SUPERFACE

Ryan was a gamer. Not so much when it came to MMOs or shooters or consoles, but he loved a genre of games known as “Multi-Player Online Battle Arenas”, MOBAS. His favorite among these games was one known as League of Legends.
He had played this League of Legends for several years, getting into it after he watched a trailer for it on Youtube. Since then, he had become not only quite skilled at the game but also quite serious. He invested well over four thousand hours in gameplay time, just barely more time than he had played in Team Fortress 2; another game he once played seriously, and had been apart of half a dozen would-be pro teams.
To these ends he was somewhat well known among the League of Legends community under the handle ThE_FraG_GuY, or just “Frag” for short. He had a budding Youtube channel of his own that he posted various plays and game tips he created, he was nearing in at three thousand subscriptions. On August 14th, 2014, however, Ryan's competitive nature lead to a series of increasing horrors that he never could have fathomed in even the darkest recesses of his psyche.
It was a day like any other. Ryan, sixteen, woke up in his bedroom at his parent's house in Scenelake, Ohio. He had breakfast, checked the League of Legends forums and his Youtube account and then left for school. He drove off in his old white Buick, his mother's old car, but it served him well enough. Class was monotonous as usual, perhaps even more-so than usual, and by the end of the day every fibre of his mind was burning the sit down to a night of League of Legends.
He was especially excited because he had just gotten together with a new group of players, each of them incredibly high ranking in League of Legend's rated matchmaking, and Ryan was felt promise that this new team could push a high ranking. He was eager to see what their team mettle was made out of, and sped home as quick as he could.
Ryan was no stranger to heated moments during a match. Tensions could run high, friends could become enemies and a loss might mean more than a single lost match of an online video game. There was no telling whether or not he and his new teammates would be very compatible, but Ryan was hungry for glory and was excited to see how promising this new team could really be. Throwing down his backpack and coat, he slid to his computer and was happy to find all four of his new teammates online and ready to go.
They jumped into TeamSpeak, made their plans and then queued for a match. At their ranking it could sometimes take a few minutes to find a valid enemy team, and sure enough the queue time was taking several minutes. To pass the time, the new team made small talk.
“So Frag.” one of them, known only to Ryan as MasterEnRon, or “Master”. “You mid, or what?”
Master was speaking of the middle lane, of course. One of the areas of game arena they'd soon be battling in. “Yeah, I'll get mid.” Ryan decided. Normally he played other roles, but middle was fine, and he was willing to compromise if it meant keeping this potential new team together.
Sooner than later they heard the distinctive thunderclap that meant their match was ready. All ten players readied up and they were taken to the character select screen. The team made their picks as their enemy did the same. Ryan chose the champion “Vladimir”, a strong magic character that was ideal for middle lane. His opponent picked the champion “Kog'maw”, a strong character, but not one that you often saw take middle lane anymore.
Ryan laughed over mic. “Is this Kog serious, you guys?” he asked. Another friend, its p_izz_a, or “pizza” chuckled back.
“I think so, man. Good luck.”
Ryan was quite confident in himself, this should be an easy game, not to mention good practice with the middle lane. As the ten players at in front of a loading screen, Ryan and his new friends poked fun at the usernames of their adversaries.
“yunk992” Master laughed out loud.
“SUPERFACE” another one of them pointed out, known to Ryan as Viral, as he read the name of the Kog'maw.
Ryan chuckled. “Looks like it's me against SUPERFACE.” he said, smirking. “Should be a good time.”
Then, Ryan laughed out again. “Look at his spells!” he cried, mentioning the player abilities that SUPERFACE had chosen. He was using the abilities “Heal” and “Ignite”, a rather uncompetitive and often naive choice in spells when it came to the middle lane.
“I'll first blood him and then start ganking.” Ryan assured his teammates as the last player loaded to 100% and the game commenced.
The game got underway and Ryan hurried off to his lane, ready to face his enemy. He found that SUPERFACE arrived to the lane before him. Curious, Ryan clicked his opponent and viewed his item inventory.
“Boots!” Ryan said. “Oh man, who is this bronzie?”
As the game's minions began to spawn, SUPERFACE proved to not be wholly incompetent, but still rather easy. His spells and item choices, on top of the character he was using, provided him without much to offer in terms of staving off Ryan. By the time the game's match clock struck three minutes, Ryan made a risky but decisive “tower dive” against SUPERFACE, scoring “first blood”.
“Nice one, Frag.” came one of several compliments from his team.
Ryan smiled. It was great to kick off with an ego booster like this. Soon enough, SUPERFACE was back and it seemed he was changing up his strategy. He had sold his boot items for a “Doran's Blade”.
SUPERFACE was now playing very aggressively, attacking Ryan whenever he could. His aggressive gameplay only got him slain once again, putting Ryan in an even greater lead. This time, Ryan couldn't help but add insult to injury.
“lmao” he typed in game. “nice job” he mocked.
“GG” his teammate Master added.
SUPERFACE was back, this time three levels lower than Ryan, who was now level six and unlocking his ultimate ability. This time, SUPERFACE died even quicker and Ryan pointed out the failure once again. Cemented in the lead, Ryan began ganking his team's lanes and by the time twentyfive minutes had passed, the enemy surrendered. The enemy team, through the entire match, was throwing their own insults and responses in turn to Ryan and his team's, but SUPERFACE himself, the one who did the worst, said not a single thing.
“Good game.” Ryan traded congratulations with his new friends. Pumped and ready for another match, they all prepared to queue once again.
“Oh, wait. Hold on.” Viral suddenly said. “My step father needs help posting a video he made to Youtube.”
“Haha.” Master laughed. “Does he still play World of Warcraft?”
Either way, they were stuck waiting for a few moments on their teammate. Ryan passed the minutes by looking over some of his account setups, when suddenly, he realized he had a message waiting for him. In League of Legends, players may send private instant messages to one another, but only once they've been added onto one another's friend lists. As Ryan spied the flashing message alert, he thought nothing of it... until he saw the name.
SUPERFACE.
This was strange, as Ryan had not added the user to his friend list. Curious, he clicked the message alert and opened the chatbox.
SUPERFACE (4:32): Hi Ryan.
Ryan's heart stumbled for a moment. His brows ruffled. He checked the name again; who was this? Was it one of his other friends? He had a few that knew him by his real name, could it be one of them? Was the game's User Interface simply bugged and displaying the wrong name?
He began looking at his Friend List, when he got another message.
SUPERFACE (4:34): That was a good game.
At this Ryan shook his head. “What the hell?” he asked in TeamSpeak.
“What?” came a reply.
“I got a message from that Kog'maw from last game, even though I didn't add him to my friends.”
“Huh?” another one of them questioned.
“That Kog'maw from last game, you know. I didn't add him, but he's whisper messaging me.”
A few seconds of silence. “Weird.” Master said. “What's he saying?”
“I dunno.” Ryan said. “Just 'good game' and stuff.”
“Yeah it was good because he fed so hard.”
Ryan didn't mention that this SUPERFACE seemed to know his name. Finally, Ryan decided to ask;
ThE_FraG_GuY (4:39): how did u get on my list?
SUPERFACE (4:39): I'm not on your list.
ThE_FraG_GuY (4:40): how did u know my name?? is this that kog?
SUPERFACE (4:40): You shouldn't take games so seriously. I didn't even do anything to you.
ThE_FraG_GuY (4:40): lool dude i dont even kno who ur, how did you get myname?
SUPERFACE (4:41): You spoil the game by taking it so seriously.
At this Ryan was finding himself incredibly uncomfortable. The TeamSpeak was silent and for a moment it was just him, quiet in his room, talking to some stranger that knew his name. He kept reading over the last thing this 'SUPERFACE' had said to him. “You spoil the game by taking it so seriously.”
There was something so strange about it. Nothing in its wording was alarming, but there was an unexplainable air of maliciousness about it that was darkly subtle yet impossible to ignore. How did SUPERFACE message him? How did he know his name? It didn't matter.
Ryan went to his ignore list, typed the name, “SUPERFACE”, closed the chat box and found he was just in time for his teammate to arrive back, ready to go again. Chatter and the preparation for a new game removed his mind mostly from the strange conversation he just faced, and none of his friends brought the strange case up again. Yet still, Ryan couldn't help but feel... vulnerable. Like the walls of his room were watching him, like there might be something under every messy pile of clothes.
He found that despite everything, even as the new game got into full swing, he felt strangely anxious. Like something could be behind him at any moment. He felt a strange pressure on the back of his head, behind his ears, like his mind was begging him to look behind him and make sure everything was okay.
Their next match was much tougher than the first and thankfully, Ryan's mind was eventually taken off the disturbing happening, SUPERFACE largely drifted out of his mind. After 55 grueling minutes, they won their second game of the day. Ryan preformed much worse this time around, racking up a negative kill-death ratio and blundering several times.
Still, a win was a win and Ryan was burning to get into a new match and make up for his underwhelming performance. He and his team joked around as they prepared to queue once again. For once the queue didn't take anytime at all and after only a half a minute, they were loading into yet another character selection.
Ryan was considering which champion to pick when, suddenly, from the bottom his his eyes... a flash of yellow. He glanced down. SUPERFACE.
He about called out in TeamSpeak, but found himself keeping silent. Slowly, he clicked the message alert.
SUPERFACE (5:53): Just apologize, Ryan. That is all I want down here.
Ryan was confused, frightened, but somehow, most of all he was angry. How was he still being messaged? He heard of people hacking the game client before, sending out weird messages to users. Frowning, he typed his reply.
ThE_FraG_GuY (5:54): fuck u
Whoever he was, SUPERFACE did not message him again.
Suddenly, Ryan was aware his friends had been speaking the entire time. Shaking his head clear, he feigned a lie that he suddenly had to go away from keyboard, or AFK. Quickly locking in a character with seconds left before the time counter ran out, he tried to focus himself on the upcoming match.
But focus did not come. He talked and joked with his team and preformed well enough, but the entire time he was caught with a nag, deep inside his skull, pressing against the back of his head. Like a caged animal trying to escape its bonds at the approach of unstoppable, invisible danger. Paranoia choked his brain and every chuckle or call of “good play!” was quickly swept away as his brain reminded himself of the oppressive atmosphere that was once his bedroom.
Thirty minutes later, they lost. It was a good game, though, and Ryan was beginning to forget the eerie, uncomfortable messages he shared with the strange SUPERFACE. Still wired to play more, he exited the game to prepare for another match, but as the game closed and returned to the client interface, he was greeted with an error message.
“The League of Legends client has encountered a critical error and must close.”
Annoyance was twinged with an unnerving pang of fear deep inside his stomach. He closed the game client, bid his friends to wait a moment, and relaunched the game. For some brief second he felt that he expected something horrible to happen. Clicking the familiar “L” logo of the League of Legends, waiting as the window outline appeared over his screen, loading its inner contents. A dark, violent beast behind him, breathing terrible heat down the back of his neck, waiting for him to open the game. Waiting for him, waiting.
But the log in screen came up as normal as ever. The soft fingers of fear tickled at the bottom of his brain as he realized he actually felt relief, but he ignored it. He realized his friends had still been chatting in TeamSpeak the entire time, their voices smothered by the tense silence.
“Alright, logging in.” he said, as he quickly typed in his password. He logged in.
For a moment he noticed nothing amiss, until his eyes focused on what he was seeing. Instead of the game client, the interface had loaded onto... a picture. It was a bare, single picture, with none of the other features of the interface present on it. No menu buttons, no sidebar, no banner logo. Even the minimize, maximize and close buttons were gone from the top of the window, it was only a single picture, a photograph, rather.
Ryan stared at it, his jaw hanging down slightly. The photo looked like a face, but it was some kind of statue, it appeared. Its eyes were huge, the largest feature of its stone face. The pupils were appropriately sized for the orbs, forming two black voids that somehow seemed darker than the rest of the blackness in the photo. It was unmoving, a black and white photograph. It looked like some kind of islander tiki face or something, its huge eyes pressing a small, thin nose down over a single soft groove that formed the suggestion of a frowning mouth.
The eyes were not smooth to the face, and deep dark circles rung around the white, setting them out in their hollow sockets. The stone skin above its eyes was pulled up in waving lines, as if the face was not meant to have eyes so large, as if its flesh and skull were being stretched backwards. Clenched in the vice of a fist and pulled forcefully back, giving its enlarged eyes room to expand. The longer Ryan stared at the strange photo, the more he thought that the dull, colorless stone looked more like true flesh, frozen in a visage that he began to recognize as pain.
He was aware his friends were still chatting, their voices sounding through his headset, buzzing in his ear. But he heard nothing as he sat, transfixed on the awful face on his screen.
Rational thought tried to worm into his mind. Perhaps this was some kind of promotional thing for a new character? Maybe the game was bugged? Maybe hackers truly were attacking the game? Suddenly, popping up from the darkness, the bottom bar of the interface appeared. There was a flashing message alert upon it. Ryan looked at it, and his chest contorted in silent gasp.
SUPERFACE
Ryan fought against the urge to click it. Like opening a door you knew some unimaginable terror sat behind but were helpless from stopping yourself from peering into. He fought as his hand guided his mouse to the flashing message alert. He fought even as his finger clicked it.
SUPERFACE (6:11): I told you to apologize.
SUPERFACE (6:11): But you didn't, you piece of shit.
What disturbed Ryan the most was that “SUPERFACE” was now speaking aggressively. Before, there was a feeling of calculated calmness, now, it seemed like whoever SUPERFACE was, he had grown angry. Ryan had been called names such as a “piece of shit” before, it came with the territory of online gaming. He had even been called much worse many times before. But never had it seemed to feel so significant... so threatening.
Ryan closed the chat box and with it, the bottom of the interface disappeared as well, leaving once more only the strange photograph. His friends were now asking for him in TeamSpeak, wondering where he had went and what was taking so long. Ryan tried to open up task manager to close down the bugged game client, but task manager reported no open client. He tried closing it from the Taskbar, but found the League of Legends icon frozen and unable to be interacted with. The picture staring at him, its massive eyes seeing through the screen, in a pace that was both slow and nervously frantic, he held down his computer's power button until he heard the dying sigh of his machine turning off, the face on his monitor blinking into merciful darkness.
He sat there, in his computer chair, afraid to look at the black computer screen, afraid that the eyes would open again and stare at him even though the monitor was off. He was reminded how uncomfortable his room felt, and without turning his computer back on, he rose from his chair and left.
It was still rather early in the evening, it was only turning 6:40 when Ryan decided to help his mother with dinner. After eating, he forced himself to sit down and watch television, something he rarely did. The feeling of being under threat was kept locked deep in the bowels of his mind and yet still felt hot and overwhelming. He blindly channel surfed through various shows and movies, giving programs and commercials equal attention as his mind troubled over the emotional soup of feelings he was caught in.
That night, he found himself sleeping the the light on. It made him feel like a child again, but the light was somehow comforting. Like a second blanket that exposed the world rather than hide it. Even still, he eventually had to get up, walk to his computer and turn the monitor around to face the wall. The thought of the eyes peeling open in the night and watching him was too much.
The next day he skipped his morning routine of checking news on the computer and simply went through the morning duty of preparing for school. A full day of classes almost took his mind completely off the strange encounter he had the other day, and in the safety of numbers and social activity, he began rationalizing the problem once again. It was a hacker or something, that was all. Playing some kind of lame prank, like in the creepypastas you read about on the internet.
As he sat silently in a study hall towards the end of the day, his home, bedroom and computer waiting for him, he found himself sickly anxious once again. He tried to put his mind on thinking about playing League of Legends once he got home, but it brought no comfort.
As he pulled into his driveway that night, he found his mother's car gone. Panic seized him and he recalled that tonight she would be away, off to an overnight business trip. He turned the key and killed the motor of his car. He would be home alone through the night.
He steeled himself, remembering how it was all just a hacker. He got out of his car and went inside, finding an empty, quiet home waiting. The first thing he felt compelled to do was turn on all the lights in the house. He didn't know why, but it felt comforting somehow. After milling about for a couple of hours, trying to watch some television again or fixing something to eat in the kitchen, he entered his bedroom. The monitor was still turned towards the wall where he left it. Slowly, he approached.
Walking to several feet to the computer desk was like walking through thick, cold putty. His heart dared to beat faster and louder the closer he approached. He slowly turned the monitor around, he felt a wet bead of sweat form on the back of his neck as he turned it... turned it... and found nothing. The screen was still black, still dead. Calming down, he breathed a sigh and tried to regain control of his throbbing chest.
Sitting down, he turned the computer on. He felt a new wave of anxiety, but as the computer booted up and he brought himself to his desktop, nothing was amiss. Immediately, before he did anything else, he went to his Firefox browser and went directly to the League of Legends website.
If anyone was hacking the game client, the forums would be abuzz with information, news and gossip. He could put his embarrassing fear to rest. It would be easy, he knew. Just go to the forums and read all about how everyone is being hacked and bothered by some weirdo who is putting faces on their screen. Then he could go back to playing League of Legends and everything would be fine.
He spent fifteen minutes digging through forums, threads and official news posts. Nothing. He went to Reddit and browsed the most recent discussions in the League of Legends reddit. Nothing. Google wouldn't let him down. Going to the Google homepage he hastily typed “league of legends hacker 7/14/2004”.
Nothing.
Perplexed and worried anew, he went to the forum and decided to start the conversation himself. Going to the General Chat forum he quickly made a thread.
''Wierd Hacker on League??''
''last night im playing a game and there's this guy named SUPERFACE on the other team when we beat him he somhow gets on my friend list and is messaging me then he makes my game crash and puts some weird picture on my screen? anyone else seen this''
He waited a few minutes before refreshing, expecting some comments. His thread certainly received attention, but none of it was what he was looking for. Several people accused him of trolling, others insulted his typing and others still informed him it was against the site's Terms of Service to directly name other players on the forum. He began arguing with some of them, pleading his case, though never did he mention how this “SUPERFACE” had known and used his real name.
Eventually, two or three pages into the debacle, a moderator closed and deleted the thread. Now Ryan was just angry. Without missing a beat, he went to the website's player support center and immediately wrote a support ticket detailing his issue. This time, though it was difficult to bring himself to do, he told the website's owners, the Riot Games Staff, how SUPERFACE had known his real name.
It would be days before he ever got a response, he knew, so he resigned himself to going about his internet business. Eventually, he even cautioned to get on League of Legends. Nothing happened out of the ordinary, and though his new team wasn't online, he played half a dozen games by himself.
Before he knew it, it was nearing midnight and he was actually reluctant to get off the game and get some sleep. He had school in the morning, however, and his mother would know if he skipped, so he forced himself to begin shutting the game down. As his cursor moved towards the close button at the top of the menu screen, however, an awful and familiar glimmer caught the bottom of his eye. He didn't want to look at it, he knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't ignore it. Without even thinking, he glanced down.
SUPERFACE
He heart froze. His eyes dripped and his finger was actually shaking. He clicked the flashing message alert.
SUPERFACE (11:49): They won't believe you.
Ryan closed the game down as quick as he could, every second fearing the same face would freeze upon his screen and stare at him once again, but the game shut down like normal and he was left there, sitting in an empty house in the middle of the night.
He knew he needed to shower, but he was too afraid. He kept his door shut and went to sleep.
The next day passed like a blur. In the morning he once again passed up on checking his computer. He simply got ready to attend class, his movements rigid and forced. He sat through another day of school, his mind everywhere at once. Briefly he would escape into the school day, talking with classmates or working on assignments, but always he would be invaded by the thoughts.
They won't believe you.
Finally it came time to go home, and the only thing that prevented him from doing anything other than that was the fact that his mother would be home, and he wouldn't share an empty house like last night. Still, as he pulled into his driveway, he felt slick sweat slide off his clenched palms as he let go of the steering wheel.
His mother made small talk with him like usual, and he panned through it, hauntingly eager to check his computer. It had been less than twenty-four hours since he submitted a ticket, but perhaps...
He went to his bedroom, turned him computer on and checked his e-mail. In a twist of surprise, he had a response already waiting from Riot Games. Clicking on it, he read through.
''Greetings Summoner! I am Game Master Velonx.''
''We have investigated your report concerning a potential hacker and the compromise of your personal information. We treat cases such as this with the maximum amount of care and diligence. After careful and meticulous review of your situation, we have concluded that we possess no record of any issues afflicting your account. Your name is not stored by Riot Games anywhere, and we have found no evidence of any kind of hacker. As it stands, if you have further worries, please direct them to us and we will see what we can do for you.''
The message went on a bit longer with the usual official copy and paste stuff, but Ryan didn't read any of it. He licked his lips and felt his tongue was dry. In one last effort, he Googled “league picture hacks august 2014” but again found nothing.
He sat for awhile, unsure of what he wanted to do next. His heart in his throat, he went to a popular League of Legends site, LoLKing, and did a user search on “SUPERFACE”.
There were no results.
He sat again for a moment. Was SUPERFACE truly a hacker? Was his account caught, banned and destroyed? Maybe he just got bored of hacking and left all together. Ryan felt a strange pain in his head that seemed to swallow itself down into his gut, but he felt oddly hopeful. He launched League of Legends, wondering if he'd catch his new teammates online. He almost choked on his breath.
Instead of bringing up the Log In screen, the game client instead opened to... the face.
It was back, staring at him. The interface became locked again, the face invading the entire window. Its eyes were there, open and wide and disgustingly round and offset from their sockets. Most horrifying of all, though, was the mouth.
Before, the mouth had been only a simple downwards arcing line, like it had been drawn in the sand with a finger. Now however, it was huge and toothy. It was sickly realistic against the stony flesh of the statue. Its lips were dark, giving the impression of deep redness despite the fact they were in black and white. They were full and plump, peeled open to reveal a row of perfect white teeth beneath them.
But the teeth, for as perfect and uniformly white as they were, were sickened with what looked like thick black grime settled between each tooth. Then, most horrifying of all, the photograph began to move.
Not move so much as began to animate, really, as dark thin lines began to seep down from the face's mouth. Starting from the upper lip at first, they soon grew thicker and darker as they trailed down the face's bottom lip to its chin. Then the nose began to seep the dark lines, then the horrible, horrible eyes.
Dark seeping pooled and congealed out of every orifice on the face's empty countenance. Ryan's head was throbbing, his gut wheeling in pain. Then, so awful that it actually made him shout in fear, came the flashing of a message alert at the bottom of the window.
SUPERFACE.
He ran into the bathroom, which was directly across the hall from his bedroom. Slamming the door, he fell over onto the floor. He felt like he was having a heart attack, his mind was spinning from the pain and the pressure on his skull and bowels only seemed to increase with each second. In a panic, he tried sucking in slow, deep breaths, but nothing relieved the pain. The horrible pain on his body.
It felt as if he was going to have diarrhea or something, but somehow he knew the pain was too... different. Too horrifically specific and yet completely unknown. Like a whisper in his ear, he heard words in his head, rattling through just barely audible enough through the pounding pain.
''You ruined the game.''
''They didn't believe you.''
''Come down here with me, now, Ryan.''
He cried out in agony at the use of his name and became aware at a frantic rapping at the bathroom door. Was it his mother? Or was it something else?
He screamed again but this time felt a sticky, sour tasting bubble pop from the back of his throat. Spitting out black tinged saliva, he somehow fought his way to his feet, even though he felt a dizzy force trying to shove him down, as if some macabre gravity had overtaken him.
He looked into the mirror. His skin was white, all the color drained. He looked at his reflection with utter terror, and witnessed a thin, clear red line of blood slowly trickle from his nose. His entire body shaking, the thin trickle soon turned into a thick, solid bar that was joined by several others, these ones trailing out of his eyes, mouth and even, he noticed, his ears.
The pressure on his skull seemed to explode, popping down his body. His scream of agony came out in a strange, painful gurgle as he tripped over backwards, falling into tub, the sensation of feeling the back of his head break open on the hard porcelain a curious thing that, in his last waking moments, as the light of the bathroom bulbs turned red and hazy in his eyes and red darkness soon drank over him, he found himself wondering how much longer it would hurt.
***
The officer was looking over the scene photographs, colored stills taken and developed out on thin, plastic-smooth papers. Before his desk, a case secretary was prattling off some of the information.
“His mother claimed to find the body whole when she finally got into the bathroom.”
The officer scratched his cheek. “What did the body look like when the first responders got on the scene?”
The case secretary gave an uncomfortable sigh and nodded towards the photos. “Exactly that.”
The officer looked back down. Whatever was in that bathtub, it was an awful mess. Filling it like a gross, mushy pudding was a red, goopy mess. There was a single leg of a pair of denim jeans trailing out from it, the rest of the clothing article buried in a mash of what looked like... well, he didn't even know.
There was dark clumps of what seemed to be hair, body hair, and pale white sticks that suggested the very front of a rib cage that poked up out of the red slop that had once been a body.
The officer gave is own sigh. “What about the note?”
The case secretary produced a photocopy of a typed message. The suicide note. “This was found on the victim's computer?”
The case secretary nodded.
“Who commits suicide like this?”
“The body, apparently, seemed to have.... decomposed...” the case secretary began, stumbling over which word he felt he should, or could, use. “...within fifteen minutes. If the mother isn't lying, and the body was in normal when she originally called 9-1-1.”
The officer grimaced. Ten years on the force and the first murder case the tiny town ever had and it was something like this. He set the photograph down.
“How much blood was found in the bedroom?”
The case secretary glanced over a report paper. “Nine distinct spatter marks found across the victim's desk and across the floor leading into the bathroom where the victim died.”
The officer bit the inside of his mouth and looked back down at the photographs. He felt like he was going to be sick.
''The murder case of Ryan Franzen is still ongoing to this day. Somehow, though the Scenelake police department and the representatives of Outtowa County deny any aware involvement, the highly classified police images of the body of Ryan Franzen were somehow leaked onto the internet. They lead to the formation of the popular “Gooey Grampa” internet meme.''