Haunted YouTube Channel

Having just signed into YouTube, I never would have expected to see over a hundred comments crammed into my inbox. I didn't even have a hundred subscribers. Hell, I didn't even have fifty. I hesitated to click on the comments tab, half expecting a screamer to randomly pop up. Shaking my head and telling myself that couldn't happen, I jabbed the left mouse button and rolled my eyes.

A half hour later, I was completely elated. There was the occasional criticizing line of text, but 95% of the writers had said "Tihs was awsome definately make more!" or else engaging paragraphs with many a good thing to say. It was obviously not spam, it was far too realistic.

It took me until I was clicking on the YouTube icon to get back to the homepage to wonder just how quickly I had received all those comments. Looking at my inbox, my answer was pretty much given to me.

I had another few dozen comments glistening there. 58 to be exact. About sixty comments in thirty minutes was about two comments a minute. At the time, (2007) that was the number of comments the likes of Smosh would get. I "definately" made more, and got more of the same.

Comments, subscribers, friends, views. They all bounded to me. I quickly became one of the most subscribed YouTubers.

One day, I accidentally clicked on the channel of one of my subscribers. I would have hastened to click the "Previous Page" button, but something stopped me as soon as the entire page came into view. The person was a YouTube Partner apparently. I was pleasantly surprised to find that a partner had actually subscribed to me.

Then I noticed something else. They didn't even have twenty subscribers. I read the number multiple times, dragged the page so that the number was out of view, then dragged it back, and even refreshed the page. Still 19 subscribers. A little wary of this guy's channel, I went back to my own and clicked on subscribers tab. I clicked on a random person to see what their channel was like.

This one was not a partner. They had a little over forty subscribers.

I ended up studying ten or so channels. I found one more partner with an oddly low amount of subscribers. The rest were similar to the second channel I checked originally. However, every channel had something in common.

Under the "Website" section in your information, (where you can tell people about yourself,) they all had the same address. The website looked shady to me, so I decided to save up a couple hundred dollars to buy a cheap laptop. I would check out the website on that, and if it gave me a virus, my actual computer would not be harmed.

I lugged the box with the laptop into my house. It only cost me $210 dollars, as it was the cheapest one that still had internet. I (none too quickly) booted up the machine and went on the internet. I clicked on my channel, then on a random subscriber. Sure enough, they had the same web address that everyone else did. I clicked.

Immediately five word documents downloaded. It was pretty much certain that I had run into a virus. The website itself just looked like a long line of HTML code. There could have been something hidden in all the meaningless text, but I didn't bother to look.

Obviously the word documents were what I was supposed to look at. The first four had one line of text each:

#1: THEstoneRUIN

#2 canBEfoundAT

#3 twoPROSPECTlane

#4 GO

The fifth document was full of pictures. They didn't look like they were off Google Images. They seemed amateur, like they were taken by a random person and put on the computer for a scrapbook or something.

There were too many pictures to count, but upon inspection they all seemed to portray a small stone structure. It looked no taller than seven feet, and no longer than five. I assumed that this must be the "RUIN" described in the first document. If that was the case, it seemed the ruin could be found at "Two Prospect Lane."

My curiosity got the best of me. I looked on Google Earth for the area, and found what seemed to be the exact structure that was in the pictures. What seemed a little eerie to me was the fact that Two Prospect Lane was only a few miles from my house.

I built up my courage and drove to the place. I brought with me a flashlight and a knife. The stone ruin was standing there, just as it was in the pictures. After inspecting it, there was only one entrance, a hole at the very top.

I dropped in, and hit more stone about seven feet below. It was much too dark to see what was around me, so I clicked the flashlight. The small white circle helped, but not completely. It still took me a good five minutes to assure myself that the walls had nothing substantial. I aimed the beam of light at the floor. In the very center, exactly seven feet below the entrance to the chamber there was a metal circle. It seemed to be a manhole cover, the kind you see on roads that cover sewers.

I struggled to pull off the metal cover, laid it gently beside the opening it created, and inched my way down the small tube-like tunnel. I had not thought to put my flashlight or knife in my pocket, so I ended up stupidly using one hand and one elbow to hold myself up in the tiny space, moving an inch down every twenty seconds.

Eventually, my knife slipped and almost took off my the hand I carried it and my flashlight in. I ended up dropping both objects. I instinctively moved my arm as far away from them as I could. The knife and flashlight hurtled to the earth. Having taken my elbow off the stone, I fell along with my possessions. I made wild movements trying to reclaim my relatively safe position, but ended up hitting my head on the stone.

I was in so much pain by then I had no hope of grabbing the wall. I simply fell like a boulder toward whatever was at the bottom of the structure.

I don't remember hitting the ground, but I know I laid on an earthy bed at the bottom of the huge drop for a long time. I could feel nothing other than my head and back. My limbs and neck must have been broken beyond repair. I had one ray of hope. I laid right below the hole that led me down to that Hell. If anyone looked down, they would see me.

That only remained a bright side for a few hours. Eventually a small child peered down the entrance. They must have been confused as to why the manhole cover was off. Then they saw me. They looked at me wide eyed for a fraction of a second, as I tried to say something. No sound came out. Then they screamed and left me there.

Soon every kid on the block was there. they obviously thought I was a zombie or something. They looked scared but somewhat amazed. Eventually they all decided to leave me alone. By then I realized something that made me want more than anything for the manhole cover to be back where it was.

Water won't evaporate down here. If I don't die of pain, dehydration, or starvation, the rain water will drown me.