Video Streaming

Again? Okay.

So, we’re sitting in the bedroom, just looking at stuff. Dumb stuff. There’s this YouTube video that Juls wants us to see. With a kid who’s trying to cross a river, but he slips and yells “help meeee! Get me oooout!” in this really squeaky voice. His voice is so high, and whole body disappears for a second. It’s really funny. The guy filming it is laughing. They’re all going “hellp meeee!”

And all the comments are all “help meeee!” “Get me out!” “I’ve fallen in”.

But Juls wanted to show it to us because he keeps saying there’s something in one of the frames, right? He says if you pause it just right, you can see a face in the river. Like an angry turtle with a shaved head, or something. And he reckons that’s what pulled the kid in.

Like I said, it was just a dumb video.

But he’s playing it and pausing it and cursing and stuff, because it’s really hard to get it just where you want it. It’s taking him ages, and Max and me are bored. We want to go, but Juls keeps saying he can get it, so we leave him to it and go downstairs to play on the trampoline.

So we go down there. And we’re jumping around and stuff. And there’s this banging sound, and we see Juls is waving at us from the upstairs window. He laughing at us and waving, telling us to come up because he’s found it or something. And we’re waving at him telling him to come down, cause we’re having too much fun.

And Juls, who’s always … you know, he’s like the clown. He suddenly goes “ah!” he slips and falls below the bottom of the window. Just like in the video, you know. And we just lose it, like, he’s done it perfectly.

So, Max and me, we run off the trampoline and into the house, to sneak up the stairs and scare him. We’re climbing slowly up, being careful not to make any noise on the staircase. And we get to the door, and burst in, yelling “RAGH!”.

But Juls isn’t there. There’s just the iPad and the carpet in his bedroom is all wet, but that’s it. And we spend, like, 30 minutes looking for him, and give up to go play back on the trampoline, but then his mum comes home and Juls still hasn’t turned up, so eventually, we hunt around for him and can’t find him, and that’s when we realise it’s been a few hours, and she calls the police and stuff. And Max and me are pretty freaked out, so our parents come get us and take us home.

But I do see him one more time. Not really, but I have this dream that feels real. I wake up because I can hear this tapping sound and there this light. And I wake up, and my computer is on. And Juls is sitting at my desk with his back to me. Just typing. Then I realise he’s not typing. He’s dripping. He’s all soaking wet and the drips are hitting the plastic thing that goes under my chair. Tap tap tap.

And I say, “Juls?” But the words come out all soft. And he’s just sitting there. For ages. So I get out of bed and reach out to touch him on the shoulder, but it’s all cold and damp. And he turns his head real slow, but his skin is all blue and his eyes are white, and when he opens his mouth water pours out down his chin.

And when I wake up, I’m on the floor and there’s water everywhere. Although, that might … um, that might have been me.

No, the video’s been taken down. I tried to look it up the other day. But you can still see all the comments. There’s even one from Juls, right towards the top.

Yeah, “helllp me! I’ve fallen in”. It doesn’t seem as funny anymore.