Thir13en Days

By Michelle Young

Benjamin Fritz is an aspiring and known YouTuber, caught up in ridiculing religions around the world for a small profit. He has traveled many places and found himself in unique situations, a life that is desired by many but only lived by few. Ben finds himself caught up in a cultist practice where they assault him on film. After editing and reviewing the horrific events he finds himself wanting to research this group further, to get to the bottom of the attacks. How far down this dark and twisted path is Ben really willing to go when murder and death pave the way?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Michelle Young
• Release date: Apr 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370595617

Book preview

Thir13en Days

The Rite Will be Complete

By Michelle Young

Thir13en Days

By Michelle Young

Copyright 2017 Michelle Young

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

Chaos.  Life is nothing more than chaotic colors swirling before our vision as we go through the crazy belief of what mankind is really about.  You can see yourself standing in front of an altar at one moment worshipping the most intense and vivacious God that promises riches beyond your wildest dreams, and the next being forced to do back breaking sacrifice to another that claims that it is under hard work and labor that you can be set free from your worldly sins.  Others will claim that love is the true answer, while others preach that by the action of man we shall all burn in fire and brimstone.  To say the least these groups are all right in a way, but they are all off on one thing.  There is no such thing as a heaven or hell, man.  I can’t help but crack a smile at the camera mounted on the stand in front of me.  The blinding box lights I set up in my back room for recording my studio videos are always a little jarring and give me a light head as I stand there recording my mindless rants.

It wasn’t the most lucrative career, locking myself in a bedroom for four hours a day recording and editing videos, but it has helped pay my way through a lifetime of experiences I probably wouldn't have gotten anywhere else in the world.  I hate what my channel has become over these past few years though.  I started out playing games, reviewing movies, and doing meet ups… to reviewing religions around the world now.  I was excited when my manager came up to me with the proposal to go to Greece for the first time.  She said it would have been poetic to see the Greek gods in their natural state on my videos.

Either way I ended up taking the offer because who turns down an all-inclusive vacation to Greece?  Yea, I had to go around and listen to boring preachers talk about this or that, or some fake story about this other God here… but I got to see the world.  Then it went from that one city, to a few cities in the area, to trumping the holy land, feedback started blowing up and so did viewership.  People liked my angry attitude about everything and said that I really mocked that religion, or if the people watched what I said they would actually understand the truth about it all.  Honestly, I was doing it for a paycheck, and of course the sweet traveling gig.  Who can turn that down really?

No, I am not religious.   I also don’t believe in ghosts and fairy tales.  It makes things a lot easier when you go into a super holy spot on the world, and realize it is just a bunch of brick and mortar with crazy people worshipping nothing.  Honestly, whoever came up with these ideas knew exactly what it was they were doing and they knew how to get a ton of money by doing it.  I hated the idea of a religion or cult that tricked people into doing something even though there was no such thing as a God or a Devil.  Honestly it was so evil of them that me making some one-off video on the internet complaining or debunking a lot of their beliefs wasn’t that hard of a thing for me to do.  I have met a few fans who were a little frustrated that I said this about their leaders, or that about their beliefs.  I don’t mean any of this to be a personal thing, I just don’t buy into the whole drama and fake lifestyle that is a religious practice.

I miss the days when I could sit down in my room and play a video game with twenty people streaming me and calling out shots that I should make.  It was a team effort when I was aiming for gold in a championship, but now I feel a little isolated, occasionally showing up to a VidCon and telling the world about my travels.  A lot of other tubers feel that I am not even a part of their community, and the lack of communication with my own followers isn’t the greatest.  Either way, I am using the same platform they are to get myself a leg up in this world and have my voice heard.  Who knows, maybe once I have seen enough of the world I can finally settle down back in the states my manager will let me start running my own show again... and I can start my own kind of company instead of having to report to someone about my activity.  I always wanted to be my own boss, but things were a little different now days with the way the internet works.

You can say what you want about these freaks.  I kid you not when I walked into that garage they tried to have me hanged.  I leave myself a queue on the recording so I know that I need to insert some slides of the group standing up as I stumbled on their gathering.  I carry a few pieces of equipment, some hidden cameras on my chest or bags, sometimes I wear a GoPro, other times I just use a selfie stick and swing it when I get to a place and have no clue what it is I am doing.  I walked into some crazy ritual outside a small suburb in Istanbul that I just had to get a recording of.  Some people were covered in red paint and claiming to worship a minotaur.  I can’t make this stuff up.  They were literally performing rites and rituals to some hokum God that I hadn’t even heard of before, and just had to get a recording of it.  Needless to say, they had me eating through a straw for a few days and my manager had me shipped back home for a bit of recovery time.

My face is still a little swollen and I know that just by having the cover picture of the video be of myself getting knocked out I could break a million views easy on this one.  I had the whole scene played out in my head and it would work perfect.  Just the right shot here, the right color there, and a flashy title like Ben gets K.O.’d or something stupid like that.  That is what the other tubers want to do to me anyway. They would love to see me get myself knocked out or killed.  Whatever, I am almost done with being in front of the camera when this whole religion review kick is finished.  Maybe my manager will lay off since I got hurt as bad as I did.

You can see them turn to face me in the video, luckily I was smart to carry more than one camera.  They crushed my phone… which was a pretty big setback, but I still had my hidden footage cameras that they left untouched.  I got some sweet videos here.  I nod to the camera again making a mental note to plan a voiceover of the footage I got.  I could see it clearly in my head as I was getting hurtled out the door.  It was only two weeks ago, and my mind was still fresh from the taste of blood on my teeth.

There were no more than twenty people inside.  I saw two standing at the front fully nude.  Now... not the kind of nude people you would want to see.  I mean they were in their fifties and saggy and everything.  I have to leave it blurred or the video will be removed, but you get the idea.  There were statues all over the place that had horns here or there, fur sticking out in random places, it was intense.  I haven’t really watched the footage much myself but I know they were performing some kind of blood rite.  I have seen a few of these in religions throughout the middle east, but never heard of things like this happening in Istanbul.  The footage will look great if I can include some still images or something.  It’s hard sometimes being self-maintained, but I grab a white erase board from the desk next to where I am standing and write down some notes to make the editing process a little faster.  It isn’t like editing this together is going to be more than a four-hour job though.  Honestly, I didn’t do that much work, and the ad revenue the company makes from my videos is substantial enough that they give me a decent paycheck to live in Seattle with a view of the Puget Sound.  That was a personal request, and they made sure to get it for me.

I look back up at the blinking light on my camera and take a deep breath rubbing at the corners of my eyes, Guys I am just so tired of this.  It’s all a waste, these religions, doing stuff like this because they think someone is listening.  Who would be listening to their call when they are rubbing goat’s blood on their faces and staring at minotaur statues?  That sure wouldn’t be God or Satan.  Every religion talks about some kind of underworld, or hell.  Only a few mention anything of that caliber, and none of them mention you needing to worship it.  I think they got a little carried away with some cave drawings, thought it meant something glorious, and started praising it like it was their own idea.  My opinion is this, is just ridiculous.  I could totally overlay some words on the screen as I say those last words.  Maybe add a shake effect just to piss more people off.  I smirk at the camera.

Either way, when it comes to getting my backside handed to me this one takes the cake as the craziest night I have ever had while abroad.  I could put four stars on the bottom of the screen.  I raise my hands and do a fake hand holding gesture like they do in the academies.  That would just add to it.  Maybe I should even add a casually applause with whistles.  Making these videos is just so far from where I want to be, but hey it pays the bills, right?

I let out a sigh and push the off switch on my camera.  The footage slowly feeds into my computer.  Everything is wireless because who wants to deal with cables and transferring gigabytes of footage at a time?  I have everything in my life online and digital.  It is easier to manage.  I just wish that my house could be as manageable as these videos were.  I unplug my laptop when the video finishes copying over and open the small bedroom door.  The rest of my place is a little bit small but I don’t need that much.  I spend ninety percent of my time sitting in front of a laptop screen on my bed or on my couch.  I never go out accept to do my tours for the company, and aside from that the world of friends I have will only communicate with me through my social media.  In essence I am alone, but always with someone.  It’s hard to explain.  Either way it doesn't change the fact that I don’t really have a furnished home or something warm to snuggle up next to at night, accept my soul crushing reality of being without anything physical.  I can’t even get a pet or they would die when I was away on my business trips.  Oh well, that is how life will have to be for me as a twenty-two-year-old man working in video hits online. At least I got the view I wanted.

I sit down on my twin bed, stuff my single pillow under my head, and stare out the cold dark window into the night.  I had a deadline to get this footage edited despite the fact that I had been assaulted.  I had to get a revenue for the videos I record monthly for my AdSense or there wouldn’t be a pay check to buy my food or pay my rent.  Having a black eye in the screenshots really will at least get me a million hits.  It will have to or all this wasn’t really worth it.  I prop my laptop against my knees so the screen is just visible from my position in my bed.  I needed to at least see if there was an option for uploading a raw video of my assault.

I sit alone in my empty apartment just soaking in some of the footage.  It was a bit shaky and blurry at times, making it all the more real.  I hadn’t watched the footage since the day of the attack, but just seeing the people dressed in white robes with red paint dripping from their faces, all turning to stare at me gets goosebumps running up and down my arms.  I glare at the screen trying to get a better view of the images flashing before my eyes.  I pause the video and do a play by play as the two naked people turned to face me.  You can clearly see their nakedness.  I growl to myself and start using my fuzzing tool to hide the graphic parts so this can make it on a public place without violating the terms of service.  It was blurry already, but just to be safe I made sure it was good and empty of distractions from the main point I discovered.

When I finish with the portion I forward the frames a little more, inching the video along.  All the eyes of the followers no