I woke up this morning with the sound of a loud duck quack underneath my pillow. I assumed it wasn't real. How did I know? Well, how could a real, live duck fit underneath my pillow? I felt a solid object underneath my head, right under the cushion layering of my pillow. I was too tired to care to lift up my pillow and look at what it is. After all, it happens to be spring break right now, and I value my beauty sleep (which is about as precious as it gets when school isn't forcing me to get 6 hours of sleep a day). I don't care if there was a ticking bomb underneath my pillow, I was in my zombie-like state of being half-awake, and I wasn't willing to move an inch. (If there was such thing as a game called "The Bed is Lava,” I would always lose.)
Around 6 seconds later, I heard the noise again. It woke me up immediately, and I jumped out of bed, startled. I looked up at the ceiling and stared. I noticed something strange-- the walls of my room were painted dark green, instead of the usual teal-blue color. What's more, it was all empty, free of any decoration as far as I could see. My usual Star Wars posters, Harry Potter bobble-heads, Zelda amiibo, and my old DDN mug (I keep it for the memories) were all nowhere to be seen. The same thing was applied to any furniture since I couldn't see my bookshelf, my desk, or even my clothes drawers. It was all barren, except for me and my bed. Confused, but not particularly scared just yet, I walked up to my door and turned the handle in an attempt to try to walk outside. I turned it once, but it was locked. I tried again, turning it harder this time. It’s still locked. I frantically turned the handle back and forth, not believing what I was seeing. Still, the door wouldn't creak open an inch.
Thinking that I had accidentally locked it from the outside, I called outside to get my parents.
"Mom! Dad! Can you unlock my door?" I yelled out, face pressed tightly against the door.
I get no response, so I yell louder.
"Dad! Mom! I'm locked inside my--" I never get to finish my sentence because I’m interrupted by a loud duck sound from somewhere behind me. It occurred to me that I had forgotten entirely about the object underneath my pillow. I walked back and lifted my pillow up, and what I saw was utterly surprising.
There was a small hatch inside my mattress, with a large metallic handle. It looked like old, beaten up, and rusty. I tried to pull the handle (I didn't have much of another choice), hoping that it wouldn't be locked like my door was. It unlocked right away, and underneath, I saw a hole. It was very small, around maybe 5 inches or so in diameter, enough to fit an apple in it. It was dark and shadowy, and I had no idea what it could possibly lead to. I was about recklessly to poke my hand into it out of pure curiosity, but I stopped myself before I could. I had no idea what could be in there, after all. Maybe something dangerous. Instead, I looked around for something else that I could poke into it.
After a few moments of scouring around the vacant space of my room, I realized that it might be worthwhile to check the empty space behind my bed. So I did, and I was greeted with a large cardboard box. The box had a large message written in what appeared to be a red marker, and it said: "SEYE RUOY EVEILEB TNOD.” Seemed like gibberish to me. I was too impatient to find out if there was something inside of it, so I simply clawed at the cardboard with my bare hands, tearing it open at the seams.
Inside, I found five items: a Smash Mouth album cover, a plush donkey, an onion, an old cell phone, and a drawing. The drawing was very sloppy and appeared to have messily created with crayons on a crumpled up sheet of paper. It looked something like this:
I stared at the drawing for quite a while, thinking about what it could possibly mean. I saw what appeared to be a large, dark line, that came from a blue rectangular object. This line led to another rectangle, inside of which was a yellow blob with a pointy orange thing on it. I realized what this orange thing was supposed to be: a beak! This was a yellow bird, in other words, a duck! The blue object may have been my bed since it has a blue blanket. The black curve could be the tunnel that means that the hole in my bed is actually some sort of a secret tunnel! There was also what looked to be a written message on the drawing of my bed. It was very sloppy, and I had to squint to make out what it said. On my first attempt, I read it aloud: "TO GET W: REEERTO CEGRFTKNOCK." Was it gibberish, like the message on the cardboard box? But the more I stared at it, the more I started to make sense of it more clearly. When I put all of this together, it meant that the message that whoever made this had written was "TO GET IN: REFER TO SECRET KNOCK.”
Get into what? I assumed that it meant the tiny tunnel that was on my bed for some reason. After all, the message was written right above where the drawing of the hole was. It didn't say, "To get out" either, so, unfortunately, it didn't help me to escape my locked room. What was the knock? Oh yeah, there was a Smash Mouth album. It must have been All Star! I started knocking in the tune of "Somebody once told me.." Suddenly, the entire ground below me started to shake, and I felt myself falling, terrified, bracing myself for what was next to come. Then everything went black.
Once I got back to consciousness, I found myself tied up in a chair, inside an empty black room. I saw many of my friends and people I knew from school, all looking particularly angry at me. They started to yell out several things.
Someone who resembled (not) Ivan Wong, in particular, had a long speech to make.
"I am not Ivan, Just call me Mr. Anonymous Jr. III. Hi there! You know me! I’m Arca. Actually no, I’m a friend of his. And today, I have a very important announcement to make.
Wait, what? R.J. No, why would I call you that?
Continuing on, Arca has requested that I take over his blog, as he has lost motivation to continue blogging. Ever since the start of the school year, when the views on his posts started to decline, he started having doubts about his blogging career. No, wait, that isn’t right. His bots started malfunctioning, and he didn’t want to go through the trouble to set them up again. As such, I have to take care of his blog. I’m actually not even his friend, so who knows how Arca even knows me. I’m not even in any of his classes!
What? Did I force him to give up his blog? No, lol. Of course not. His blog is total trash, no offense. I mean, I hate blogging as a whole. I wouldn’t even do this if “Arca” didn’t offer me… we’re getting off topic.
Anyway, I’ll try to be as
Wait… What? No? I can’t do that? Why not?
OK, Arca an--... Arca told me not to be nerdy. I’ll respect his wishes, cuz (wow such cool shortened words) I’m his acquaintance. And since I’m merciful. Wait, I didn’t mean to say “merciful”. Just, respectful. Heh heh. Oh, and because “Arca” gave m---
Hmm? Did I say “Arca”, and not Arca? Ugh… I didn’t even wanna do this.
That was a mistake. I was referring to Arca, and not anyone else.
Now, I should probably be talking about myself right now. Unlike Arca, I’m not in all honors, because I try hard for better grades. However, I am considered to be above average at math. My favorite subject is, of course,
Anyway, my next post will probably be about
"Wait, what??" I said. "First of all, slow down with all your plans. Because its never happening. Also, I'm sure I didn't want this to happen."
"Actually," Xiang said, "You did. You see, your little brother Onur said you want to give up blogging. And you assigned him to be the public spokesperson for your blog."
I gasped. "Onur! Why would you betray me? I gave you that position because somehow I trusted you, a nine-year old child, to speak in behalf of a 13-year old on blogging matters!"
Onur stepped outside the shadows, his silhouette surprising me among the many taller people in the room.
"It was me who thought of this legit idea," he said, smiling evilly. " My name is Jeff, and if ur name's not Jeff then you are not allowed. Ur name is not Jeff, R.J. That is why I lied! Also, I swim in cheese for some apparent reason. So like, get a life or something. Ma boi spoongebob. I dunno what Arca was doing in his bloog in the first place. So that is another reason why I took over! Now I have two bloogs! Wahahaha! Anyway, check out me first bloog: www.freerobux.cheese. Did u lik it? R.J, u Minecraft fan! Ur name is not Jeff! Also, I dug the hole."
Tanisha even had something to say, "Don't listen to anyone else's bragging! I dug the hole, so I did like 100% of the work. Onur is just lying!"
"No I am not lying! Do you know what, Tanisha, or whatever your name is, your fired! I don't know why you are here in the first place. And I don't know why anyone else is here either. I was just here to confront R.J." Onur grabbed what looked to be a sword and swung it at me. I did a quick dodge and ran. I watched as everybody was running towards me screaming as they ran.
Onur was fast so he caught up with me.Was I dreaming? Was this Onur? And, most importantly, what was the object he used to swing at me? He swung it at me again. Then everything went black.
I can't believe that I got knocked out twice today. I looked around me, and saw it was my parent's room! There they were again... (Not) Ivan, Tanisha, Anushka, Albert, Onur, and Xiang. However, there were even more people here than last time, noticeably they were Young, Ali, and Burak.
"You ran into a door, Arca, when you were running away for some reason. Why were you running?" Anushka said, confused. I had been knocked out, apparently.
"Onur had his sword." I stammered.
"No," Onur laughed,"that was my duck you silly goose!"
That would explain the strange quacking that I had been hearing.
"First of all, why do you have a duck? And why were you assaulting me with it?" This all seemed like a very elaborate prank, but they were dead serious about it.
"No, I was trying to make the duck grab your computer so I could blog, because obviously I should be the owner, partly because my name is pronounced like owner." Onur said, laughing. Wait a minute... my computer? How did it get down here? I looked behind me. There it was: my laptop. It had been right behind me the entire time. When I turned around to face it, I brought everyone's attention to it.
"Oh, so there it was," said Albert. "It was right in front of us the entire time and nobody ever noticed except for Arca's brother! GRAB IT!!!"
I saw a stampede of my acquaintances dashing towards the table behind me, arms extended and ready to grab.
I had to extend my leg to block Young, and both my arms to block Burak.
"Woah, slow down everyone," I exclaimed. "First of all, I'm never giving my blog to you. Second of all, you can't even get into my computer! You don't know the password."
"Well, what could it possibly be?" Ali asked.
"I know! I know!" Albert said. "Shrek 5 is gonna be so much better than Shrek 4!"
"Literally no one would think that," Xiang said, covering his face with his palm.
"That is way too long to be a password," (not) Ivan said.
"Actually," Onur said. "I know his password. I use his computer all the time!"
Next, before I could stop him from doing so, he reached over to my computer and typed in the password as fast as he could.
A few moments later, my desktop loaded. I had to grab my entire laptop and shove it between my arms to keep anyone from using it.
"Yes, it will soon be all mine," Onur said, sounding more evil than usual. "I will be the real Onur of his blog!"
"First of all, can you stop using that same pun over and over again," Anushka said. She was holding two cookies in each of her hands, and was eating one of them, so the words she said came out slightly muffled. "Also, so like, y’all best be thankful I brought cookies cause like, kidnapping people is exhausting. I put in effort too, see? I actually tried in my attempt to kidnap Arca. Plus, I love me a good cookie, okay? And don’t you dare try to steal some cause then you bouta catch these hands."
"Um, I'll pass, Anushka," Albert replied. "But seriously, Uno, or whatever your name is. You can't be the one who takes Arca's blog! It's unfair! You barely did any work, you just talked about chicken the entire time. Tanisha may have dug the hole, but regardless of what Onur says, I was the one who made up the plan!"
"That is incorrect," Ivan said. "It was I who formulated our master strategy to catch Arca in the middle of the night. Albert just drew the terrible diagram of the secret tunnel."
"How dare you insult my art skills!" Albert said. "I'm in creative arts, ya know!"
"I should get Arca's blog," Burak said. "After all, I'm like, his best friend."
"No, I am!" Ali said.
"I'm a closer friend to him!" Young exclaimed.
"Ha, lol, nope, it's me," Xiang said. "Besides, I already have had two blogs before in the past (which I deleted), but I'm still the most experienced blogger other than him.'
"But I brought cookies!" Anushka insisted, still munching on her cookies. "And they're dark chocolate ones, too! I deserve his blog (and some napkins)."
"Slow down, everyone," I said. "It's never happening, since whatever you do or give me, I will never give up on my blog. Why would I? I've made it this far already. 100 thousand views, 300 posts, and over four years of effort."
"But didn't you say that your blog was dying?" (not) Ivan said. "In one of your older posts, you said that once school started, you started gaining views at a microscopic rate. You only post once a month nowadays, and that's if you're lucky."
"I'll give you my Shrek fanfic if you let us take your blog!" Albert said, making a very tempting offer. This offer would change my life as I knew it.
I pondered over this consideration. A Shrek fanfiction would be exactly what I needed. Not 'cause I wanted to read it (that's gross), but because it provided what I desperately needed: Blogging content. Why else do you think that my blog was dying all of a sudden? A lack of content. I admit it: It wasn't because of school. It is really easy, and my homework usually only takes me 1 or 2 hours to finish. No, the reason I didn't post content was because I am running out of ideas! With so much Shrek fanfic, I wouldn't need to continue to use my current blog. Why stay on a sinking ship, after all? I could just start a new blog, one that is only dedicated to Shrek, and plagiarize Albert's fanfic in order to gain a bunch of views! I said in my last post that Shrek 6 was coming out soon, so it would be perfect to capitalize on all the search results that this would get me. This was the end of my blog, and the start of another one.
"Fine," I said, sighing. "You guys have yourself a deal. But I'm still not sure who I should give ownership of my blog to."
"How about this?" Tanisha started to explain. "To make this fair for everyone, how about let's let Arca make just one last post on his blog? The post would let him ask his viewers to choose who should be the new owner of his blog. (If he has any viewers left, that is.) And let's only let the poll include me, Anushka, Albert, Ivan, and Onur, since we were the original people to join in on this scheme. The others just joined in later."
"Aw man," Burak said. "Let's go, guys." Then, one by one, Burak, Ali, Young, and Xiang all left the room, looking disappointed.
I opened up my laptop and started typing up this post, the one that you are reading right now. So as of today, April 1st 2018, my blog is officially over. It will still exist, but it wont be mine anymore. I am giving it to one of the following people: Ivan, my little brother Onur, Albert, Tanisha, or Anushka. It is up to you readers to decide by voting in this poll: (which doesn't exist anymore since the results are already in).
You have until 7 PM on April 2nd (the day that you are probably reading this) to vote in the poll. Then, I will update this post proclaiming the winner, and definitely making them the new owner.
If you still can't decide, I will provide links to their own Google+ profiles/blogs, so that way you can further evaluate who would be the most worthy to be the new owner of the TTHT blog. Here they are:
- Tanisha: https://plus.google.com/105405601557479114437
- Ivan: https://plus.google.com/113728048746249379561
- Albert: https://plus.google.com/115808181367303022669
- Onur: https://onur3.blogspot.com/
- Anushka: https://plus.google.com/108818227032742301255
Good luck to all the competitors! And to my readers: Choose wisely. Also, Anushka, can you please stop spilling cookie crumbs over my keyboard?! It's making me have typos so i dnot wnat yosu sdoijd kj;ljadfs;k
Update: 4/2/2018 (7:00 PM)- WHO WON???
The voting is now over. I would like to thank everyone who voted. You may be wondering? Who is writing this section of the post right now? The answer is: The one who, according to the poll results, deserves to be the owner of this blog. Here are the results:
- Onur, Arca's little brother, gained one-third of the votes: 33%
- Albert only had 11%.
- Ivan had a small 11%.
- Anushka had 11%.
- Tanisha, just like Onur, accumulated a total of 33%
Who won, you may ask?: It's a tie. Tanisha and Onur both had the same percent. So then how do we settle this? Rock paper scissors? Random finger pointing? A Pokemon battle? Fortnite? (Forget that last one. No one wants to do that.)
Let's look at the dictionary definition of "win", taken from Merriam Webster's website:
"To gain in, or as if in battle or contest; to be the victor in."
Notice how I bolded the word "the"? This means that there can only be one true winner. (Even if its a group of people on the same team, it counts as one group.) So who won this poll? Technically, NO ONE WON this poll. In other words, Onur is... the loser. So is Tanisha. Even Ivan, Anushka, and Albert all lost.
Then who could possibly be writing this right now? The answer starts with a B. It is Baran. (AKA: Baran, Arca.)
That's right! Since there was no clear winner to the poll, I take back ownership by default. I guess I better start putting Albert's Shrek 7 fanfic in the shredding machine, since I'm back to making a post once a month about nothing in particular! Gee, I sure wish that someone could have won that totally legit poll since----- Nope. In case you haven't bothered to check the day it was published, it was on April 1st. April Fools!
My blog isn't over. So will my blog ever end? Yes, but not anytime soon, that's for sure. Why I am still continuing, so many years later? Not because of the views, believe it or not. It's because of the support I get from all these people who read my work. These same people helped me make this story!
Shoutouts to all the people who wrote this story with me
I didn't make this post alone.This post was a collaboration post, partially written by each of the five people nominated in that poll. I had to contact several people and ask them if they were interested in writing some dialogue for an April Fool's day post for my blog. Not everyone was able to respond, since it happens to be spring break right now and many people are on vacation. (I originally contacted Ali, Burak, Xiang, and Young to join me in this collab, but they didn't respond. I gave them a cameo appearance in this story anyways.) I sent those who responded a Google Doc explaining all the details and backstory, and from there they surprised me with how well that they were able to respond.
Thank you to Ivan, Tanisha, Onur, Anushka, and Albert. Your writing really helped me make my post funny and interesting. In order to let everyone know who wrote which portion, I will color code the story with whoever wrote that part. Here is the key:
Writing Contribution Color Code:
Red- Ivan
Orange- Onur
Green- Albert
Blue- Tanisha
Purple- Anushka
Black- My writing (Arca)
Anyways, I hoped you enjoyed reading this post. It was so much fun making it together with these friends. If every post I continue to make will be as much fun (Shrek fanfic doesn't count), then there may never be an "end of my blog".
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