User:Nathan1123/A Crimmass Carol - Chapter 2

After what felt like an eternity, consciousness finally seized Crim’s head, forcing him awake instantly. Immediately aware of what had just transpired, Crim snapped to attention in the space of a second, and breathed heavily at the foot of his bed. Even though his bedroom was still dark, and his bedclothes undisturbed, Crim couldn’t help but race in his thoughts about the events earlier that evening. “W-was it all just a dream?” he thought to himself.

At first, it seemed the more he thought about it, the more confusing it appeared. If only he could find some test, some litmus to verify if it was all just in his head or not. Finally, a light bulb went off in his head, regarding the words of Nuke’s ghost: “expect the first spirit when the bell tolls one”.

Leaping out of his bed, Crim reopened his Asus, and frantically logged in to check the time. In a moment, Crim felt more relief than the banning of Ms, as he saw the time read on the clock:

1:36 AM.

Crim sat back in his chair, breathing a slight laugh. The dream felt so vivid, so real, and yet… it must have been a dream. What else could it have been? “such a stupid thing to say,” Crim thought to himself, “I don’t, nor ever had an analog clock. What was I thinking?” He glanced upward, crossing his arms as he amused himself with more skepticism: “What was in that Natty Bo?”

Suddenly, the calm sea of serenity in Crim’s mind was interrupted by a sudden storm of reality. The Discord app opened of its own volition, and immediately rang with the standard sound of a private message: a bell. Stunned, and suspending his breath in an inhale, Crim slowly leaned forward to inspect the notification, hands shaking. There, just adjacent to the icon of a bell on the upper-left hand corner of the app, was a single “1” encircled in red. And so, Crim was once again reminded of Nuke’s ominous words: “expect the first spirit when the bell tolls 1”.

Swallowing, Crim steadily opened the PM thread. The entity in the computer this time gave off an immediate adolescent tone. The avatar was a cartoonish character of ambiguous gender, depicted in a heavily mo anime style. Colored in shades of pink, it was holding an over-sized hourglass while giving a sultry wink. The message left to catch his attention was filled with heart emotes, along with Moldavian and He-Man memes. At the same time, however, the entity gave off an aura of great age. It typed in a Helvetica font, and Crim could almost hear faint dial-up sounds in the background.

CrimsonAssassin: “What the hell have I gotten myself into?”

Past: “Ah, there you are! Finally, we can have some fun” (this was immediately followed by an emote of a stick figure dabbing)

CrimsonAssassin: (eyes rolling) “I don’t have any time to waste on cat fishing”

Past: “Catfish? Geez, you’re funny!” (three laugh-cry emotes followed)

CrimsonAssassin: “You realize I have the FBI on speed-dial”

At that moment, Crim realized this new visitor wasn’t the strangest thing going on. Just like with Nuke’s ghost, all other channels on discord were locked out, as if there was a server outage. In fact, the whole appearance of the computer, including the Desktop style and even the OS, was slightly shifting from one to another.

CrimsonAssassin: “Are the ‘spirit’ that Nuke told me about?”

Past: “Yup, yup, yup!”

CrimsonAssassin: “Who – what are you? And why do you use dead memes?”

Past: “I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past, silly bean.”

CrimsonAssassin: “The distant past? Cause idk if you are aware, but I happen to be an expert in history.”

Past: “No, dummy. *your* past.”

Crim felt increasingly creeped out by this:

CrimsonAssassin: “Wh- me? What do you want with me?”

Past: “To make you well, of course. Gee do you know anything?”

CrimsonAssassin: “I am in fairly good health already.. plus or minus some social alcohol.”

Past: “Hmm… let’s call it your restoration, then. Come on! No more Lolly-gaging!”

Before Crim could answer, the PM thread closed, and a popup window displayed progress of the spirit uploading itself to a different system.

CrimsonAssassin: “Wait! I’m a human being. I can’t go in the computer.”

Past: “Well, just click right here.”

Another window, or rather some sort of hole appeared in the screen, with a sea whiteness behind it. As Crim moved his cursor into the circle, it changed to a more primitive resolution. With his suspicion overcome by curiosity, Crim clicked, and immediately the hole expanded to cover the whole screen. In its place was a the layout of a Windows Vista, the active window being a browser applet from the althistory.wiki.com. The wiki itself was also open, although very different than the way he saw that afternoon. There were no ads, and the design of its styling sheets was a much more basic, default arrangement. Crim’s eyes were widened in shock as he typed in the chat box.

CrimsonAssassin: “My God, this is the old wiki format. I was practically raised here!”

As his fingers graced the keyboard, each HTML element was connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten! The spirit was also there, with its same avatar, its words responding like a gentle caress:

Past: “Your fingers are trembling. And is that a tear I see?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Huh? Oh, it’s… just a scar. What do you need me here for, anyway?”

Past: “Perhaps you can show me around the place. It looks like a very cozy little site you have here, hehe. Do you remember your way around?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Remember? Ha! I could navigate it blindfolded.”

Past: “Funny how it was forgotten all these years. Let’s look around!”

A few clicks around, and Crim could recognize every widget, every style, every post; there was an announcement of upcoming new additions to the list of featured timelines; a generic map game was active, claiming to be on the brink of nuclear war. A cadre of young users, apparently invested in this roll play, entered the chat to begin routine diplomacies. They were all in great spirits, sarcastically talking down each other’s empires, while playing loose with plausibility of either one. Occasionally, someone would post a YouTube link for some music, which in reality would be a music video from Rick Astley. Crim, from the sake of sheer nostalgia, was going to respond, when the spirit interrupted.

Past: “These are but shadows of things that have already been. They have no awareness of us.”

More users entered the chat, and Crim knew the names of every one of them, friends long forgotten. Oh, why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other “Merry Christmas” as they parted in and out of the chat! What was Merry Christmas to Crim? Out with Merry Christmas! What good had it ever done to him? At last, the chat was empty, after the last wikian, an unconfirmed user later named Monster Pumpkin, eagerly logged off to enjoy Christmas dinner with his family.

Past: “The wiki is not quite deserted. A solitary user, neglected by the mods, is still active.”

CrimsonAssassin: “I think I know who you are talking about” (and he managed to reconstitute the chat’s old crying emote)

Crim opened up the wiki activity page. The list was filled, from top to bottom, with the constant edits of a single user, hard at work at a single timeline. Selecting the link to the timeline, Crim once again was close to welling up with emotion. It was his first timeline. Refreshing the page every few moments, he could see how this one, lonely user was busy as a bee, unaware of the world changing around him: Crim’s former self. As Crim looked on, he saw as the characters of the alternate history lift out from the page and come to life: There’s Alexander on his horse, riding over the Hydapses River! And there goes John Calvin to preach the Gospel in America! And Tamerlane, in old age, sits in Samarkand surrounded by the luxuries of Asia. Da Vinci sores over the streets of Florence in his first airplane, can’t you see him? When no other human of this Earth would give this user the time of day, these characters alternate Earths would always be there for him: a time when studying history for a timeline was fun, not a competition.

Then, without warning all those visions disappeared, and Crim was faced with the static web page once again. He once more started to cry.

CrimsonAssassin: “I wish...”

CrimsonAssassin: “nvm. It’s too late now”

Past: “What is it? You can tell me, hon”

CrimsonAssassin: “Nothing.”

CrimsonAssassin: “It’s just… there was a user who was spaming my PM with Christmas Carols earlier today. I just… wish I could have given him something back. That’s all”

Past: “Awe, that’s sweet. Come, let’s see another Christmas!”

As soon as these words were entered, the entire computer shifted. Now the system was a Windows 7, and generations of updates across Firefox went by in a flash. The wiki itself also changed: ads grew larger and more invasive, and the style sheets shifted to a more serious, professional tone. Features also appeared in the chat window for chathacks and other widgets. Crim’s former self was not actively writing now, but brooding in the wiki chat, alone aside from the spirits of Crim and the Spirit of Christmas History. Suddenly, a new user entered the chat, whose name brought a light to younger Crim’s heart, but filled his older self with dread:

NonEuclidean: “Hey there, Mr workaholic! Don’t you think it’s time to head home?”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Home, Non?”

NonEuclidean: “Yes, home! LOL You know, some of the mods and I have been working out a whole shenanigan to get together IRL sometime over the holidays. We were going to get a whole potluck together, games and even binge watching Firefly!”

NonEuclidean: “Dad won’t be around this weekend, so I’ll be able to whip up some of my special casserole ;) Oh come on, it’ll be fun!”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Haha you are quite a person, Non. Of course I’ll be there :)”

Non threw out final grinning and hugging emojis, before both of them departed chat with great haste.

Past: “Always such a delicate person. But she had a great heart.”

CrimsonAssassin: “So she did. She had such spirit to move mountains.”

Past: “She died before too long, didn’t she? But not before recruiting some new members to the wiki.”

CrimsonAssassin: “One user, that is.”

Past: “Ah, true.”

Past: “Wait, now I remember, that was MP!”

By now, Crim was visibly disturbed by these visions, evident by the brevity of his answers.

CrimsonAssassin: “Yes.”

In a moment the screen shifted once again. The browser changed from Firefox to Chrome, and the format of wikia changed from professionalism to more familiar, bright colors meant to be user friendly, now known as the “classic view”. The spirit once again stopped by at the chat, where already a large congregation of familiar users were present:

Past: “Do you remember this era?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Remember? How could I forget. This was the time I was Constable.”

Of all the users around, the most boisterous and zany was one with a lizard-crossing road sign as avatar. As Crim fixed his eyes on him, the wave of nostalgia momentarily made him forget that these were but shadows.

CrimsonAssassin: “Wait… is that Commandant Lemming? Good lord, he’s alive again!”

Lemming was filling the chat with his usual sly, incomparable wit. A master of making everyone feel welcomed on the wiki, while still keeping the air light-hearted, he was taking the role of de-facto leadership among the newer members of the wiki.

Commadant Lemming: “Yo, Crim! Fed! what’s up guys?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Fedelede, no doubt!”

Fedelede: “Hey Lemming, good to see ya”

CrimsonAssassin: “Yup, there he is. He was always in the habit of PMing me, that Fed.”

CrimsonAssassin: “...poor Fed.”

Commadant Lemming: “Hey Crim and Fed, what are you couch potatoes doing sitting around? If we’re spending the holidays around the wiki, it’s high time we make the place a lit festival, and I do mean LIT.”

Commadant Lemming: “Crim, you handle the wiki format. Fed, you help me get the word out.”

Crim on-looked with increasing excitement as his former self worked his magic on the wiki’s format. In more recent times, Crim had rarely updated the wiki’s format, finding too much a chore and distracted him from his timelines. But somehow, in this moment the bottomless joy from Lemming combined with the festive atmosphere made this reformatting not a chore at all, but a pleasure. Within a very short time, the front page was retouched in bright red and green, with animations of snow filling the window and the logo changed to house a winter cap. Without being a functionally different site, all of a sudden the wiki felt more snug and warm, somehow more inviting than the way Crim would know it later.

Commadant Lemming: “Ho ho! Now we’re getting somewhere! Thanks Crim.”

Commadant Lemming: “Now we just need some music ;^) ”

As if summoned, PitaKang entered chat at that moment, offering his help to reconfigure some reconfigure some appropriate music to the wiki. Faster than one could say “Timeline 191”, the wiki and chat both felt like winter wonderland. Users poured into the wiki chat to offer their part of the holidays: ImperiumGuy, Scandinator, Sine dei Glorium, Seiga Miyako, and more. Everyone in high spirits, and everyone feeling equally blessed. Timelines explored, politics debated, memes shared, music enjoyed, and a host of other revelries of which there seemed to be no end. At long last, just when that seemed to be the extent of the fun, further users joined the party: LordGanon, Mitro, and even more. Throughout all of this, both Crim’s heart and soul was also in the scene, watching his former self have such a good time. He corroborated everything to the Spirit, remembered everything, and enjoyed everything. In fact, it wasn’t until Fedelede ignored his messages that he remembered these were only shadows, and reality dawned back on him.

Past: “I guess it’s really easy to make these silly people happy lol”

CrimsonAssassin: “Easy?! What do you mean.”

Past: “Just look around, how all Lemming did was change a few lines of code on a website, put up some non royalty-fee music, and everyone is like a mischief of mice in a cheese store LOL.”

CrimsonAssassin: “No, it’s not that at all. Lemming always had affect on people, that power to make us smile or cry, not out of some charisma or rhetoric, but just the kindness and generosity of his words. Idk, it’s not something that can ever be quantified, I guess.”

The spirit then posted a meme, being a stock image of an owl saying “O, RLY?”

CrimsonAssassin: “...”

Past: “What is it?”

CrimsonAssassin: “Nothing particular.”

Past: “Nothing has a funny habit of actually being something.”

CrimsonAssassin: “Not really. I just… wish I could say something to my Constable again, that’s all.”

At last, the party was coming to an end. Lemming made particular effort to wish pleasant holidays to each and every user as the left, and Crim’s old self easily returned the wiki’s format to its default.

Past: “Oh, my! Where has the time gone. We have to go” (followed by Korean emoticons, shaped as a face in shock)

The instant affect of these words caused a metamorphosis of the screen again. The ads of the wiki were mostly gone now, not that monetization on wikia had diminished, but rather updates from Chrome were able to bloc such digital capitalism more effectively. The only ads that remained were recommended links to other wikis, now much prevalent as wikia is self-identified as a “Fandom”. Crim’s former self was now older, more matured, and bearing the symbols on his avatar that marked him as a full administrator. The increased responsibility was paired with a relentless push for professionalism and and efficiency, still as productive as in earlier times, but now with most of the former passion drained from him.

He was not alone on the chat, but a single other user was present, being a recently-demoted constable:

UpvoteAnthology: “It doesn’t matter. I’m sure you don’t care.”

UpvoteAnthology: “I’ve already been replaced with some other idol; and if it works better for you than I ever did, then I guess there’s no reason for me to be sorry.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “What are you talking about? What idol replaced you?”

UpvoteAnthology: “Oh, quite a golden one!”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Come on, Upvote, you aren’t being fair at all. There is nothing worse to the wiki than its trolls, and there is nothing I can do without you people judging me!”

UpvoteAnthology: “You fear trolls way too much. All your other hopes and plans have melted together into some vision of total control. I have seen your nobler dreams fall through one by one, until that task-master, power, eats up what remains.”

UpvoteAnthology: “Am I not right?”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “So what? Even if I have become so successful at keeping the wiki efficient, that doesn’t affect you at all.”

UpvoteAnthology: “Uh, yes it does.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “How??”

UpvoteAnthology: “When I first joined the wiki, it was a community loosely-run, and efficiency was not an end-goal. Sure, we always hoped some day we would achieve some professional recognition like AH.com, but that was a far-off dream.”

UpvoteAnthology: “Since then you *have* changed. It’s like you are a completely different person.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Ugh. I was immature, ok? I was like what, a recent Constable?”

UpvoteAnthology: “Still, you are not the same person now you were then.”

UpvoteAnthology: “I am, however. And the promise, the hope of what the community could become is now vexed by misery under the new admins.”

UpvoteAnthology: “I have thought about leaving the wiki for a while now, I just never brought it up until now. By now, my mind is already made up, and I decided to leave.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Did I ever hint that I wanted you to leave?”

UpvoteAnthology: “No. Never.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Then what did I do?”

UpvoteAnthology: “The whole demeanor of the wiki has changed: the spirit, the atmosphere, the hopes. Everything that I considered worthwhile in a community. If I was a new user now, with my reputation, would you allow me on the wiki? I don’t think so.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Well… idk. Maybe not? I guess you have a point.”

UpvoteAnthology: “I wish I could say I would be. Who knows. Inexperienced or immature people, as I was back when I first joined, are just not welcomed anymore.”

UpvoteAnthology: “At any rate, the decision is already made. I am moving to AH.com, for the hope of retaining the hopes I once had.”

[past] CrimsonAssassin: “Upvote, I...”

UpvoteAnthology: “You may miss me. I hope you do. Probably very, very briefly. But the love of your timelines, your perfectly-efficient wiki, will make you forget all about me. I hope you’re happy with it!”

Before either Crim, his former self, or the Spirit had any time to respond, she was gone from the chat, and Crim was filled with the cold recollection that she would never return again. With a tear running down his cheek, Crim smashed his fist against the desk,

CrimsonAssassin: “Spirit! I’m done. Why do you want to torture me like this?”

Past: “Gee, I’m sorry. Only one more vision! Promise.”

CrimsonAssassin: “No! No more visions, please. Take me back to the Reddit 50/50 challenge, just don’t show me more visions!”

In spite of his protests, the computer changed once more. The wiki was gone entirely, but instead Crim was faced with a completely different website, one that was neither a wiki nor a chatbox: but a forum. Crim recognized the smooth blue and gray styling as the forums of AlternateHistory.com, and he shuttered in the full knowledge of its bitter rivalry to the althistory wiki. In spite of the forum’s usual reputation, all the people participating in this thread were in full of youthful, eager spirits, evidently filled with the spirit of the holidays. The title of the thread, setting the cheerful atmosphere, read as “Christmas Social Thread”.

Crim’s heart sank when he recognized *her*, Upvote, as author of this thread, and she was evidentially hard at work. All the other users on the thread were fresh, inexperienced writers of alternate history, and they crowded around the site like a boisterous multitude. Upvote serenely sat in the middle, and freely distributed her resources and knowledge to each and every one of them, as if she was delivering the Sermon on the Mount. At last, a new user entered the thread, one whose coming Upvote and others had foretold, to everyone’s delight. As this user, who Crim also recognized as a defector from the wiki, eagerly joined in the festive fray, he began distributing Christmas gifts as well, in the form of codes from Steam and other sites. Crim frantically scrolled and refreshed to the end of the thread, seeing their last parting words:

LightningLynx89: “Upvote, I saw an old friend of yours as I was browsing the wiki.”

UpvoteAnthology: “Who?”

LightningLynx89: “Guess” (winking emote)

UpvoteAnthology: “How can I? Hmph, I don’t even know.”

UpvoteAnthology: “Wait… It’s Crim, isn’t it.”

LightningLynx89: “Bingo! Crim it was. Saw by the wiki activity he was stuck up slaving at his timeline again. Couldn’t even be disturbed, or you know, risk the consequences ;). I hear also that Nuke his compatriot is in poor health. By now, it seems old Crim is pretty much alone in this world.”

Crim continued to bang the desk with his fist, until at last he punched in a reply to the thread.

CrimsonAssassin: “Spirit! I know you are in here! Take me out of this place, I can’t stand it anymore!”

Past: “I told you already, these are only shadows of things that have already been. You can’t blame me for this, they already happened!”

CrimsonAssassin: “NO! I’m sick and tired of your games and excuses. Take me back home NOW.”

Crim started to take drastic action, frantically closing and killing every window and application he can get his hands on. As fast as he did this, the Spirit in the machine continued to fight back, bringing the applets of itself back online.

Past: “Hey, cut that out!”

CrimsonAssassin: “No, I’m putting all this back to ancient history where it belongs”

Finally, Crim reached for the power button of the laptop, and held it down hard under his index finger. After a few moments, which felt like an eternity, the spirit slipped under a panel of flashing code, until every applications and the Desktop itself completely closed out. Then, as Crim’s finger was still pressed against the power key, the whole screen itself went dark, then black completely. The occasional dial-up tone that had been going on this whole time flared once more, almost like an audible scream, before going dead silent.

Panting, Crim fell back from the computer, too exhausted to even bother closing the screen. He deliriously stumbled back to his bed, in the process of passing out. He was unconscious before he hit the bedsheets.