Grimdark by Roxy Radclyffe

The Origin.
An anonymous source::

"I was never much of a music person. Not a total stranger to that world, mind you; I'd heard far too many ramblings from my buddy Ryan about his new favorite obscure Bandcamp artists or whatever for that to truly be the case. And while I did generally enjoy the things he showed me, I just wasn't building that same deep connection with any of it that he clearly had. Certainly not enough to consider it a full hobby. But that all changed recently, for better or for worse.

Ryan would one day come to a realization that his approach to music sharing may have actually been the very reason I wasn't connecting with it as much.
"It's all about the discovery, you know?"
I thought he was onto something (lord knows I'd felt a bit exhausted by him before), but I was curious how exactly he could go about changing that.
"It's simple. I've put together a folder containing some of my most interesting finds in all sorts of different genres—none I've ever showed to you previously—so you can use it as a starting point and make your own choices on where to explore next!"
As he excitedly held up the USB drive he'd apparently been keeping in his pocket all this time, I remained somewhat skeptical, but intrigued nonetheless. I agreed to take it and at least give the files a glance, then report back later with my results. No harm there, I figured.

My first few days browsing this shockingly dense folder (I can only imagine how massive the complete collection must be..) went surprisingly well, all things considered. I took a particular liking to the "Animal Collective" records in there, which Ryan was very happy to hear, and I was really beginning to understand the appeal of this whole thing in general.

After making it to the alphabetical "G" directory, though, I noticed something unusual. An album with no particular artist or genre attached, simply titled "Grimdark", whatever that's supposed to mean. Ryan was otherwise constantly hellbent on keeping everything here as detailed & organized as possible, so I had to wonder what made this the one exception. A simple error, maybe, but given his obsessive nature, it was very unlike him to just let something slip through the cracks like that. Seeing as we happened to be talking over the phone already, I casually brought up the discrepancy & teased him about it just to see what he had to say. To my shock, he seemed to have no idea what I was talking about.
"Yeah yeah, very funny. If I really left something incomplete in there, I think I'd be able to at least recognize the name. Like, "Grimdark"? Really? Isn't that just the stuff bored teenagers wrote to project their angst onto whatever fandom they were part of at the time?"
I clarified that I wasn't joking, yet he swore again there was never an album called "Grimdark" anywhere in his collection. At this point I began to wonder if he was playing a counter-prank on me; maybe he still hadn't gotten over that damn screamer link. But to confirm this wasn't the case, Ryan turned on his camera and showed himself navigating to his own copy of the directory. Sure enough, no such album could be seen, and I could tell his patience for my disbelief was dwindling.

From here, all sorts of possibilities were racing through my head; was the USB drive tampered with somehow? It'd never left my sight this whole time, though, and I've got a damn good security system that'd let me know if it had been an intruder in the night. I hated to go the route of the "haunted" cliche, but.. I'd be lying if I said that hadn't also crossed my mind. In any case, I needed to just bite the bullet and see what the hell is inside this folder anyway.

16 tracks. 54 minutes. And an album cover that scared the everloving shit out of me. Ryan honestly thought I was just putting on a show when he heard me yelp.
Two shadowy beasts, side by side, their forms largely incomprehensible beyond the facial region, with such terrifyingly realistic eyes & maniacally grinning teeth that I could've sworn I saw bits of movement as soon as I looked away. For just a moment, their "heads" seemed to pulsate like flesh, their eyes seemed to rapidly blink independently of each other, and their "hands" in the background seemed to grow closer, as if ready to reach right out of the screen and do god knows what to me.

For the sake of my sanity, I held off on analyzing the image any further for the time being, and instead looked to the "description.txt" file for any potential answers. It read as follows:

"lp6

Escapism Trilogy II

A return to the former worst we'd heard
When these fads here were all we had to fear"

Jesus, there's six of these things? And Grimdark is just one part of an entire *trilogy*? I could hardly decide if I was better or worse off not having access to the rest.

I took a moment to regain my senses, and said goodbye to Ryan for the night so he wouldn't have to witness any more of this nonsense. Don't wanna embarrass myself even more than I already have.
Having now braced myself in advance, I then ended up just.. staring at the cover art again for a bit, as if it had been calling out for me and I needed to appease it. And with my head sufficiently cleared, it was soon able to hit me that.. oh my god.

Is that my fucking bedroom in the background?

No, seriously. It's hard to explain why, as to the average onlooker I'm sure it'd look incredibly generic, but to me it was unmistakable. I've lived in the damn place all this time, I think I'd know. But just to be sure, I uploaded the cover to a reverse image search engine. Zero results. Whoever (or *whatever*) stitched this artwork together was clearly aiming for me specifically, which was an utterly bone-chilling thought, to put it mildly.

I had to once again consider if this was just a *really* elaborate prank on Ryan's part, given that he has visited here in the past, but it'd been long enough since the last time that he would've had to plan this absurdly far in advance, and I think I would've caught him capturing such a wide shot of my room anyway. Not to mention, it wasn't really in his nature to pull a stunt of this scale to begin with; he may have a lot of time on his hands, but that time is obviously spent elsewhere, and a ruse like this would be absolutely disproportionate in our petty little prank wars.

So, we're back at square one. If this really is the work of some unknown force wanting to reach me in particular, and they've got access to pictures of my bedroom for some godforsaken reason, I suppose I might as well hear whatever the hell it is they want me to hear.

After pressing play on the album, I was immediately taken aback by the particular way it was coming out of my speakers. I certainly know what they normally sound like, and this was not that. The best way I can describe it is like reaching deeper into my consciousness, and somehow following me around as if I were wearing headphones. The music itself, meanwhile, was already unnerving, with its ominous chants bringing to mind the clickbait-y horror videos I watched on YouTube when I was younger, and overall oppressive atmosphere. Later in this first track, I heard what I assume to be some kid getting jumpscared by one of these videos gone awry, followed by a separate disembodied voice taunting him, which I definitely found funny, though something about it still felt a little.. wrong?

The rest of the album, similarly off-putting with some sounds I can't even begin to describe, covers a variety of other topics loosely in the realm of 'internet horror', with a few oddly specific things relating to my own experiences sprinkled in, as if to remind me exactly who's in control & who's being talked to here.

When all was said and done, I came away from "Grimdark" feeling very mixed emotions. Some relief that it didn't straight-up kill me or anything, sure, but most notably, this inexplicable guilt that just wouldn't stop building. There's a real sense of bitterness I got from the messenger here, toward all these silly sources of fear that once surrounded kids so closely on the web, while simultaneously sort of reveling in it, I guess out of some desire to 'take the power back', and stand proud over the current sea of homogeny.

Before I even had more than a few minutes to think about it, though, a certain suspicion of mine toward the origin & meaning of this thing would seemingly be confirmed by a new file mysteriously placed on my desktop, "thx.txt", containing the following:

"be kinder 2 us :(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:):(:)
the kids over the yrs! given a gift back :):):):):):):):):):):):):):)
we hope u enjoy & think some more :):):):):):):):):):):):):):)

-us @ KarmicRetributionCatalyst
or as u would better know:
██████████████
████████████
███████████████
████████
█████
████████████
██████
███████████
████████
████████████████" [Names blocked out for privacy & to avoid further agitation.]

If I didn't get it before, I sure as hell got it now. Each of these names was like its own little sucker punch of memories, its own distinct incident in which I plotted some scheme to scare one of these kids half to death with a screamer or shock video just because they mildly annoyed me. That's the common denominator here. And the lengths I'd go.. bait-and-switch YouTube uploads, completely unique fake URLs.. hell, even a couple games on 'ROBLOX', if anyone still remembers that. God, the way I'd put in the description that higher volume was "recommended" should've made it so obvious. Shit, that must be what the first track title was alluding to, at least in part. How deep does this damn thing go?

And thus, the mixed feelings continue. I can't deny I'm impressed in a way. These guys got me good, no doubt about it, and it's true that I could get pretty cruel myself back in the day, which I'm not proud of. But goddamn, this is some truly advanced grudge-holding right here. Deranged, even. I should not be having to wonder if my own fucking bedroom is still safe to inhabit. Seriously, how did they pull that off? I'm not just gonna forget about that. Maybe there were indeed supernatural forces involved.. at this point, I'd honestly much prefer that, so I'll just try to go with it.

So why am I sharing my copy of this bizarrely personalized album with the world? Mainly to corroborate my story, I guess, and just in case anyone somehow finds real enjoyment in it regardless of context. I will warn everyone though, if you do happen to notice any strange effects despite your outsider status, I would advise backing out immediately. I've showed it to a few other friends without anything noticeable so far, but stay cautious nonetheless; I don't wanna be indirectly responsible for a bunch of mysterious disappearances or something.

And as for me.. well, life goes on, I suppose. I'm still here (for now, at least), and I'll be making damn sure my remaining time is spent wisely & nicely, because you never know when you'll piss off the wrong people. Stay safe out there, everybody. Adios."

♥ Eternal Reflective Girl ♥

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