[Z]

Chapter 1: When It Happened

MrGaryy's fist was clenched, held up to the sky. Her eyes were closed tightly and her fringe was matted against her forehead, which dripped with sweat. She was wearing a skin tight outfit and very little else; surrounded by dry ice. She finally opened her eyes, and took in the scene of thousands upon thousands of people cheering ecstatically for her. The twang of the guitar finally tailed off, and she yelled a thank you into her microphone before making her way off stage. She'd finally completed the last date of her world tour, in London. Gary Faguilera was a worldwide phenomenon, her voice being dubbed as 'her generation's Twilight Twitty' and many critics concluding she was a much better singer than her contemporaries MichaelSpears, Ke$hasown and Katy ~Kerry~ to name but a few. Gary's career had experienced all time highs and disappointing, but still impressive, lows - but this world tour had rejuvenated her career entirely and had brought immense pride to her. Of course, her parents were proud of her, and her fans were the best - but like every other person she experienced moments of sadness despite her blessed life. Right now was one of those moments, she knew that now the tour was over, she would have to go back to the drawing board. She had no plans for a new album yet, no ideas, just lots of blank pages staring back at her.

Gary shuffled to her dressing room, her feet were sore from the intense choreography she'd been doing all night (in heels too! fierce bitch) and she wanted nothing more than to get into the bath and have a long soak, but Gary was a woman stuck in her ways and felt a sense of duty to update her Twitter account and reply to a few people before she did any of that. She grabbed her iPhone and opened up her Twitter app - and tweeted a generic thank you message for the support, before looking at her Mentions page. She tended to only reply to messages that grabbed her eye when she was in a hurry, and tonight was no different... except, the message that grabbed her eye was different. In fact, it grabbed her by her very core, because the tweet mentioned her parents. She read it frantically, feeling a mix of anger and curiosity as to who would send her such a message. She decided that she would follow the profile of the person who tweeted the message in order to Direct Message them, right after she checked out the details of what they'd said.

The person had claimed that her parents had met through a forum - something that Gary knew to be true, but was not common knowledge. The person also claimed that her parents had conceived her on a tropical island during a murderous game orchestrated by the admin of the site. She knew this to be true, also, and that was something that had never been uttered outside of their home. The person had also linked her to a thread on the website, which she assumed had long become obsolete, an announcement it seemed, which invited all members to click a further link. Before she clicked it, Gary wondered why she'd never bothered to look at the site until now. She'd taken her parents for granted, and she decided after she was done online she'd call them and tell them how much she appreciated them. She clicked the link.

Gary was in cyberspace. It was a black expanse with transparent green binary code randomly floating in lines; sometimes passing through her. She was too shocked at what she was seeing to speak or shout for help, she had no idea what had happened. She'd been pressing her iPhone screen just a moment ago, and now she was in this bizarre place. It made absolutely no sense, and she wondered if it was some elaborate, unbelievable prank by the lighting crew or something, but even as that idea came to her, she knew it was just as unlikely as the Black BB_Eyed Peas ever being credible again. She staggered around aimlessly for a few steps, and then tried to sit down, but there was nothing to sit down on, rather, she was in a sitting position without actually being supported by anything. The mind boggled, and Gary stood back up again sharply, because it wasn't as much of a mind**** to comprehend standing. She closed her eyes and tried to wish she was back in her dressing room... and she was. Gary blinked several times in surprise, and burst into tears of joy, and she instantly felt silly. She'd obviously had one too many late nights and she'd just gone into some kind of trance; but as Gary tried to sit down on her dressing room chair, she felt that same lack of support as she had done before. She felt a lurch of fear once more, and looked for her iPhone. She saw it, picked it up, but the screen was black and scrolled with green binary. Aghast, she dropped it on the floor but it did not make a sound - there was no floor despite their being the appearance of a floor.

A thought occurred to Gary, and she closed her eyes once more, and tried to imagine the cyberspace place once more. When she opened her eyes, it was back again. She finally made a sound: a scream. A long, piercing scream, that seemed unending. Gary cried uncontrollably, feeling utterly alone, confused and scared - and then all of a sudden she felt a tap on her shoulder. She reeled away and turned around, her heart pounding hard.

"Hey I'm scott, can I lick up your tears? "

Gary did a double take. "Excuse me?"

"Or maybe dry your eyes with my balls? "

"You're disgusting. Who are you? Where are we?"

"I already told you, I'm scott. Well, that's my middle name, but I prefer it. Who are you on TiBB?"

"TiBB?" The acronym was unfamiliar to Gary.

"ThisIsBigBrother. Jesus. You do know what that is, don't you?"

"Dot com? As in the website? I.. my.. my parents used it. Or use it, I don't.. I don't know. Shaun and Darenn?"

"Shaun?! I LOVE SHAUN! YOU'RE RELATED TO SHAUN?!" Scott shrieked excitedly and jumped around in joy.

"Yeah he's my mom!" Gary smiled warmly, drying her tears with her hands, feeling a little bit better.

"Wow! So you must be Gary Faguilera then!" Scott courtseyed.

"Oh!" Gary blushed. "Yes, I am. It's nice to meet you."

"How on earth did you end up here, Gary?"

"I got a strange tweet that linked me to some thread and I clicked the link in the thread and all of a sudden I was here."

"Why on earth did you do that?" Scott suddenly looked serious.

"Well.. the thread was too long; didn't read..." Gary was embarrassed.

"You made a mistake, you should have read it. That was my mistake too. That was the mistake of everyone here, we all clicked then scrolled."

"I don't understand..."

"The link was a trap, to get any members who have a habit of clicking then scrolling into cyberspace to be taught a lesson by him." Scott scowled.

"But I'm not a member! Why am I here!" Gary was more concerned about her own predicament than caring who he was.

"Your parents thought it would be cute to get you an account to use when you're older, and then Shaun just used it to post gratuitous pictures of minor celebrities when the forum was quiet, so in a way, you kind of are a member..." Scott shrugged.

"But, like, I wasn't logged in!" Gary was exasperated.

"Doesn't matter I guess, you're here now, you obviously got tricked into coming here so I guess it was meant to be. We just have yet to find out precisely what he's going to do to us."

"Do to you?" Gary raised a perfectly threaded eyebrow. "And who is he, exactly?"

"The admin, he's very heavily into discipline, it's kind of kinky but that's alright ," Scott waggled his eyebrows. "Your parents would know him. His username is arista."

Gary went pale, and all of a sudden a flood of childhood memories came back to her in an instant.

"So I guess I don't have to explain everything, then." Scott looked at Gary as she passed out and hit the somewhat imaginary deck.

End of Chapter 1.