| abstract
| - Since the house he lived in was a Rift, Josh Rallus was chosen as the Dweller's human host or "keeper". As such, he was given the role of "the Keeper" during the Angel's Game. The Dweller later began sending cryptic messages to Josh and his friends as well as hacking Josh's accounts, warning him of a coming threat among other things. In September 2010, Josh decided to start vlogging on YouTube under the channel name "theoriginalaliendude". The first several videos he uploaded simply featured him filming around his house and discussing his plans for future videos. In one such video, however, he discovered a leather pouch containing seven golf tees around his house, and referred to one of the golf tees as a game piece. Thinking that it was his brother, Caleb, who left the pouch, he initially dismissed it. He later found a second leather pouch, this time containing an eighth golf tee and a pair of dice. Around this time, a distorted video featuring Josh walking up to the door of his friend, Austin Bradley, was uploaded to his channel without Josh's knowledge. Again thinking it was his brother who was responsible, Josh moved on and began promoting Austin's channel, "UnwillingWatcher", which he had started due to the memory loss he had been experiencing. While at his school, Josh discovered a flash drive in the toilet paper dispenser in a bathroom stall, which contained the video 'THINK FAST.MOV' and a note depicting a man in a suit with a menacing smile on his face, as well as the words "LET'S PLAY THE ANGEL'S GAME". Josh also took the chance to promote the channel "Razveeg", which had been started by Alana Hudson, another friend of his. Seeing Austin's recently uploaded videos, which showed him receiving cryptic notes of his own and intending to follow their instructions, Josh confronted him at school in an attempt to deter him, but failed. After this point, Austin stopped attending school, which Josh mentioned in one of his videos. Three days after confronting Austin, a video was uploaded to Josh's account by the hacker, which was made up of footage from Josh's not yet uploaded update video spliced in with various other clips. The next day, Josh woke up on the floor of his bathroom and tweeted that he had seen the video. Soon after, he posted a video in which he suggested that the golf tees and dice he had found were to be used for the game Aggravation, which his grandmother, whose name meant "Angel" used to play, meaning the hacker had a knowledge of his family's history. Josh also continued to receive cryptic notes and drawings, which contained messages such as "he is coming" and "keep her out". More than a week after his disappearance, Josh found Austin slumped over against a building while at school, and discovered that he didn't remember anything that had happened to him during his lost time. Josh and Austin later discussed the messages they had been left by the hacker and the names he had posted to Josh's twitter. They decided that Josh must be "the Keeper", Austin must be "the Other", and the hacker must be "the Dweller", although they were unsure of who "the Creature" could be. After finding Austin, Josh began losing his memories of parts of his days and feeling sick around the times when the Dweller would upload videos to his account. In early December, Josh discovered a box in his closet left by the Dweller, which had been dated December 25th, 2011. He also began having strange dreams, which involved something with the distinct smell of meat following him around. One day, Josh heard a noise and ran into a room to investigate, only to have the door close and lock behind him. He remained locked in the pitch black closet for more than a day, during which he spoke with the Dweller, who was unable to see, and experienced various strange occurrences. Josh later got out of the closet and discovered that Austin had been briefly hospitalized after being assaulted by a tall man in a suit. For failing to keep Alana out as the messages had warned him, Josh had the contents of the box he found taken from him by the Dweller. Josh also began recording his house at night, but did not see anything in these recordings, although he did hear noises. Josh, Austin, and Alana had decided to go to the woods where Austin had vanished for several days, and were going to be driven there by there friend, Nathan. Once there, the three of them looked around the woods while Nathan waited in his jeep. Josh found a page out of an old diary and then decided to return to leave the forest due to Austin's insistence. When they reached the jeep, they discovered that Nathan was gone and were then chased by the tall suited man they now knew as the Creature. Austin tried to resist being taken away and walked towards the Creature, but Josh and Alana managed to bring him to his senses in time for the three to escape. The Dweller, who had been silent for several weeks, began leaving clues and posting videos to Josh's channel again, [[one of which featured Josh at Austin's house when the Creature arrived. the two went outside and found Nathan's jeep parked in Austin's garage and somebody marked as "Nathen" on Austin's phone sent him a message. The Creature later reappeared and the jeep vanished once again. Soon after this, Josh discovered a garbage bag left at his front door. As he approached the bag, a hand burst out and Josh lost his memory of the events that followed due to the Dweller taking over to fight the moving bag. Josh later uploaded another video featuring various clips he filmed during a week, some of which he didn't remember. One clip featured Josh discussing the dreams he had been having, in which a young girl's body is discovered near a smile painted in her blood. Another clip showed a man in a tie with a bag covering his face swinging something towards the camera. An additional clip excluded from the video showed Josh, Austin, and Alana talking to their friend, Stephen Patrick, at school and reluctantly letting him in on what had been happening to them. In the video, Josh also acknowledged that he knew the Dweller was an entity living in his head that had been possessing him, which resulted in his sicknesses and lost time. On his Facebook, Josh compared the bag-headed man to the drawing on the first note he had received, believing them to be one in the same. On February 27th, Josh tweeted about a strange experience he had in which time and space seemed to distort around him for a while, followed by the Dweller tweeting that Josh, his Keeper, should sleep. Later, the bag-headed man broke into Josh's house and uploaded a video to his YouTube account showing more of the footage with the garbage bag. The footage also showed Josh (or possibly the Dweller), sharpening an axe. In response to the intruder, Josh/Dweller later tweeted that he enjoyed cutting up the bag he had left them. After planning for several weeks, Josh, Austin, and Stephen drove to Nathan's house and began looking around inside. They discovered that Nathan's family had also seemingly vanished and then discovered the Creature in the house and fled. Outside, they discovered that the car they arrived in was gone and that Nathan's jeep was around the side of the house. With no way home, Josh and the others slept in a shed, taking shifts watching the doors during the night, and then departed in the morning. After walking through the woods for a while, they discovered Nathan's dead body and then the Creature waiting for them. Austin charged at the Creature, axe in hand, but was easily tossed aside by it. With no other way out, the Dweller was forced to use his energy and attempted to sacrifice himself to save Josh and his friends. However, due to being away from a rift, his attempt failed, and although they managed to escape, the Dweller's power destroyed Josh's sanity. Josh showed up at school several days later in a "broken" state, barely able to function on his own. At this point, the Dweller assumed full control of his body and attempted to imitate Josh to avoid suspicion. During his time at Josh's school, the Dweller also explained his situation to Alana, who didn't truly believe his claims. On March 17th, "Baghead" once again broke into Josh's house and tweeted to Josh's followers that they had three minutes to convince him not to kill Josh in his sleep. He was convinced by the logic that "it's more fun to play with them than to kill them" and chose not to do so. Before leaving, he got into a fight with the Dweller, who later said that he ran like a coward. During his time in control of Josh's body, the Dweller took Stephen, who he had given the role of "the Collector", to the well at his school, a location the Dweller had been hinting at in his notes to Josh and the others. There he had left a small blue Easter egg containing a list of Josh's accounts and their passwords as well as a flash drive containing information on the Creature and how it was supposed to be dead. The Dweller took the flash drive but left Stephen with the account information and told him that his purpose was missed, as there was no longer any need for a Collector. After learning that Alana had been murdered by "Baghead" now known to be Austin under the control of the Creature, Josh attempted to commit suicide with whatever sanity he had left. The Dweller attempted to stop Josh, which resulted in both of them "dying" and combining together to form a new entity who would later be known as Emet Rotter. Emet carried on the battle with the Creature to completion, which resulted in Austin and the Creature falling into a Rift in the lake behind Stephen's house. With the Game completed, Emet left Stephen as the only survivor.
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