The internet has midwived a style of short horror story called the “creepypasta”. Where horror novels are MOABs and fusion bombs, creepypasta are IEDs, designed to be efficient, minimal, and easy to transport (ie, memetic). And if they fail to blow up, no matter. This was a surprise attack from the shadows. There will be another one tomorrow.

Creepypastas are bound by two rules: they must be posted anonymously, and everyone who reads them must play along with the idea that they are real. One of the more famous ones I’ve seen is called Killswitch, about a creepy videogame (a popular topic.) The author is Catherynne M Valente. Either that or she’s stealing someone’s story, because it’s found in her 2013 collection, The Melancholy of Mechagirl.

It’s not very good. But it’s the greatest kind of not very good story…the sort that’s interesting to talk and think about. Most copypastas are vapid and hollow, Ikea-assembled by teenagers using dull ideas from horror movies. Try to analyse them and your hand closes on empty air.

But Killswitch is interesting, at least. It’s kneecapped by the fact that so many of her descriptions of videogame playing seem “off” or wrong. I doubt she plays games much. Maybe she was motivated to write it by the relative mysteriousness or exoticism of gaming (the same way white kids in Cleveland are attracted to Japanese culture, I suppose, because it’s unlike what they’re used to), but what seems mysterious to an ingénue will not seem mysterious to someone “in the know”. It will seem dead, and artificial.

Old-school videogames are popular topics for creepypasta partly because they invoke nostalgia, and also because there’s much more room for “creepyness” in a 8-bit 460×360 game where everything is displayed in blocky pixels and your imagination has to do the rest. The “cow level” in Diablo is a good example. For years it was rumoured that the player could access a secret part of the game by clicking a cow or some such, and gamers used large amounts of electricity trying to do this.

But the details have to be right, or the artifice is exposed and the creepyness is gone. The trouble with Killswitch is that we get things like this:

On the surface it was a variant on the mystery or horror survival game, a precursor to the Myst and Silent Hill franchises. The narrative showed the complexity for which Karvina was known, though the graphics were monochrome, vague grey and white shapes against a black background.

The game described sounds totally different to Myst or Silent Hill, and if it’s a survival horror game, comparisons to Infogrames’ Alone in the Dark would seem more appropriate than a 1999 Playstation game.

Porto awakens in the dark with wounds in her elbows, confused.

How does the player know that Porto is confused? How can we see the wounds in her elbows when the game is black and white? Valente’s describing a movie here, not a game.

Killswitch, by design, deletes itself upon player completion of the game. It is not recoverable by any means, all trace of it is removed from the user’s computer. The game cannot be copied.

That’s HUGE. If a real game was discovered that could not be copied, nobody would give a shit about the story or the characters. It would be one of the biggest tech stories ever. The software industry would spend millions or billions trying to understand or decipher the copy protection – if would be their chance to stomp the windpipe of piracy forever. Karvina Corporation would be the industry’s fair-haired child. But Valente just throws that out there as a plot point. The game cannot be copied, here is a full and here is a stop.

At least tell us what happens when we try to copy or reverse engineer the game. Is there an error message? We want to be in the midst of this story but Valente’s inexperience is holding us away at arm’s length.

When a dice flies, it bears seven fates on its vectors. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Or you can slam a bowl over the dice, and never know.

People choose the seventh option every day. It’s easy to throw a dice, or throw a stone, or fire a gun, if you don’t have to look at the consequences. The worst development in all of war was when we found a way to kill over a distance. Once, killing meant committing violence against a tangible body. Now, you can do it without thinking or knowing or caring or understanding.

Seeing is a gift, but gifts are more trouble than they’re worth sometimes. It’s easier sometimes to not see, to look in a dark corner and be blind, or to have a thought and not follow it through it its conclusion.

Let me tell of a man who rolled the dice and couldn’t look.

Shaka Zulu was a 19th century Zulu king who won a kingdom and defended it against enemies black and white. He was successful on the battlefield and plagued by witch doctors at home.

The Zulu held shamans in high regard as a class of lawyer priests. It was customary for shamans to receive half of a convicted man’s property, and they grew overfond of accusing wealthy people of crimes so as to share in their wealth.

One day, the actions of a particular witch exceeded Zulu’s patience, and he decided to punish her.

He imprisoned her in a hut and – because she claimed a hyena as her familiar – he put a fully grown male hyena in the hut with her before barring the door. He did not wish her to be lonely.

Hyenas are not timid scavenging animals. When hungry, they are dangerous predators. Snarls and barks came from inside the hut. The people in the kraal heard these sounds, and knew that a king’s vengeance was underway.

But then there was silence. No more snarls and barks. No sound at all came from inside the hut. The beast was quiet, and Shaka’s subjects whispered as to the meaning of this.

A few days later, Shaka ordered the hut burned down. He did not want the door opened, or for anyone to look inside. Flames devoured the hut with a million sucking mouths, and the secret inside was lost to history.

Behind Shaka’s back, there were whispers.

He’d been afraid.

Afraid of the hut being opened.

Afraid of seeing the hyena lying in the witch’s arms, sucking on her nipples. So he’d set the hut to burn. He threw the dice, and then turned his eyes away.

That this is the right way is hard to accept. Walking around with one’s eyes shut seems dangerous. You might fall into a hole in the ground.

But there’s a hole in the ground waiting for you anyway. There’s one waiting for all of us, and it will take everyone, blind and seeing alike. But you don’t have to think about that, if you don’t want to.

Please be blind.

Please don’t look.

Did you ever think that the mouse hole on the cover of Megadeth’s Risk looks like a eagle’s head? You might need to step back to see it. The cat’s left paw is the beak.

Gorguts’ Obscura is even worse. My eyes keep processing the man’s head as a pig’s head.

I hate the bolts of lightning on Iron Maiden’s The Number of the Beast. They look like cracked plastic, and when I see it my first thought is always “my CD got stepped on.”

Ride the Sky’s New Protection is meant to depict an angel emerging from a cocoon, except it looks more like an angel who has, in scientific parlance, had a bat. The glistening gelid strands on his torso, his relaxed posture and expression…I can’t unsee it.