Tome I of Chiller - Going Against Broke

[Deblod100]

It's funny when there are people who prefer heroes and villains who don't need backstories.

I like the idea of people having backstories, because you get to understand them...

For all of you who aren't in the loop, this is Mortimer Chiller. I'm your neighborhood Satanist, borderline wannabe serial killer, and overall real-life schizoposter.

I've done the whole opening speech narration segment before, but let me give you the real rundown.

Before everything went to complete shit...

Tome I of Chiller - Going Against Broke (January 2021 - July 2021)

Now... due to a rather... uncomfortable topic in terms of my parents' divorce that happened while the world was on fire, I ended up moving with my mother and sister to some shabby place called Skyline Heights to live the apartment complex life.

Now, all of this was happening during the accursed year of 2020.

Oh come on, you know what happened during that year, right?

Australia being on fire, the guy who was playing Plague Inc on his computer at Area 51 starting the apocalypse that could've turned into The Stand, race wars and anarchists taking over Seattle?

Yeah, everyone's got a story to tell.

Of course, with COVID-19 happening, that gave me the benefit on being out of that fucking horrible middle school that I had to go to, so it wasn't all that bad. Though, everyone just had to move to Zoom.

I shall start our story in the middle of 8th grade...

---

Chapter 1 - January - The Short Squeeze
202.2 CHILLER FM:
Get Back - The Beatles Love

Oh America... what the fuck did you do?

Sure last year was a goddamn trainwreck, but how did we get here?

Mortimer wouldn't help but wonder, seeing how it was likely that the country might have nearly went up in flames.

Seeing how the United States Capitol is now all over the news.

The date of January 6th, 2021 would go down in the history books, that was what his mother told him.

What was the right word to call it? Was it a riot? Protest? Terrorist attack? The term varies from news outlets and internet stories. Even his Zoom teacher mentioned it to the class. Mortimer wondered a bit while trying to stay focused with his eyes locked on the screen, so the webcam can keep tabs on him.

The followers of the now-former president Canon had ended up causing a major scene at the United States Capitol after 5 years of pure Canon and /pol/ brainrot. The consequences of treating politics as memes. It was still the pandemic, meaning that a lot of those anti-mask and anti-vax people got sick, though some people also died from other means. That didn't stop Kirby from getting the Oval Office chair that Canon's followers wanted stopped. Because they claim the system was rigged, which while was true, they ended up falling for a convenient half-truth that justified their right-wing populist rhetoric.

Now, all of the alt-right Twitter news sources are trying to say that the riot attack was nothing more than a false flag by those gay Antifa terrorists and some communist crisis actors. Then to save face, Canon had to deny approval of his actions, so he throw his followers under the bus and hope that no one also takes his precious Twitter away, despite the fact that Mortimer believed banning Twitter from existence would gain world peace. Now, there were probably hundreds of pro-Canon supporters being forced into hiding or left stranded in DC while the feds are trying to arrest them.

Somewhere in DC, there is some lonely Canon-head having to make friends with some weeb that he met on 4chan and been watching nothing more than torrents of Goblin Slayer to pass the time. Could be worse.

Society was flawed, but the rest of the world was watching to make sure no one else was going down the tubes.

"Oh! Don't forget, class. But I'm offering up some extra credit. Some of you have some lower than usual grades after our winter exam, but I hope this can kickstart some energy into you." Mortimer's teacher on the other side of his computer monitor said, among the sea of other kids in their own windows. Mortimer managed to hide an eye roll.

In that bedroom of his in Skyline Heights, he never mention something that was making his 13-year old self depressed. You see, Mortimer and his family had two dogs once. Both of them were chihuahuas. Why he doesn't mention this during high school or why he doesn't want to get another dog?

Because the loss of a pet can be hard.

It was bad enough that his first dog Boo passed away during 6th grade. Now, early last December, his other dog Lola, that they brought with them to the apartments also passed away. There was just a general sense of hopelessness in the air. Mortimer hated it so much. His Christmas was so awkward. He hates the holidays now. Being in that wonderful seasonal-affective disorder in January.

School wrapped up for the day. Mortimer was allowed to turn off his webcam from his computer.

A loud sigh came from his mouth. He moved his chair away from his computer, turning it away to view his bedroom. Three large bookcases for his collection of books. A pea soup-colored bed. Several posters of his favorite movies, including a good poster of the cover art of Goosebump's Ghost Camp. He was out of his depth. Mortimer left his bedroom quick, so he can fetch himself a diet Pepsi. He cracked open a can and went to check what was hot in terms of online news.

What is this about Reddit? People back at middle school would mock Redditors. Mortimer was glad that he wasn't an user.

Hang on, a lot of news is trending over a subreddit?

"WallStreetBets..." Mortimer set his can down and clicked around with his mouse. Mortimer wasn't a certified stock market expert. Did he know anything about how to do risky stock exchanges? Hell no! But it looks like these financial Redditors in question here seem to have an idea on what they were doing. They are hyping up the GME stock price hard.

Damn... he needed to get in on this... But how?

---

His winter classes were going decent, though the homework was for some reason easy to Mortimer. He was in that state of ennui. He wasn't in the mood to play his video games. He was actually in that work-alcoholic state. There was a bit of an additional reason for this...

Since there was that winter exam that he did poorly on. You think an online exam would be much easier than it being written, but Mortimer blamed how there wasn't any multiple choice questions. Satan helped him if this happened during college. He heard a lot of people were forced to drop out, since they couldn't handle the shift from campus to online at home. This was a bit of a plan for Mortimer. Sure, he will get yelled at for being shit at school, but the higher the grades, the higher the chances that his mother can trust him.

In terms of parenting, Mortimer was glad that his mother wasn't hooked on Facebook. If she got hooked on Twitter, it would've been a lot worse.

You got parents with checkmarks expecting their kids to know how to use a can opener. Or better yet, throwing their kids into a river and expecting them to swim under instinct. Only to get mad when they don't know how to breaststroke by themselves in their delusional pride. His mother and father were far from that. They were raised without social media and only relied on Mortimer and his sister Catherine on how to use the internet.

Though in Mortimer's own grandiose after feeling that he accomplished his usual academic work, he found his need to be presentable. With that short squeeze money, he could turn his own apartment into a bachelor pad. Mortimer was too young to be attempting to flirt with girls, but he can get his fair share of blackjack and hookers at his place to get them girls to check him out. He can be hip with all of that sigma grindset that people online would say. Even though, those whole alpha wolf park behavioral studies things were outdated for decades.

All he needed was a little help and convincing...

Sooner or later, he can be rich like all of those billionaires like Musk and Jeff "Bozo" who have secret furry accounts.

[Deblod100]

Hot damn, his teachers on Zoom were trying to get people back on track with the extra credit, weren't they?

Ok, Mortimer wasn't particularly focused on that at the moment. He will work on the extra credit, due to having an obscene lack of productive things to do as usual, but he was thinking about that Gamestop stock.

You see, in the midst of some wisdom, r/WallStreetBets made enemies with one certain guy that called the subreddit a bunch of "suckers". Andrew Left, or rather Citron Research as he goes by, was an "activist" short seller that was called "The Bounty Hunter of Wall Street" by the New York Times. Classy title, but you need to remember how you can't listen to every "stock" expert. People forgot what happened to Jim Cramer back during the late 00's. It was enough for him to get chewed out by Jon Stewart.

Andrew Left's mistake was hosting a livestream on the matter of the Gamestop stock. The fool even mentioned what time and date it would happen. It goes as well as you expect from an internet counterattack. Now the GME stock was sharing hard and Mortimer didn't want to get left behind.

Though, there was a side issue in the mix, when he was trying to convince his sister Catherine on the matter.

"When did you start getting invested in stocks all of the sudden?"

"They are managing to raise the price of it. We could get some extra money!" Mortimer said to his sister, who was wrapping up her high school tenure from Zoom too. "That can be great, but you don't know anything about stockbroking. Do you even know how to handle money?" Catherine warned him.

"Everyone else is piling on. We can earn an extra buck!" Mortimer said, while they were in the car, driving to the Wendy's in Strawberry Letter Pavilion. This was part of an admittedly awkward process for Mortimer and his mother and sister, who has been delving into a fast food niche for the latter week of January. His mother has a fridge full of groceries, which doesn't sound bad, but for some reason, all three of them were being given the same question on "what's for dinner?" An answer that no one knew, even though his mother can whip something up.

Mortimer suspects this could also stem from how the nearby Buca di Beppo restaurant ripped them off. Ok, he can get that the restaurant only did family-sized meals to sell, but it was a bad experience after your to-go order of chicken carbonara goes to the wrong car, to someone who could've been positive for COVID still, and then you manage to take your "small" 38 dollar meal home to have it taste dull. The curse of Vegas pricing.

Afterwards, Mortimer had to go with her sister in her car, so they can pick up to-go food to make sure it doesn't fall into the wrong hands. They both had to wear face masks to make sure they didn't get sick. Though, how can you mess up a drive-thru order? Mortimer, in particular, decided to order himself a ghost pepper ranch chicken sandwich with some chili cheese fries.

"Why did you order that again?" Catherine said, when Mortimer pulled out the sandwich. "I'm sick of eating cheeseburgers. I want to just comb the rest of their menu. See what else I can try." Mortimer said.

"You should've had me order you a drink!"

"I can drink the tap water at home easily. Can you quit complaining and take us back home?" Mortimer told her. Mortimer took off his mask and took a bite of his sandwich. He can feel the crunch from it. He chewed the chicken, cheese, and ranch in his mouth, until he felt the spice.

"Uh oh..."

"Told you." Catherine said, while the car was on the road.

"Arghh! I thought their whole spice thing was an exa- exagge- DAMN! EXAGGERATION!" He was stuttering bad.

---

For the next series of days, Mortimer deemed to have devolved into being obsessed with Gamestop stocks and rating whatever he orders from Strawberry Letter Pavilion. On the weekend, he got himself a crispy buffalo chicken wrap meal with fries and a sprite to drink from Arby's. He would rate the ghost pepper ranch chicken sandwich from Wendy's a 2 out of 5. Buffalo chicken wrap? 1 out of 5.

Still on the weekend, he got himself a bean and cheese burrito from some random taco shop and-

"The fuck am I eating?"

It was his mother's idea, since she was looking for something new to eat. It was some random taco shop, as mentioned earlier, but none of the tacos stood out for Mortimer. How the fuck do you mess up a bean and cheese burrito?! Those are completely easy to make.

0 out of 5 for the Townville Taco. No chance that it will survive among the competition.

After tossing away his rubbish burrito in the trash can, Mortimer looked out of the window to see the city of Vegas in the distance. Mortimer just wanted to be rich. What do they have over there? They were profiting off of this pandemic, still. Them and their fucking corporate artwork.

Look at those motherfuckers...

While everyone was smelling like body odor, urine from mis-hits, and drunken energy drinks; they were all listening to classical music inside of their fancy buildings with roman pillars and marble water fountains, watching a documentary on some random band like The Police on their ultra-HD flatscreen TV while their natural air fresheners are the petunias and daffodils having their fragrance drift around with the help of their state-of-the-art air conditioners and heaters.

And all Mortimer is doing is playing Kerbal Space Program on his PC when he was trying to find stuff to do.

---

Why the fuck does Mortimer's mother insist that they order pizza from Little Caesar's?

Not just a plain pizza, but a Detriot-styled deep dish pizza with 3 meat on it. Just because Mortimer wasn't able to exercise at home doesn't mean that his mother can try to give him a heart attack after school!

Why is she so chee- Oh right, she voted for Kirby and the news was talking about his inauguration.

She was kind enough to order cookie dough brownies with Twix pieces in it for the order. They might as well eat the brownies and save the pizza slices in the fridge. Among the other groceries that they have yet to try to eat.

Funnily enough, his mother was mentioning the whole deal with the Gamestop stocks.

[Deblod100]

"Gamestonk!!" quoted Elon Musk.

The whole thing with Gamestop was on the news, but Mortimer wasn't concerned about that. He was... not in a healthy state.

It was late, but while his mother and sister thought he was playing video games as usual, he was actually trying to be completely ahead in the learning curve. Now, most of the extra credit that was assigned from his classes had due dates for next month. Morty on the other hand had a horrible idea of getting all of that done right away as best as he could. He was in the process of academic burn-out.

It was self-harm to himself. Fueled by a microwaved leftover pizza slice, Cheez-It Snap'd Jalapeno Jack snacks from Walmart, an energy drink called Celsius, and those sour watermelon wedge candy that you get from 7/11.

The product of an unhealthy productive human mind.

---

That pizza from Little Caesar's was holding out the Schaub residence just fine. Mortimer added some ranch dressing to his slice, after microwaving it for dinner. It was a bit unfortunate that COVID was still happening, but you can't do much exercise without a Peloton bike nowadays. Something that Mortimer or anyone else in his family didn't have. Not even his father at his place. Mortimer was admittedly chubby during his COVID days. As for his man boobs? Well, they always been there.

It was late in the night and Mortimer Schaub had prepped up what he liked to call his "hate list".

His hate list was simple. It was composed of people that he hated, even if they didn't know him personally.

To him, this was his "enemy of the people" list that he has in his head to keep track on who is the most viable of people to blame. For him, he had some new entries for certain people.

MORTIMER'S HATE LIST:
1. Twitter checkmarks
2. Puddle of Mudd band
3. Bill Cosby
4. Steven Seagal
5. Richard Nixon
6. (NEW) CNBC
7. (NEW) Andrew Left

Oh, Andrew... it didn't have to be this way, but the fact that you are still sucking dick against r/WallStreetBets makes you an enemy of your own choosing. Both him and CNBC were lying that the stock for Gamestop closed at a huge loss. When the rich is paying you to not let any new "refugees" into their upper class and you still work with said rich who are making you give them the finger, that's all on you.

What was Mortimer even doing now?

Oh right, he was playing Fallout 4 and he had the misfortune of deciding to side with Commonwealth Minutemen of all people. No, not the Railroad, which Mortimer wished he can do instead. And not the asshole Brotherhood of Steel or the villain by default Institute. Mortimer had to work with Preston Garvey, cuz-

"Another settlement needs our help. I'll mark it on your map."

SHUT UP, PRESTON!

Mortimer was trying to kill all of these super mutants inside of this library. Those damn mutants practically required heavy firepower from his character he allowed to be named Fuckface.

"Mortimer?" his mother entered his room, though he managed to hear her knock at his door even with his gaming headset on. One that he also wore for Zoom, since the headset came with his microphone needed to speak. Mortimer paused his game briefly.

"Yes, Mom?" Mortimer didn't know what his mother wanted-

"I have been speaking with my friends at work and they keep mentioning this thing with all of this stockbroking. I know that you have been mentioning it to me nonstop this whole week or so, but I thought that it would be fun to use a little of some excess money to try to join in." his mother said, causing Mortimer's eyes to flare up with joy and glee.

Oh, this was going to be good!

He was going to join the folks that were getting rich young! This was going to be great!

[Deblod100]

Unfortunately...

Despite his mother wanting to take it easy.

Their only option at getting into the stocks was his mother downloading Robinhood onto her phone.

Then, the goalposts got moved.

Mortimer insisted that his mother try to invest in both the Gamestop short squeeze and AMC Theatres that was commonly mentioned in r/WallStreetBets. Those were the primary two that Mortimer wanted invested in with a small sum. Unfortunately, they were closing any investments being put into those stocks. Especially Robinhood, which was ironic, since now the folk hero who stole from the rich to give to the poor had now betrayed his people for the kingdom.

The best that Mortimer had his mother do was to invest in both Nokia and Blackberry, instead. But the money was probably going to go into the family's needs instead.

---

Luckily for Mortimer and the fellow gamers with their Joker make-up on, both of Heath Ledger or Joaquin Phoenix on, Robinhood's stunt got backlash from multiple politicians who called them out on it. Both from the left to right. And this in turn realized that people are allowed to make fun of rich people, since technically they have so much power but with fragile egos.

The rich won the fight briefly, but everyone is now aware of their antics. Probably today, the ultra-rich will dread the slogan "Power to the Players".

Gamers - 1. Some literal cash cow from Fox News, saying that they should ban social media from talking about short stocks - 0.

---

On Sunday on the last day of January, his mother decided to do something special for the family and probably to give some pity towards Mortimer. Though, it was also convenient, since now she was able to have some time to experiment on trying new restaurants to go to. Having his mask on and hand sanitizer on stand-by with his sister in tow, his mother drove them over to the Town Square mall by the Strip, since there was an Italian restaurant called "Milano" that she wanted to share a wood-fired pizza with her kids.

Mortimer wasn't in the pizza mood, but they did serve pasta there. The pepperoni, sausage, and bacon pizza was tempting, but Mortimer had himself some good-old fashioned fresh pappardelle alla bolognese. He twirled his fork, after stabbing at the pasta noodles, so he can savor the taste. For dessert, he managed to enjoy some tiramisu with a lot of chocolate added. He ate his Christmas chocolates that were reserved for his stocking, but there was a refreshing finisher for his meal.

Mortimer knew that this was supposed to be his time to learn a lesson. Maybe it was focused on him, but the thing that he learnt was that the stock market was just built on a pillar of bullshit. Though, his mother wanted him to know that there was more to life than trying to gamble for stocks, even if it was tempting to do so to help sustain their family.

For Mortimer, he believed that deep down, he wanted to chip in with the whole "revolution" aspect of things. He wanted to grant some karma against the rich people for abusing loopholes to pay less taxes, though he remembered a certain Reddit post that he saw and it did struck out to him, reminding him of Fight Club.

Power to the people.

[Deblod100]

Chapter 2 - February - Sussy Bussy

Do you ever wonder what would be the downfall of society?

One that is still floating around and getting into the minds of everyone?

No, not COVID. That was killing people.

What Mortimer meant was "corrupting" people.

He was talking about Among Us, of course.

It was probably at this point that when you hear those words, you are already crying blood. Too late to turn back.

What was once a simple video game that became popular during the COVID era turned into something that poisoned the children. Mortimer wished that he can look away and pray to Satan and that hot goth wolf girl Loona from Helluva Boss to make the cursed thoughts go away. It was funny, because this might as well be his villain origin story, among other people who thought the same...





It was an obsession that bled into the real world, which filled people with dread.

---

It was still the middle of Zoom classes on his online middle school, but one of his teachers had arranged for the class to listen to a monologue by the school vice principal over cyber-harassment and cyber-bullying. Since no one was allowed to go to school physically, they had to do their lectures on what can happen online. Mortimer might have had an idea on why his school wanted people to listen. Morty knew of people getting others with mental illnesses to eat their own shit, after being raided by Discord trolls. They will claim that it's supposed to be a prank, but the whole "just a prank, bro" doesn't fly anymore when people are killing pranksters in self-defense. Mortimer still knew what his school was trying to tell people. Especially since there are a lot of kids in his online class who wanted to make themselves known on Youtube. It would be a tedious task, when you get comment spam nonstop from "haters". Around that time, people were adding super glue to their hairsprays, so Instagram and TikTok were not safe either.

What other news were there to tell doing that time? There was the whole Kirby administration talking on the news to do a better job at handling the pandemic than what Canon did. There was also a baby shower that killed a guest with a cannon. In terms of Las Vegas news, his mother who while impressed at his grades by checking them online, didn't want him to go outside since the local news talk about some guy robbing people with a knife by their area.

Getting cabin fever inside of your own house, because of paranoia from others and yourself isn't good for the human soul.

[Deblod100]

So it was another day, another Zoom class for English.

Mortimer had to go through another Zoom announcement from the school, since now they are trying to do fundraising for COVID relief. Mortimer could donate money, but he usually donates a dollar or two to his favorite Twitch streamers whenever they are hosting charity livestreams once or twice a year. For the school, they couldn't do things physically. A far cry from when Mortimer's elementary school managed to do a fundraiser at the McDonald's by Meadowbrook.

His English teacher, bless her soul for goddamn trying to teach her kids, was doing To Kill a Mockingbird for the spring part of the semester. She saved Fahrenheit 451 for the last book to be read, which annoyed Mortimer, since while he liked to read a good dystopian novel, it was stayed for dead last. Though, he can admittedly sigh some relief, since they knocked out Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank and Lord of the Flies out of the way. His teacher did mention that if the kids wanted to read a good story; one that was dystopian like Mortimer's fancy, such as The Giver which was read ages ago, you would have to survive until you get to 10th grade. That was when the kids would really get into dystopian literature. It was required in high school for kids to know what living in a dystopia is like. It was supposed to make sure teenagers knew how to think of their own world, as she said. Of course, in an ironic sense, dystopian literature was supposed to have kids point out how their world is similar to that of the fictional world.

For To Kill a Mockingbird, Mortimer's teacher was making sure that the kids weren't just seeing the novel as "racism is bad". She had to get them to point out other important themes in the novel besides prejudice. Luckily, some of the other kids did seem focused to ask the correct answers that day. Mortimer was mentally beat from his academic cram last month, but even he was surprised that the kids in his class were going all in and trying. The only reason that he was currently still awake was because his mother did happen to make him some bacon for breakfast with his toast.

"Boo Radley was never supposed to be the harmful villain that is told around Maycomb. Instead, he is actually a savior. He has always been friendly to the kids, despite being a recluse. You can compare him saving Scout at the end to one of the gifts that he had in the knothole."

"Very good, Julius!" Mortimer's teacher was impressed at another student. Julius, in question, had... "something" going for him, since he showed up at the Zoom session, dressed and looking like Shoto Todoroki from My Hero Academia. Complete with a wig and the burn makeup around his eye. Mortimer's teacher didn't question it, despite wanting to. Everyone else knew the answer, since Julius did cosplay.

"I'm impressed that most of you have managed to knock out the questions that I expected you to answer. I'm confident that you would be able to be ready for when we start tests and your essay project soon, but since we have so much free time left, I want to do something fun as a class." his teacher stated to everyone. Mortimer tried to act focused, since he wanted to try to get his participation up in class.

Then, his teacher said something that had him hide an annoyed sigh.

"Who here knows about the game Among Us?"

There were mixed reactions among the students.

Mortimer was not happy.

[Deblod100]

Why did Mortimer's English teacher's kids have to mention it to her?

They could've streamed a movie to watch! Why not just stream the To Kill a Mockingbird movie? The reason is no, because what? It's black and white? That's bullshit! Mortimer watched Psycho without any issues, even the so bad it's good shot-by-shot color remake.

For the Among Us game, it was voted that the class did the MIRA HQ map.

The first round popped up.

Mortimer was listed as a crewmate. Everyone in the game were scrambling to do their assigned tasks. Mortimer was given a task to clean one of the vents. A short task, though there were several others that he needed. It wouldn't have been a problem, until he was followed by another crewmate to the balcony of the map, to which-

"MORTY IS THE IMPOSTOR! MORTY IS THE IMPOSTER! MORTY IS THE IMPOSTER!"

"What?!" Mortimer yelled out. Someone immediately pressed the emergency button to do a group vote.

"MORTY IS THE IMPOSTER!" some little shit weasel with a whiny voice named Michael kept yelling out, despite Mortimer's pleas.

"I'm trying to clean the vent! Everyone else gets the same-"

His words fell on deaf ears with rebuttals from his other classmates. Most of them voted for him to be ejected.

Mortimer was not the impostor.

I fucking told you people so.

Not long after, Michael gets killed by the real impostor, who turned out to be his friend. Karma is a real bitch, isn't it, Michael?

---

Next round.

Mortimer was one of the impostors.

He can't go after Michael, but maybe he can frame him for a kill. Act like he was trying to vent? Nah...

He needed to make Billy & Stu proud. But going Ghostface was cut out for this job. Mortimer thought about doing things like Wrong Turn 2.

In fairness, he did see the reboot of Wrong Turn, though it wasn't as special as the second movie back in 2007.

Mortimer can say that Wrong Turn 2 and 4 were in the "top" in his books.

What can he say about the original Wrong Turn? Deformed mountain men cannibals going on a killing spree on the regular slasher movie college kids in the woods. The West Virginia woods where the cannibals live. Script wasn't anything special, but they knew what to do with that gore. That special gore to get Mortimer hyped. Wasn't like a Romero zombie movie or in the same exploitative power of Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it was B-movie at best. Three Finger half-decapitating that woman with an ax to her mouth, while her body tumbles down the tree is a good kill.

Mortimer was checking for a first victim. There was another classmate named Bartley. Mortimer didn't go after him yet. He wanted to gain his trust by acting like he was doing tasks in the Medbay with him, avoiding the vents, of course. Mortimer had to watch until the other impostor was busy, though a meeting was called after a sabotage. Mortimer didn't rat out his other impostor and of course, another innocent crewmate got ejected. Mortimer later went into the medbay with Bartley, killing him and leaving the room.

Wrong Turn 2: Dead End was a film that Mortimer felt was given much better treatment. They definitely ramped up the blood and gore and they got the frontman of Black Flag to be one of the main characters. Also he's a former U.S Marine in the film. Also badass. It was also funny, because to deviate from the original, they made the final girl less suspected. That Mara Stone chick? Got an axe thrown into her head.

Mortimer found another classmate and got them in the office. He used the vent this time and ended up in the locker room.

Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead lowered the bar, but kept the high gore. By that point, after the original movie, they were just making torture porn flicks with the same villain characters. Well, the franchise likes to use Three Finger. Good old Three Finger. The problem, however, is that the script is just cops and prisoners walking through the woods and getting killed. Weaker script than the original film. Though, they made Three Finger have some Saw blood in there by setting up traps. He manages to drag some guy on the road with barbed wire wrapped around him and dangling with a tow truck hook.

Mortimer went back to the balcony and there was that little shit Michael. He was hovering around the same vent that he got caught at originally. Mortimer spared no time and vented away. The emergency button was called, but it was not for Michael's body. They were discussing on who could've killed Bartley and once again, Mortimer had to bullshit and not say anything about his other impostor. Another innocent crewmate ejected.

Wrong Turn 4: Bloody Beginnings was something alright in Morty's terms. Yes, it's a horror prequel to which the whole plot is already spoiled, because you know what would happen to the characters who do survive, but those are the killers. Three Finger even gets his friends back after they were killed in the original. Mortimer can't criticize the movie too much, since they only had 19 days to shot it, but it sounded like they were all having fun during the production. A production that was aware that the movie is meant to be disgusting in torture porn qualities with ultraviolence. It can't be of high quality with its budget, but it still tries. Though, that bitch Kenia was the worst character in that movie. Sara could've just survived and everything could've been fine. Actually, it didn't matter, since both Kenia and Sara get killed at the end as a twist ending. At least, Three Finger is still alive. Yippee.

Another classmate was cleaning the vents, this time in the decontamination hallway. Mortimer entered through the locker room, nicked them, and then continued down the hallway.

Wrong Turn 5: Bloodlines sucks. Yes, it's gory and bloody. Yes, you got Doug Bradley who is Pinhead in the movie to be an antagonist, but besides some guy getting his legs shattered with sledgehammers in torture porn fashion, the movie sucks. I mean, how the hell do you have a gun on the villain, yet you get your eyes cut off? Those eyes getting cut off were also off-screen with a weird editing cut!

He got a classmate in the laboratory, before he hid in and pretended to do tasks at the reactor.

Wrong Turn 6: Last Resort also sucks, mostly because it's more porno than slasher. The film is aggressively horny. Not helping much that there is a cannibal sex cult in the film. Torture porn is still there, but the film just has the same plot as Texas Chainsaw Massacre 3D. Basically, the plot of Wrong Turn 6 is just porn, porn at hot springs, and stoners using Go-Pro cameras to be creeps. Though, both the men and women are apparently hyper-sexuals from all of that fucking.

Julius walked into the reactor room, much to his surprise. "Mort, there's like 3 dead bodies below! You need to-" Mortimer silenced him.

"Zip it."

You know, for a movie franchise that had a lot of wrong turns, people would start using GPSs.

(Canned laughter)

Ok, so the 2021 reboot just starts everything from scratch. No focus on torture porn. No Three Finger. No cannibal hillbillies. Actually, no focus on cannibalism, really. Just a completely different plot that's also set in Virginia in modern day. Though, it has an isolated community of forest survivalists called the Foundation with their medieval village with creepy little girls who are meant to serve as extras for the sake of being creepy. Mortimer did like the first kill of a guy getting crushed with logs with a good view of the body. In fairness, giving some depth into your characters before brutally killing them is a step-up from usual slasher victims.

Mortimer vented again and ended up in the cafeteria. He saw his last victim hurrying into the storage room. Helpless, like how he wanted.

"Stop! I know you're the impostor!" his classmate yelled at him when he entered the room.

"Relax, there are people still alive. We can talk.." Mortimer admittedly acted sadistic towards his fellow classmate.

The other impostor appeared.

"It's Morty! He's the impostor, you need to vote him out-" the classmate got silenced by the other impostor.

They won that round.

---

Last round.

Mortimer was a crewmate again.

He was minding his business, when there was a sabotage of the comms being disabled. "I'll get it." Mortimer went by himself to the office to fix the comms, seeing the vent there. After doing so, he walked back into the cafeteria, only to find... a lot of bodies there. It was very coordinated.

"Oh boy..."

The impostor immediately got him.

[Deblod100]

School was over and all Mortimer wanted to do to wind down was watch that Willy's Wonderland movie that came out days ago. He can't say no to a Nicholas Cage movie. Saying no to Nicholas Cage denies him the chance to get an Oscar. Real truth there. The movie... wasn't good. But it wasn't bad either. Probably on the same league as The Banana Splits movie, in which people are trying to make their own Five Nights at Freddy's movie before it got out of production hell. Mortimer had to wait a while before Security Breach even came out and he wasn't going to rereading Springtrap male pregnancy any time soon.

But for Willy's Wonderland, it did advertise itself as a movie where Nicholas Cage beats up a bunch of pizza mascots. Ok, they are supposed to be animatronic robots who are actually possessed by the souls of a Satanic serial killer cult, but they are clearly people in fursuits. You do the same too when some ostrich claims that it will feast on your face. It's called self-defense. Nothing wrong with that. You also do self-defense against a weasel that sounds like that shitheel kid that got turned into a donkey from Pinocchio. And do self-defense by beating a turtle's balls. Also, as a common staple in slasher movies, any teenager or college student having sex is instant murder food. Especially being chomped to bits by an alligator animatronic.

After watching the film, Mortimer leaned down at the couch and watched Who Framed Roger Rabbit on Freeform. He was wishing that he didn't have to do anymore Among Us from his English class. He just wanted to read Fahrenheit 451 and be immersed in a world that didn't have Among Us of all things.

What can Mortimer do?

It can still be around for all Mortimer knew. He could be in college to get two master degrees and still get a job as a Starbuck's barista and it could still be there. He rather do things differently. He could hitchhike out of Vegas into someone's RV and be left among the skinned dog carcasses in the woods. He can't agree with the Unabomber, but he rather not be in an artificial bubble of an utopia that is disconnected from an outside world and other certain things of interest. A bubble ruled by Among Us. He can be condescending all he wanted on the outside, despite never living on the streets.

All Mortimer probably wanted was to treat Among Us as his adversity.

Have it be chained up and thrown down a well so future generations didn't find it.

If he was lucky, the Beta Generation would be spared for its harms.

Only if it was that easy...

[Deblod100]

Chapter 3 - March - Antisocial Butterfly

It was the first week of March was when Mortimer decided to make his own personal hub to freely talk about his favorite shit on the internet. He could do it on NationStates where he roamed, but he felt obliged to do his own blog. He spent a good 6 days in figuring out how to make one. The main reason to why he made his own blog was supposed of a certain comment that offended Mortimer heavily. Coming from a Tiktoker of all people.

It was during a break while the teacher at their Zoom session was out to deal with some matters outside at their place. The students were allowed to chat, while Mortimer was visible with his webcam on, showing him in a white shirt and some black shorts. There was a girl in his class. He forgot her name after he graduated from middle school, but the two were going through the conversation about the whole mature themes in their study materials. This girl in question was more of the type to browse through Pinterest and TikTok for trends that looked cool to her.

It started off simple enough with movies that were seen recently, until... Mortimer slipped up with this gem:

"Probably a good horror movie that I can recommend is going to be Wrong Turn 2."

You can tell how this is going to go wrong.

"Wrong Turn 2? Why not Wrong Turn 1? What even is Wrong Turn?"

"Oh, it's great! They kill off this American Idol contestant by chopping her in two with an axe-"

"Gross!"

Mortimer wanted to say more, but one of her friends popped up. "You still talking about those oldie movies, Morty?"

"It's Mortimer." he tried to keep a stoic expression.

"2007 is so in the old times. When are you going to get yourself a TikTok? Like do you have Facebook or something?" the friend said, until another classmate chipped in. Fucking Michael...

"I bet he has a Tumblr!"

Mortimer frowned with annoyance, while some kids laughed. The teacher popped back in and no one said a thing.

---

Oh yeah, sure! I can get a TikTok and do the shitty dances that you people are embarrassing yourselves with. Also, you were mentioning about those supposed Japanese moon melons. You know, the ones that are photoshopped to look blue? Oh what? You didn't know that picture on the Internet was fake? Everyone knows that it has been fake since 2014! What's that? You can't get with the times, huh? You keep acting like you want to live on a farm, when you are always on that damn app 24/7. Also, you keep acting like me snacking on chocolate in the middle of a lesson is going to make YOU fat, than me. You can go ahead and keep acting trending, but eventually you're going to be a victim of a 419 scam. Can't help you when that happens. Enjoy your Nigerian prince, though. He must be handsome on Tinder.

And listen here, Michael. That's right, I'm thinking about you now. I can send an email with some screenshots of what you do in your spare life. Don't act surprised, you were actually in one of those fucking Discord groups that I rightfully quit, because of how fucking toxic it got. And you encouraged it. You hang out with pathetic trolls and you know what they like to do. You want that same attention with them and you encourage it. You like to get a raise out of people, including me. I even know what you did back in 7th grade and how much shame, regret, and humiliation you gave your parents. Just because, we're all forced to be on a computer, doesn't mean that you can be allowed to do your shit. Oh yeah, I know what you think is supposed to be funny! It's not. It never was. Because it was focused of going against people like me! You will die on the same hill where you will dig your own grave.

Mortimer had to calm down.

So what that he wasn't used to social media. He had his own amusements. They don't. End of story.






Oh, Michael. You know that hate list I have?

You're not on it. You should know the answer why.

How about you eat literal shit for once?

---

CHILLERAMA

(Ambience music playing while reading blog)

STORIES / FILM TALK / GAME TALK / OTHER STUFF

---

He did it now.

His own haven that he created.

He was not the first of gods to do the same.

He knew that already.

His classmates weren't going to care about this place, since if they were in their own private bubble, he can join in on the bandwagon and do it better to his tastes. He can't win the popularity contest on his online class. To hell to them. He can get all the good grades in his class, but he will never be the class favorite that others claim to be.

He submitted an introductory post first in "OTHER STUFF", along with a story that he can resubmit onto the blog under "STORIES".

His eyes drifted to "FILM TALK". He should mention his favorite movies and games, but he needed to ease it in.

He needed to start with a bang.

What was a certain movie that he can muse about?

...

Hang on. He had an idea.

Mortimer began typing among the 8-bit sounds of Spooky Scary Skeletons.

[Deblod100]

Excerpt from Mega Piranha review by Chiller:

Hey-a folks, if you stumbled onto this website by accident, don't worry. You will not be alone. This here is my own blog that I'm starting to talk about some of the top horror media with heavy gore and large body counts. I'll be your guide and host of this review section, Chiller as you can call me. Now, for our first official review...

I wanted to start off strong and find a spectacle that hurts as much as viewing it. I went knee-deep into the shitstorm of bad movies to find something horrific. As proud that I can say, my first movie to review is The Asylum mockbuster Mega Piranha in 2010. Trying to cash in on Piranha 3D that came out around the same time, The Asylum with the help of the Syfy channel would release a quickie with their trademark low budgets and bad CGI. The Syfy channel are fans at dishing out Z-movie trash, though there are rare instances where the low budgets can still shine over certain occasions. Just not here.

So what can a movie like Mega Piranha offer when it cannot possibly pale in comparison to Piranha 3D that it's based on? Or even the Joe Dante's version back in the 70s? Well, it does make it clear that a swarm of giant piranhas can kill both killer crocodiles and killer sharks. Considering the large amount of movies focused on the latter, it's probably some catharsis from those we are sick of shark movies. But this film doesn't give those people the kick they want. Probably the biggest highlight of this film is one of its main characters Special Agent Jason Fitch, who is set up to be this film's Chuck Norris. This motherfucker reeks of main character action hero energy. If you want an example, you got this guy landing perfect kicks towards a swarm of mega piranhas that fly out of the water onto the shore, trying to bite him. With how the film was shot and how he flails his legs around, every piranha gets insta-killed by his mighty kicks from his boots.

Then, there is a scene where his pilot tries to kill him in his helicopter, but Fitch pulls out a flare gun to shoot a flare into the guy's mouth. The special effects used for this shit is mind-bogging. It's not like how in Survival of the Dead where his head is just on fire. No, his head just explodes like a grape! No massive explosion either! Just a small pop with an explosion sound effect!

Overall, this film is a massive pile of shit. Probably not helping how it pales in comparison to the other blockbusters around 2010 on when it was made. This is definitely a major steer clear, folks! It's not worth your time. Even with the many many many deaths of humans and piranhas alike.

Now, before I wrap up this review, I want to go over the review system I have. Most films, especially slasher flicks, tend to be B-movie quality or simple schlock. Though, in this case, I'm ranking this movie way below schlock territory. From 0 to 100, I shall rank this dumpster fire of a film a...

29 out of 100!!!

[Deblod100]

Mortimer was going to assume that only a few people were going to see the blog he made, though. He didn't care. It wasn't like his fellow classmates were going to see it. What did they care for?

Mortimer went into the kitchen, making sure that the window was open, since he was using a frying pan to cook up some hotdogs for himself, until his mother started the hog the stovetop to prep up a pot of tomato soup. "Could you give me a few minutes?" Mortimer said, trying to focus on his dinner for tonight. "I could, but some friends from work are going to stop by and I wanted to make them something." his mother said, much to his annoyance.

"Who? I thought we can't have anyone over here, because of COVID?"

"They are all vaccinated like you, me, and your sister. It will only be for a hour and I think you should be more social around new people, Mortimer." his mother said, which caused some immediate dread for Mortimer. Why the fuck should he be with new people? Especially adults that probably know him, because he's his mother's son. That's all that they can ask for.

This was bullshit, he thought.

He tried to eat his 4 hot dogs in buns with ketchup on top of each sausage, while he was watching TV. Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery was on, to which it was the scene where the cart he's driving is stuck in between two walls. Almost like what's happening with the Seuz Canel right now. Mortimer was hoping that he can eat his food before the houseguests arrived, but...

DING-DONG

Shit.

His mother came to open the door. It wasn't like her mother had random guys over. Her co-worker friends were all women that she knew. Only a trio of them arrived at Mortimer's place, but he wasn't happy that he had to mingle with them. "Ughhh, erm. Ahem. Hi, how are you doing?" Mortimer felt his own autism kick in. He had to socialize, which he didn't want to do. "Oh, you must be Sharon's son. It's so nice to meet you!" Mortimer had to shake one of the women's hands, when they walked in.

"Come in. Make sure you leave your shoes by the door." Mortimer's mother said, though he believed most people liked to take their shoes off at the front door Japanese style to not get dirt on the carpet. Mortimer wanted to head back to where he left his hotdogs on a china plate at the living room table, until-

"Mortimer." his mother called him over. "You should be eating your dinner at the dining room table."

The family barely even use the dining room table to eat food at. Morty had gotten used to eating on the couch or in his bedroom. It was because they had guests over? Great...

Mortimer moved his plate and took a seat at the dining room. He could have some tomato soup with his hot dogs, but he already added ketchup to the latter. Plus, there was no bread or grilled cheese to be served with the soup. Mortimer had to eat his hot dogs, while his mother's co-workers were trying to probe him with random questions.

"Didn't know that you eat so much."
What? You think I'm training for some eating contest?
"You're a fan of Mike Myers?"
I'm still waiting on Halloween Kills, so- wait, you mean Shrek.
"You should have some tomato, instead of some hot dogs. Isn't that unhealthy?"
Oh, that's it!

"All of America's food products, including what you're eating is 10% sugar. It wouldn't make a difference. Plus, I would love to exercise, but we don't have an exercise bike." Mortimer finally broke his silence, if it can shut people up. "What are your plans for after you finish middle school, Morty? You have some good travel plans?" another lady asked him at the table.

"You mean while our city is still under the apocalypse?" Mortimer snidely said.

"That isn't true, Mortimer. We can still go outside-" his mother was about to say, but Mortimer also continued.
"But we can't be in crowded places with unvaccinated people that are getting themselves sick. Like you said."
"Well... yes. Like what my son says. You know how it is when you have to prevent us around our ages from getting sick." his mother finished.

"Wouldn't it be fun to go to some place like a water park? How do people even go to those places anymore with the restrictions?" one of his mother's co-workers asked, which gave Mortimer a terrible memory of something he knew online.

Don't think about it.

Don't think about it.

Don't think about it.

He thought about it.

Mortimer wasn't going to have the reader see a video on the subject. One video he saw had the news footage showing the blood at the end of the water slide.

That poor kid...

All from that fucking water slide called Verrückt. Doom-thinking wasn't good for his mental mind, knowing what he knew now about Levi Presley.

The specific details on what happened with that water slide were more much grim to describe than the bare minimum.

Mortimer made sure he didn't shallow what he wasn't chewing. He rather not die from unchewed hot dog bun or sausage. His mother always told him to be careful when eating hot dogs. They were a common choking hazard.

"We have no interest in going to water parks." Mortimer abruptly said. Though, the water park that was the closest to Skyline Heights, Cowabunga Canyon Waterpark, was much tame. Mortimer can't recall on who would go to waterparks from out of state. Waterparks in general were usually visited by locals and out of towners from within the state. There are famous water slides in waterparks, but it's for the thrill-seekers.

"Fair enough. There are people who pee in the pools." another one of his mother's friends said.

Also, the pool can be closed for AIDS.

"Well, it's still good that you're still in class without needing to haul around a backpack, Morty."

"Yeah... I guess so." Morty wished that one of his mother's co-workers didn't say that.

After he finished his hot dogs, Mortimer went into one of the bathrooms and pretty much hid away from everyone else. He didn't need to take a shit, but he just sat at the toilet, acting to himself that he needed to. He wanted an excuse to be away from these people.

Eventually after 2 hours of chatting, Mortimer's mother's co-workers left the apartment, giving him an excuse to crash on his bed.

[Deblod100]

Chapter 4 - April - The Tale of James Garner and His Project Partner, The Antichrist
202.2 CHILLER FM:
Do What You Want - OK Go

Mortimer could go for a chick right now. Yes, he was 14, but boys around his age would go through puberty and while yes he was taught about the birds and the bees, this period of life meant only one thing...

He was getting horny.

There was the wonders of internet pornography to help him. Especially drawn pornography. It would be eons perhaps until he had attractions for "human" girlfriends. You can blame the video games and the furries for that one.

Mortimer's ideal girl as of now was what people would call a shortstack. He was taller than most people, so he was going to be forced to be with smaller and shorter girls. They would need to have the curves of a snowman. Bottom heavy, maybe...

Actually, he should get a hold of himself. Can't have lewd thoughts when daydreaming during the middle of something important.

Where was he now?

Oh right, having to deal with history class on Zoom, but this was going to be a chore for this whole month for one reason.

"For your final project, I ask that you pair up with a partner, so I'm also testing your cooperation." his history teacher said to him.

What was that last chapter of the tome called again?

Oh right, "Antisocial Butterfly". Things weren't going to go into Mortimer's favor. He didn't even like his classmates. His classmates probably didn't like him, considering how they were fucking normie scum. What can a man like him do? He wished that he can be partnered with Ray. He was not in any of Mortimer's Zoom classes. After COVID popped up last year and after the divorce, Mortimer has never been able to visit Meadowbrook at where Ray was living at. He was still able to communicate with him through Discord, but he was probably a brain in a jar that was hardwired to a computer.

Maybe he was a ghost and his house was actually burnt down to the ground and they just refuse to talk about it on the news. It scared Mortimer.

For the project itself, it didn't help that the teacher was allowing people to be paired with their friends, who were also in the class. So Mortimer would need to have the teacher pair him with someone else.

Someone then tried to message Mortimer on Zoom.

Oh, brother...

Mortimer checked the PM. Who was going to be Mortimer's partner in his shin-dig?

His name was James Garner.

Can we be partners?

Ughhhh.......

Sure.

He signed a devil's contract.

[Deblod100]

What probably didn't help with the history project was that it required either a presentation with slides to be shown to the other kids, or it can require a video that needs to be relevant and make an example of the thesis being put up into the essay. So most of the work that was optional for extra credit to raise Mortimer's grades up was now mandatory. He had to get his new partner to come up with some bullshit with him, so they can get through this month on a fly.

After the Zoom lecture, Mortimer had to lend his phone number to James, so they can be in close contact. The good news was that James Garner claimed that he lived in Skyline Heights as Mortimer, though he said that he was roughly at the edge of Skyline Heights at where his building was at.

Ok, Mortimer. Time to try to make new friends.

Mortimer waited until he was done with school at the end of the day, so they can talk.

"You have a game plan, already?" Mortimer asked James on the phone.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... Maybe." James replied.

Mortimer had to bring his history textbook online, since the project covered stuff that was taught into class. It was a world history class, though it was teaching on broader things like the medieval times and the pyramids.

"I thought maybe we can try to do a comparison essay? Like, we can try to compare stuff with the knights and samurai?" James explained to him. Mortimer turned to the pages online. Looks like there is enough to cite for an essay.

"I can do a re-read on this, yeah. Like in terms of weapons and kingdoms and stuff?"

"Yeah, that's what I'm shooting for! We might have enough to go by!" James eagerly said. From how it sounded, he wanted to get this thing outta of the way, as much as Mortimer did.

"Hang on, I share a Google Doc with you." Mortimer got one set up on his Drive, so he can add James.

"Cool beans."

"...Guessing we just do the re-read and add stuff that looks like it has good weight." Mortimer noted.

"Who's going to write the essay itself?"

"Aren't both of us?"

"I might need to do some stuff tonight and a couple of nights after, so I don't know how much time I have to work." James said, but Mortimer didn't press onto Garner's statement.

"As long as I don't cram in most of the words here." Mortimer noted.

James hung up, until Morty realized that they hadn't decided on if they should do a presentation or video.

...

Fuck it.

Mortimer sent James a text message.

Can't do a presentation. Stage fright, you dig? Possible to shoot a video?

Mortimer waited for a reply.

He got one a half a hour later.

I can work with that.

The excuse worked.

[Deblod100]

Mortimer wasn't a fan of soulslike games. But with all the hype around them, he can't really miss out. He didn't have anything against soulslike games. He just sucked at them.

Every gamer knows that games from FromSoftware were made to be as brutally difficult as possible. They were beatable in a span that millions of people can still beat them, but the games always involved dying and learning from mistakes to adapt. Everyone back during the days of when Demon's Souls was said to be one of the most difficult games ever were given pure dread when the creators made a game that was supposed to be harder with Dark Souls. The latter being marketed with its infamy.

Nowadays, people have gotten use to such games. Difficulty was meant to be rewarding after being fought. Though, for Mortimer, he was trying to make sure that he was getting everything right when he was playing Bloodborne. A game that he decided to play again. A game that he also started back at March and it was taking him now in April to get halfway there with the DLC attached. He was having his player character in the middle of some sewer, trying to fight off some rats with a sword, only to get ambushed and killed by another enemy.

"Oh bullshit!" Mortimer threw his hands up from the keyboard and mouse. Practice makes perfect, but he wasn't going to achieve shit when the game was actively doing anything to prevent him from winning.

Mortimer spend the month in a mixture of going from attempting to beat Bloodborne to citing and working on the essay that was due with James. He could tell that his partner was working on things, but it looked like he was adding a sentence every day than how Morty was trying to go for more. It might have been due to other projects, since the two were in the midst of the last leg to the "end of the race". Mortimer had to re-read a lot of what was covered, so that he knew what to add to their essay.

Unfortunately, Mortimer would get sidetracked by the worst thing happening during the last weeks of April. Drama. Not personal drama. Internet drama. Usually, he can brush it off, since it was probably some dipshit from Twitter or Reddit trying to start a storm.

But this had the misfortune of infecting Mortimer with interest (CW: Pedophile drama).

Basically, the whole drama is a shitty person taking down another shitty person. So both sides are going down in flames. Win-win.

That probably shouldn't help Morty, when he needed to socialize...

[Deblod100]

Mortimer was checking his phone in his bedroom for more drama updates, until he got another phone call from James. He picked it up to see what his partner wanted.

"Need something?"

"Hey, so we done the essay. But we need to make a video now." James reminded him. Mortimer immediately went to his computer to check Google Drive. The essay was indeed finished, but all that was left was the video.

"Oh yeah... How are we supposed to do footage for our essay?" Mortimer asked him.

"I don't know? Can't we go to the Excalibur hotel?"

"You mean for the Tournament of Kings?"

"Yeah, we can get some footage of that."

"We would need to pay for tickets! They don't do specials for locals. Plus, I doubt that show has anything to do with feudal Japan." Mortimer said, since he didn't want to spend any money.

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh-" James once again tried to think up an idea, "-hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Actually, I think we can do things with props." James said. Mortimer immediately knew that he himself didn't have any props.

"You wanna meet in person to discuss this? Didn't you say that your place is nearby?" Mortimer asked James.

"I do, but are you vaccinated?"

"I've been getting vaccines I think every month." In fairness, he never kept track on when he was given the vaccine for COVID. "They just give those out to anyone who happens to walk by the hospitals."

"Alright. We should be safe, but where do you want to actually meet?"