Dead Sarah

Have you ever noticed the URLs in topics on the Zoofights Forum? It goes up by 1 every time a thread is made, but there are a bunch of numbers that have been skipped over. The reason for this is twofold. The first explanation is that the missing numbers are spambot threads that were deleted. This is true for most of the threads, but there's still one number that isn't accounted for. This is a "lost" thread from 2011.

The lost thread was made in the Bar subforum by the user "Gooper Blooper". It received 11 posts between 2:45 and 3:15 AM Eastern time on August 30, 2011. It's odd enough that Gooper Blooper was roleplaying at 3 in the morning, but that is the least of the things about the thread that seem "off". For starters, the thread is titled "Dead Sarah".

The date of August 30 is significant because that places the thread's creation time at just a few hours after the RP event of Sarah the white mage fighting Draco the dragon in a Fite Yer Mates battle. Although Sarah won, she was grievously wounded, and both her injuries and the subsequent medical care was described in cringeworthy fashion. However, by midnight Sarah had recovered and gone home with her boyfriend Alex. Posts continued into the night, but slowly dropped off. In the wee hours of the morning, posts were few and far between - Erebus is seen posting at 2:37 AM, followed by Gentleman Draco at 3:20. In between that time, the lost thread went up, acquired posts, and vanished.

At 2:45 AM the thread went up. Gooper Blooper's post is a little odd. Instead of using the default black text, a shade of gray is used instead. The post is also completely in italics, contains no pictures, and is written in the first person. The post in its entirety reads "What's going on? Where am I? I feel strange...".

The next user to post is AlextheJanitor. Her post is similar, except there are no italics and the text is shaded in the light green used for the character of Alexander Triden. "Are you all right, Sarah? You look pale... Do you need anything?"

Gooper Blooper replies in less than two minutes with "Everything is okay now, Alex. Everything is okay."

AlextheJanitor again: "O-okay, if you say so. Come on, let's get some sleep and we can celebrate more in the morning."

The next six posts in the thread are Gooper Blooper posting repeatedly. Each successive post uses lighter and smaller text - always in italics and always from Sarah's point of view.

The first post is a retelling from Sarah's perspective of the first time she ever saw Alex. This moment, which was only alluded to in other threads, is written with surprisingly deep detail, down to describing the clothes Alex was wearing and what exactly he was cleaning up at the time (Croaka Cola - the post goes into lurid detail of the fallen frog's organs and guts).

The second and third posts are also memories not covered in detail elsewhere - the second describes how Sarah felt after having used Exit to flee from Alex the first time they had a conversation, while the third post is about Sarah's thoughts while on the verge of death as Alex carried her to the hospital after she had been shot in the chest during their first date.

The fourth post is disjointed and hard to understand, but appears to be a stream-of-consciousness transcript of what Sarah was thinking during her battle with Draco.

The fifth post can be placed at just after the battle. It reads as follows:

"I think I'm dying.

My legs are gone. My arms... one arm gone. My hair, my eyes, my skin... how could white magic bring me back now?

I was so stupid. I shouldn't have done this. Alex and Mom and One and Two and Four must be so upset.

I'll miss them.

I'm so sorry."

The sixth post appears blank, but this is because it uses the smallest possible text and pure white as a text color. However, it only contains a single word.

The seventh post is also made by Gooper Blooper, but this one is an aside note in parentheticals that reads "(Had a chat with Alex and decided to scrap this because it's too upsetting. NEVER MIND, FOLKS, SARAH'S FINE)"

Three minutes later the topic vanished. It is unknown who did this, as none of the regular roleplayers had any moderation powers. Attempting to contact any of the roleplayers about the thread results in assertions that it never happened. And, while the thread was viewable for two weeks on Google Cache, it was then deleted. Attempts to post the thread content on Pastebin result in deletions for "inappropriate content".

Not everything on the Internet is permanent. Sometimes it truly does vanish.












"...Father?"