Truth or Dare?

It was seven in the morning and you were sitting perched on your leather couch with an unopened pack of potato chips and coke; an excellent combination. You rubbed your eyes and stretched your arms as you yawned. It was a cold wintry weekday, and you didn't have to worry about the school work. As you didn't have much else to do, you clicked the television open and started browsing through YouTube. You opened the pack of chips and started munching on them. It was all very well until the television screen turned pitch black. You frowned and banged the remote against your palm and attempted to switch it on. You whispered ''There must be a power outage'' under your breath and sighed. As you sipped the coke, your eyes darted towards the television screen...It was not entirely black, there was a white light or perhaps a hole in the middle of the screen? As you furrowed your brows to have a better look, you noticed that there wasn't just light, there was a question,''Truth or dare?'' scribbled in the middle of the screen. The buzzing of flies and the ticking of clock gave you chills. Something was not right and after realising you had seen a movie very similar to this, sprinted towards your room knocking a flower vase aside and told yourself that this wasn't anything other than a dream. The lights in your hallway flickered as you banged your bedroom door shut. Cold sweat was beading your forehead, your shirt was sticking uncomfortably to your back and your eyes were wide with fear. You locked the door and plunged yourself into the depths of your cold bed yanking your blanket at eye level. This was either an extremely disturbing prank or your worst nightmares were coming to life.

A month ago you watched a movie in which a group of friends played a game called 'Truth or Dare?'' and every time someone failed to complete their truth or dare, they died. You laughed at how peculiar that sounded but today, your laughter had evaporated into thin air and was replaced with fright. The slightest disturbance made you jump at least a feet and for the next few days, you became increasingly paranoid, refused meals and didn't shower. Your eyes were bloodshot due to the lack of sleep as you had spent all night staring at the lock, as though hoping it would open on it's own accord. As the days turned into weeks, you finally started realising how absurd this was as it was just a movie. You decided that it might have just been your imagination and that a little fresh air would not do you any harm. After sliding into your comfortable woolly robe, you descended down the staircase and realised how weak you had become. It was as if you had forgotten how to walk. Nevertheless, you unlocked the main entrance with shaky hands and noticed the mailman delivering the letters. You weakly waved at him and he replied by cheerily waving back. You fastened your robe and walked towards the mailbox and as you opened it, you noticed a letter that had been directly addressed to you. You tore it open and what you read, made you stop dead in your tracks. ''Truth or dare?'' had either been scribbled in red ink or blood.

This had started getting on your nerves. It was either a cheap shot at a prank or a mistake. You tore the letter into pieces and went to take a quick shower. As you looked into the mirror, you saw ''Truth or dare?'' written in bold letters with what you were sure was blood. You buried your face in your hands and with the utmost exasperation, whispered ''Dare''. You waited for a few seconds and when there was no movement, climbed into the bathtub and let the warm water gush all over your body and relax your aching muscles. After what seemed like hours, you dried yourself and got out of the shower. The door creaked as you pushed it open and your brother stood in front of you, face to face and with his features distorted, and spoke to you in a deep growling voice, unlike his own and said, ''Tell me the biggest secret you were confided in" You knew this was coming one way or the other, you were also afraid of ignoring the dare and welcoming death with open arms. You sobbed as you whispered ''You were adopted''. At this point, your brother regained his own true self and with a face contorted with rage yelled, ''What?'', stormed out of my bedroom and slammed the door. You shuddered and started crying. Although you knew only one truth or dare was left, you couldn't help but tremble at the thought of what horrors lay ahead of you.

When you woke up the next day, you found out that your brother had moved out because your parents had kept such a huge secret from him. You had got to know about this when you heard them arguing over something and calling him adopted. When they found out that you had overheard them, made you swear not to tell him but in the end, all their efforts were for nothing. You were down a family member and wondered how dirty this game was going to get. Two excruciating days had passed, you had become exceedingly sensitive to sounds and there were dark shadows under your eyes. The only way you could get out of this mess was to pass it on to someone else but you were too noble to do so hence you had decided a long time ago that this pain was your alone. You had later come to regret your decisions. Nevertheless, on a normal day you were walking from school to home, the moment you had imagined that this was over, your best friend came up to you, with her features odd and distorted and asked ''Truth or dare?'', you stammered and accidentally said ''dare''. What came next had actually been extracted out of your nightmares. ''Kill your whole family and then yourself''. You whimpered but an idea had struck me. The same one from the movie...how had you not seen this coming?

You ran to your home, grabbed the camera and started recording ''I'm sorry to bring this onto you...Truth or dare?'' and posted the video on YouTube. The next day, the whole world had been enrolled into the game of truth or dare.