The Kulu Onya Challenge

“You love me, right?”

“Of course I do.”

“And you would do anything for me?”

“Anything.”

“Then don’t be scared,” said Rebecca. She flashed a warm smile towards Davey. Instantly Davey felt himself turn gooey on the inside. His reservations suddenly evaporating. He lifted the thirty inch bolt cutter up and wrapped the tools mouth around the thick, metallic chain. With a grunt he used all the force that his two hundred pound muscular frame could muster to snap the chain. 

Rebecca squealed in delight. “Yay! Hurry get the gate open before someone comes.”

“That’s the problem with this,” said Davey, his apprehension suddenly reappearing. He huffed and rested the set of bolt cutters against a brick wall. Then his eyes nervously scanned the darkened road behind them. It was 4am and for now the streets of Taos were deserted, but they wouldn’t be for long. “This is illegal Becs.”

Rebecca waved a dismissive hand. “I have to do this. I…I just can’t keep working at some crappy diner for the rest of my life.”

“You don’t have to. Things are going real good at my job. I know I don’t make much now, but Larry says I’m a good worker and sharp. Sometimes he leaves me in charge of the warehouse floor. And…and I’m good at it. I can feel a promotion coming. And y’know, if I do good at that then maybe they’ll be another promotion and then another. Soon, I’ll be running the place. They say our manager makes like ninety k a year. That could be me in like ten years.”

“Davey I’m twenty three.”

“So?”

“So, I don’t have ten years. If I’m going to get a following on Nurv I got to do it now.”

“I don’t think that’s true.”

“Davey it is. I don’t have time like you have time. If I’m going to make it big this is my last hope. The Kulu Onya Challenge is trending now. And the Onya exhibit will only be in Taos for a couple more days. This is my chance. Please, just help me.”

Davey wasn’t familiar with the Kulu Onya Challenge. He thought about looking into it before they came, but Rebecca insisted that it would be better if he didn’t. From what he gathered it seemed harmless enough. It sounded a lot like painting posting. Only now there was a new batch of artist that had mastered walk in paintings. It was said that some artist were now able to create paintings that you could live stream inside of, rather than just taking a few selfies. This Kulu Onya guy was supposedly one of these artist. Only catch was it took a ridiculous amount of money in order to access his paintings. Jokingly he had played around with the idea that he and Rebecca should just break into the exhibit. An idea that overly excited Rebecca. So in a sense this was all his fault. It wouldn’t be fair for him to back out now. Would it?

Davey blew out a large sigh. “Ok let’s just get this over with.” Davey pushed the chain-link fence open just enough for them to squeeze through. 

Rebecca rushed through and jogged straight to the door of the one story warehouse. Davey hung back looking for a rock. He figured they would need something to break open a window. He was shocked when Rebecca was able to open the front door without resistance.

“Ha,” she laughed. “Guess they forgot to lock the door. Hurry up.”

For an instance Davey felt slightly unnerved that the door wasn’t locked. Something about it struck him as deeply odd, but then again maybe that was the reason for the chain-link fence.

By the time Davey reached the door Rebecca had already found the light switch. The warehouse was a modest affair. About half the size of the food storage warehouse that he worked at. The interior was spotlessly clean and empty, save for three painting that proudly stood in the middle of the warehouse floor. Each painting stood about six feet tall and just about four feet wide. The first displayed a sandy beach at sunset. The second was of a quaint town on a rainy night. The last one appeared to be completely black. It wasn’t until Davey got closer and squinted his eyes that he realized the painting was a night time scene of a dark forest.

Rebecca excitedly handed him her phone. “Be my camera man please,” she begged in a cutesy way.

Davey unlocked the phone and tapped on the camera icon, opening up the Nurv@na app. Quickly Davey navigated the interface and started a live stream before he aimed the device at Rebecca.

“Hey guys,” cheerfully said Rebecca with a light wave.

Davey watched the numbers next to the eye icon, which indicated the numbers of viewers, slowly begin to grow. It started with only three, but slowly began increasing.

“Today I got something really special planned for you guys. I’m going to do the Kulu Onya Challenge.” Rebecca paused to excitedly clap her hands together and smile.

The viewer numbers started to tick up to a little under thirty. Meanwhile the comments started coming through.

‘Ur hot’

‘Did she say Kulu Onya’

‘Open’

‘No way’

“With me is my boyfriend Davey. You guys can follow him at DAveyluvstr33s. Ok so let’s get to it.”

Davey panned the camera towards the three paintings. Suddenly the viewer numbers exploded. Surging well past a hundred. With the increase in viewers came a flood of new comments.

‘Is this real’

‘That’s them’

‘I burned my noodles’

‘Posting SS to Eedit going to get a lot more people in here for this’

‘Can you touch your elbows’

Rebecca darted off to the first painting and excitedly motioned for Davey to follow. He complied while trying to hold the phone as steady as possible. Rebecca effortless stepped into the painting. Davey took a breath and then followed her in.

The atmosphere within the painting was surreal. The sandy ground felt like rubbery clay under his shoes. The oblong sun radiated warmth as v shaped birds hovered about the vibrantly bright blue sky. A pastel palm tree swayed in the breeze and overly stylized waves crested and broke in a soothing, almost hypnotic, rhythm.

“Isn’t this amazing guys?” asked Rebecca.

Davey watched in amazement as the number of viewers soared. From a hundred to two, to three, to five hundred people. System notifications began spewing in as Rebecca’s follower count began sharply rising. Meanwhile, the comments began rolling past so fast that Davey could barely read them.

‘Beautiful’

‘Link????’

‘OMG’

‘Does he know’

‘I walked my gold fish’

‘Open’

“I heard you can interact with the sand here,” said Rebecca. She stooped down and pulled up a handful of claylike sand. Instantly the sand bubbled and began reforming itself. Rebecca giggled as the sand took on the shape of a gummy bear. “Oh my gosh, Davey. It’s a gummy bear. Remember our first date. You won that huge gummy bear for me at the fair.”

Davey remembered it well. The image of Rebecca gleefully smiling as she tightly hugged the jade green plushy bear flashed through his mind. Suddenly he found himself filled with warmth as a smile stretched out across his face.

“See I told you this would be incredible,” said Rebecca before she lightly bumped his arm with an elbow. She tossed the sandy clay bear into the air and it expanded until it was about three feet tall before landing back onto the sand. “C’mon lets go to the next one.”

By the time they had stepped into the second painting their viewers had sky rocketed. There were now half a million people watching the live stream. Rebecca’s system notifications were struggling to keep up with the rapid increase of new followers. Davey estimated that at least a hundred thousand people had started following Rebecca since the live stream had started. An unbelievable number. This was actually working. The comment section was almost a blur at this point.

‘So crazy’

‘Fire Af’

‘Bro doesn’t know’

‘Gummy, gummy, gummy, yummy, yummy’

‘Can’t wait’

‘Show’

‘Popcorn ready’

Davey was so consumed by what was happening on the screen that he barely even noticed the environment of the painting they were walking through. That was until Rebecca’s playful giggle caught his attention.

She was kicking water out of a puddle. White lines of rain poured down from the swirling navy blue clouds and exploded on her slender frame. Behind her was a simple looking, oily brown house. With an overly simplistic orange fire that could be seen inside of one of the windows. The cartoonish flames cast just enough light to bathe the right side of Rebecca in a fiery glow.

“Remember when we walked home together in the rain after Claire’s party?” asked Rebecca.

Davey did. The sound of Rebecca’s joyous laughter suddenly rang through his mind. “I do, but I really remember what we did once we got home.”

Rebecca chuckled and blushed. “Oh don’t be bad. I can’t get banned now. We just got one more painting left. Let’s hurry.”

By now all the fear of their incursion had vanished from Davey. He was utterly enthralled by what was occurring on the screen in front of him. Gifs of fireworks went bonanza as the system notification informed him that Rebecca’s follower count had surpassed a million. To his surprise 1.5M was now proudly displayed next to the viewer icon. It had worked. Rebecca was a certified star. This was going to change everything. Maybe he could even quit his job and just focus on helping Rebecca make content. Then his eyes began scanning through the comments.

‘Simp’

‘He’s so stoopid’

‘This is what happens boys when you get too thristy’

‘Me next’

A sickening feely crept into Davey’s gut. He looked away from the screen, but found himself surrounded by pitch blackness. “Becs,” he called out.

“Hand me the phone,” commanded Rebecca. All the cutesy, bubbliness had left her voice. Replaced by an ironclad sternness.

Davey held out the device into the blacken void and soon it was snatched from his hand. The screens light illuminated Rebecca’s face. Her smile was gone. Her face was now a mask of determination.   

“Becs, what’s going on?” as soon as the words left his mouth he felt something wrap itself around his wrist. Roughly, his arms were pulled to his sides with such force that it burned his chest. He howled in pain as the sensation of his arms being slowly pulled out of their sockets coursed through him. “Becs!”

Rebecca’s eyes were cold. Her lips moved rapidly as she began chanting, “Oh great Unkulunkulu Wethonya hear me. Accept my sacrifice. Great Unkulunkulu Wethonya bless my page. Make it grow and grow.”

“Becs!” Davey cried out. Something sharp pierced his back. Painfully it penetrated his skin and pierced his lungs.

“Unkulunkulu Wethonya, Unkulunkulu, Unkulunkulu,” Continued chanting Rebecca.

Davey tried to plead, but all that came out was a blood filled gargle.

Rebecca continued her rhythmic chanting until Davey’s gargles halted and she was surrounded by silence. Then she smiled as she flipped the phones camera around to focus on her face. Happiness flooded over her as she saw the viewer count of three million people and the system notified her of her newly acquired two million followers.

“Oh my god guys, thank you so much! You guys don’t know what this means to me.” The screen was filled with positive comments.

‘That was amazing’

‘Ur the bestest’

‘So beautiful’

‘You a queen’

‘Love you forever’

“Oh, thanks you guys. I love you all. That was the Kulu Onya Challenge. Whew, what a rush. I hope you all liked it. And of course, don’t forget to like, comment and follow. Bye!”