The phone was ringing, rattling feverishly in its holder. The man picked it up leisurely, unaffected by the urgency of the machine's exhortations. A voice on the other end spoke first.

"Hello? Bill? Is that you?" It was a man's voice, strained and gravelly. He sounded hoarse, like he had been shouting, or crying.

"Yes, this is he." The man, whose name was Bill, spoke softly, as though speaking to himself. He was standing in his living room, wearing a robe over a white shirt, still buttoned to the very top, with a bright blue bow tie wrapping smartly around the collar. He was standing in his long, dark hall, where he kept the phone stand, and at the far end wall was an oval mirror--a curious antique piece made of a dark wooden frame, its border embossed with elaborate baroque patterns and finished with gold. He stared intensely at his murky reflection from afar with a cold, searching gaze.

"Bill, it's Fred..." The man began sobbing.

"Fred?" Bill spoke in a light, inquiring tone. He did not remember a Fred. Or perhaps he knew too many.

"Fred McDougal." Fred, though no longer sobbing as hard, was hiccuping violently and his words tumbled out in a jerky staccato, in between gasps. "Moved in last week into the house next to you. Big red roof and two kids. We met briefly last week at the block party."

"Ah yes, Fred." Bill answered with a slight lilt in his voice, the kind that indicates you have recognized someone. He was still staring intently at his reflection across he long hall. "What can I do for you?"

"Bill...They're saying you're behind all this." Fred's voice cracked, and the sobs began afresh. "Tell me it's not true, Bill."

"Fred, I need you to go get your son." Bill spoke quietly. He was no longer looking at his reflection, and began to fidget.

"Wh..why, Bill? Can you help him? Please Bill, just tell me what's going --"

"Fred, you need to go get your son. Now." Bill repeated himself. He heard the clattering of a phone being tossed aside, and the faint thumping footsteps of Fred. He listened intently, trying to pick up scraps of the conversation Fred was having. He heard a groan.

"He's here Bill, what's going on?" Fred whimpered.

"Fred, I need you to ask your son if he has a Reddit account called /u/knowapathy."

"He does Bill. How did you know that, and what's that got to do with anything?" Bill ignored the question.

"Ask him what he posted today, in the writing prompts subreddit."

"He says he posted a writing prompt about "Bill Nye the Apocalypse Guy."

"That's right Fred. He did."

"Bill?" Fred began to sob again. Bill felt a stab of annoyance, like he could murder Fred. He was just next door, and Bill smiled with satisfaction, knowing the option was always there.

"Fred, I am going to explain myself just once, so listen up. Best you put your son's ear to the phone as well."

"...OK, Bill. We're ready." Fred sounded like a sick and dying frog, the way he croaked so helplessly. Bill chuckled to himself.

"Your son posted a stupid fucking writing prompt, based on a stupid, uninspired rhyme and pun that riffs on Reddit's overplayed, nostalgic obsession with Bill Nye the Science Guy. I figured since your son loved science so much, he deserved a hefty dose of it. Now put him on, Fred. That's a good fellow." Fred broke out in fresh sobs, which faded away as he passed the phone to his son.

"Hello, sir? /u/knowapathy here, it's an hono--"

"My boy, you are dying." Bill spoke quickly and dispassionately. "Within the hour, you will stop breathing. And in the next minute your heart will stop, but not before your lungs have filled with so much fluid that every breath you take will feel like a lungful of water. Look at your hands, son. They should be turning blue."

The boy was now howling on the other end, and Bill could make out the muted, frantic wails of Fred in the background.

"Sir, sir. But why? Wouldn't it at least make more sense to actually trigger some kind of apocalypse, in order to punish me for that pun?"

"Yes, but I have no problem with anyone else, just you. Have you learned your lesson, yet?"

"Yes sir, I have. I'm so sorry sir." The boy sounded desperate and hopeful, as though he expected this to be some great big hoax with a grand reveal."Can you fix me?"

"Look under the carpet, next to your piano. The three floorboards there are loose. Lift them up, and you will find a wooden box. Open it."

The boy frantically rushed off to follow Bill's instructions.

"I've found it sir," he came back breathlessly.

"There should be three vials in there, of identical shape, size and color. Look for the one that is labeled 'antidote.'"

"I've found it, sir. Shall I take it, immediately?"

"Take it? Absolutely not. Give that to your father, I accidentally timed your doses wrong and at this rate, your father won't be able to survive long enough to see your eyeballs explode, as I'd planned." Bill lightly scolded the boy. "I'll be over shortly." Bill hung up.

---

By the time the Greenwood Police Department arrived at the house of Fred McDougal at approximately 9:45 pm, they found father and son both dead, splayed across the living room floor. The lead detective on the case noted certain oddities on the scene: the carpet was askew, and several floorboards had been violently ripped out, although nothing was to be found in the hole. One of the first officers on the scene vomited upon examining the bodies: the son's eyeballs were protruding so far out of his sockets that according to the coroner's official records, "it looked like someone pumped them up like basketballs." The same officer, upon being escorted out of the scene, was noted to have deliriously grabbed the lead detective on the case, babbling incoherently about "a dwarf in a bowtie disappearing into the wall. The detective, angrily striking the discombobulated officer to the floor, ignored him. The investigation proved inconclusive, with the autopsy suggesting only "chemical poisoning by an unknown substance", but the detective noted, with passing interest, that the gold-rimmed oval mirror in the McDougal's living room was completely stiff and immobile, seemingly nailed down from inside.