Friend Request

That friend request has been sitting in my inbox for a few weeks now. I don’t know why I haven’t just deleted it. That’s not true. I haven’t deleted it because it’s such a mystery to me - a bit of unresolved business, I suppose. I like closing loops and punctuating sentences.

I’m not going to sit here and claim it’s gnawed at my soul, or invaded my thoughts. There are stretches of time that I don’t even remember it’s there until I get a little notification reminding me to check on it.

There was nothing weird about the request on its own. Her name is Debra Simms. From her profile picture, I’d guess she’s about my age. It’s almost an old fashioned headshot. She has dark brown hair, cut to medium length. She appears to be wearing a simple business appropriate top, and she is smiling at the lens.

Normally when I get friend requests from people I don’t know, I check out their profile page. Not in a creepy stalker way, but just to make sure I don’t know them. A lot of times it’s someone from high school or college that I vaguely remember when I poke around a bit. But, even then, I won’t always accept the request. If I don’t really remember them or, let’s be honest, if I didn’t like them then, I’m unlikely to want to be their social media chum now.

When I checked on Debra’s page, there wasn’t much to see. It was locked down to people she wasn’t friends with. Her profile picture was the only photo she had that was open to public scrutiny. The rest of her information such as her location, marital status, occupation and school history was locked down.

I really did almost just deny and delete the request then and there, but the one thing I could see on her profile was the list of people who are my friends and are also hers. I guess they aren’t technically “mutuals” at this point. But if I accepted the invite, they would gain that status.

There were 99 people on that list. I know, I know, I have too many “friends” on social media. I’ll own that (particularly since 99 represents only a fraction of my online sewing circle).

I logged out that night without accepting or rejecting the request, thinking I’d reach out to some of the friends we have in common. I forgot all about it and the request for a couple of weeks until I got a system notification “You have a friend request from Debra Simms. Accept or Reject?”.

I looked at her profile again. Still no new information. Just that same picture with the same smile. There were still 99 of my friends on her list.

Although I can hear the shock in your voices this will cause, several of my social media friends are friends (or, okay, acquaintances and co-workers) in real life as well.

I asked one at work the next day is he knew Debra. He didn’t know what I was talking about. Another friend I spoke to that weekend said he vaguely remembered accepting that friend request, but has no idea who Debra Simms is.

That night, I went home and checked my account, because I am as addicted to the site as the rest of the flock is, and got the notification again. Something was bugging me about this request. I couldn’t tell you what it was. But something just seemed, I don’t know, odd.

The next morning, I got three dinging notifications in rapid succession to respond to the friend request. I looked at the profile again. The 99 mutual friend count had remained the same. And the picture looked the same, but something about it made me pause. The smile seemed a little colder. It made no sense to me, but I could tell that something had changed. I wrote it off as being ridiculous, and logged off.

A couple of weeks went by, and I didn’t hear anything, until one after work. Within seconds of logging in, I was hit with a barrage of at least ten reminders to make a decision on the friend request. The count was still 99. The smile was thinner. I shut off my computer and called Eric, probably my closest friend in real life who was also on Debra’s list.

Eric answered on the second ring. I asked him if he knew Debra, and he paused. “Why are you asking that?”

“I got a friend request from her and….”

“Did you accept it?” Eric interrupted.

“No, but I…”

“Don’t accept it.”

“Why?” I asked.

“You free? Meet me at The Dock.”

I agreed. The Dock was a dive bar we would often meet at when we just wanted to hang out over a couple of drinks and didn’t want our conversations to have to compete with a band or DJ.

When I arrived, Eric already had a spot in a booth near the back. The green fake leather upholstery in the booth had seen better days, but then again, haven’t we all.

Eric had already ordered us both a beer, and he nudged the mug to me as I settled in.

“So, what’s with this cold war spy business?” I asked.

“I just wanted a drink or two if I have to talk about…her,” Eric said.

“Well, let’s get started on the beer and the tea,” I said, clinking my mug against his.

Eric said he didn’t know who Debra was either. He’d gotten the invite maybe a couple of weeks before I did. He didn’t bother to check out the profile. He just accepted the invite. “Unless I have a reason not to, I just accept them all,” he said.

He didn’t think much of it at the time, but a couple of days later he happened to check out her profile page.

“It’s weird,” Eric said. “There’s not much on it. She doesn’t have any details about herself, and all her posts are just kind of, I don’t know, a countdown.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I’ll show you,” Eric said, picking his phone off the table.

He opened the app, and made his way to Debra’s profile. “Weird, huh?” he said handing it to me.

The latest update was from three weeks earlier; that’s the day she sent the invite to me. “99 out of 100”. Below that I saw her next few posts. “98 out of 100”; “95 out of 100”; “89 out of 100”.

I scrolled down, to her earliest posts which weren’t that long ago. Beneath “1 out of 100” was a different message. “When 100 pieces are together the game is over.”

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Eric said. “But it’s kind of….”

“Creepy,” I interjected.

“Yeah.”

I scrolled through her information. There was nothing there. I looked at her one picture again. The smile seemed - and I know this sounds ridiculous - a little sinister now.

And her total number of friends was 99.

I handed the phone back to Eric. “Well, you can always defriend her.”

“That’s the thing. I can’t,” Eric said.

“What do you mean.”

Eric told me to watch. He went to the button that lets you defriend someone, and pressed it. He got a message “Request denied.”

“You ever see that before?” Eric asked.

I shook my head. “Have you tried blocking.”

“Yes. Same result.”

We sipped our beers in silence for what seemed like a couple of minutes.

“Has she messaged you or threatened you or anything like that?” I asked.

“No.”

“Have you talked to any of the other people on her friends list. I know you know some of them. All of them are friends with me.”

“Yeah. A couple. They didn’t remember her and hadn’t checked out her profile. But Mary Klein called me after I talked to her and said she had also tried to defriend and block Debra, and got stonewalled like me.”

“So what do you think is up?”

“I don’t know. I just have a feeling that if she finishes her collection of 100 people then something bad will happen.”

“Why do you think that?”

“I don’t know. Just a gut instinct maybe? Or maybe it’s her picture. It just seems to have gotten, I don’t know, menacing over time. I know it doesn’t make sense, and I know it’s the same picture, but it just gives off different energy now.”

I took a drink and nodded. “I get it.”

“I guess I just want to make sure that you don’t accept her request and let the odometer flip over to 100,” Eric said. “For all I know, there could be others in the queue, but something tells me you are the lucky 100.”

“What do you think will happen if I accept?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want to find out.”

That was earlier tonight. I just got in my apartment and pulled up the site on my laptop. I had every intention of rejecting the friend request. I got the first notification immediately with the familiar “You have a friend request from Debra Simms. Accept or Reject?”

Before I could hit the reject button, another notification dinged me. “You have a friend Request from Debra Simms. Accept or Else.”

I inhaled sharply. Did I misread that?

Ding.

“You have a friend request from Debra Simms. Accept or someone dies.”

Ding.

“You have a friend request from Debra Simms.”

Then a picture popped up. It was a family photo of my parents, my younger sister and me from a family vacation in North Carolina a few months ago.”

Ding.

Debra Simms picture appeared. The same one. But the energy on this one was dark, threatening, and disturbing. The smile - no the smirk really - was filled with malice and disdain.

My hands were shaking. I did not know what to do.

Ding.

“You have a friend request from Debra Simms. Accept or Reject. You have ten seconds.”

The family photo appeared again. Underneath it were two buttons “Reject/Kill Them” and “Accept/Let Them Live”.

My phone rang. It was my mom checking in on me, to tell me the latest news about what was happening in the neighborhood and with dad.

My sister also chose that moment to text me to see if we could meet up for dinner next week. She wanted me to meet her new boyfriend.

A timer appeared on the photo, and with each second, the photo dimmed. I hurried mom off the phone, and stopped responding to my sister’s texts.

When the timer hit two, I clicked the “Accept/Let Them Live” button.

Ding.

“You are now friends with Debra Simms”.

I immediately went to her profile page. There was a new message. “100 out of 100. Thank you all for opening the door.”

I got a DM from Debra Simms. “Thank you and your friends.”

“Why me?” I typed back.

“Why not you?”

“What happens now?”

“Good night.”

I tried to respond, but she had blocked me. I couldn’t bring myself to call Eric, but I didn’t need to. He called me and called me a reckless idiot with more choice language. He confirmed he was also blocked.

“So what do we do now?” I asked.

“I guess we wait and see what’s at that door you opened.”

We hung up. I looked back at the site. It was quiet. I logged out and shut off the computer. I double checked the lock on my apartment door. I don’t know if locking that door will even matter. I don’t know what to expect. But, I do know with a quiet certainty that whatever it is, it won’t be good. And it will be my fault.

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