', Kevin contemplated, having moved himself to lay on his desk after finishing dry heaving, tears streaming down his face.
'The only, tiny good thing that came out of that was the fact they never realized they became a joke'.
Because in the end.
Kevin was the joke.