I released the third of my Patreon Challenge stories a few days ago, Online Undead. You can check it out here if you’re my patron:

https://www.patreon.com/posts/online-undead-23976252

And here’s a teaser:

My name is Charlie (no relation to Leroy) Jenkins, and I think I’m being haunted. But of course, I’m getting ahead of myself, and it’s not so much haunted as…well, I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Nathan and I had been best friends since the 2nd grade, when his family moved here from Dallas eight years ago. His parents hadn’t allowed him to socialize outside of school at first, but we’d found other ways to connect. We’d done everything together online we could, really, but mostly what we’d done is play video games. We’d spent so much time paired up in the digital world, it was almost impossible to believe that I’d never see him again not only physically but also digitally.

Around 5th grade Nathan’s parents loosened up a bit and we’d begun hanging out more in person, but the pattern had already been set. The digital world was our domain, and we spent most of our time together there, battling dragons of all different shapes, sorts, and sizes. 

We started with Disney’s Toontown Online, quickly progressed to Pirates of the Caribbean and then to City of Heroes, and when NCSoft stupidly shut down CoH, moved on to Secret World: Legends and World of Warcraft. Lately, however, we’d been going the nostalgia route, playing Toontown Rewritten (a fan-made server created after Disney shut down the original) while our phones were almost completely dedicated to Pokémon Go.

https://www.patreon.com/posts/online-undead-23976252

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From Joe's writing

It was the time of Kölner Karneval in Cologne, or, as many of the locals preferred to call it, ‘die närrische Zeit’, the fifth and foolish season. Once a year, just after winter had ended, the city would host a huge carnival filled with parades, performers, and vendors hawking various foods and desserts, all enjoying a full weekend of madness celebrating the year to come.

— Small Things, Chapter 25