discord gothic
You have unread messages in certain channels. You check them, but you’ve read these messages before. You look at the time stamp, and realize they were sent after you last went offline.
You get a notification that someone has @’d everyone. You check the server. There is no message @‘ing everyone. You ask about it. The other members don’t seem to know what you’re talking about.
You hear the notification ping even when your computer isn’t open. You look around to see if any of your friends have discord open. They do not. You realize you do not have your computer with you. You realize you do not know where you are, or how you got there. You hear the notification ping again, and it seems louder this time. You still can’t find a source of the sound.
You’re part of an empty server. You occasionally get notifications from it, but you check the channels, and there is nothing there.
There’s a voice channel, with only one person who’s ever on. You join them one day, but they immediately mute themselves. You see them again the next day on the same voice channel, listening to a bot with a playlist composed only of empty silence.
You get a notification that someone has @’d you. You can’t remember joining the server it comes from, and you forget to check. The notification goes away.
You attempt to try to join another server, but discord tells you that you are part of too many already. You try to leave servers to make more space, but new ones keep popping up in their place. You can’t seem to remember ever joining any of them.
You become friends with a user through a mutual server, and discover you both have the same favourite band. You find you have a lot in common, and start to regularly message each other. You decide to start spending more time on other social platforms, and gradually cease communication with your friend. One day, you learn that your favorite band recently released a new album, and you decide to use this as an excuse to start talking to your friend again. You find out that they’ve since deleted their account. You realize you can’t remember their name.
You click on a server. It’s blank, the only thing there a “load more messages” sign. You click it, but no other messages load. They never do. There’s nothing there.
There’s a voice channel with no name. You go on it one day. There is no one else in the voice channel, nor are there any bots. All you hear is a low humming, but somehow, you understand that it’s coming from something too complex and dark for you to comprehend. You are unable to sleep that night. The next day the voice channel is deleted. You ask about it. Nobody knows what you’re talking about. There’s no record of its existence in the logs. Some days you still think about that low humming, and the dread it conjures.
There are users who don’t talk in the channels or speak in the voice chats, who have been there since before you joined the server. They are always online. You can tell they are waiting, but for what, you aren’t sure. There are only two things you do know. The first is that when they do speak, eventually, that day will be your last. The other is that you are sure that day will be soon.
Sometimes, discord will crash. After you reopen it, something is always different. You can’t name what it is. A server you’re no longer part of? A friend disappeared from your friend list? You know you should remember, but the more you rack your brain, the fuzzier it gets. You decide to think about it later, but you don’t. You never do. You never remember what it is that changed.
