FORTY-SEVEN Second Life residents have been horrifically fused together in a grotesque mass of limbs, genitalia, mesh clothing and increasingly distressed facial expressions after an overenthusiastic nightclub hostess sent out 300 teleport invitations simultaneously in an attempt to attract an audience for a shit deep house DJ.
The incident occurred shortly after 9pm on Saturday when a hostess at EUPHORIA DREAMZ, a nightclub specialising in tribal house and people pretending to enjoy themselves, instructed everybody on her friends list to teleport immediately because DJ Mystikal Vybz was apparently "ABSOLUTELY SMASHING IT HUNNNNN". According to witnesses, the sudden influx of avatars overwhelmed the region's teleportation system, causing dozens of residents to arrive at precisely the same coordinates before the software could finish deciding which bits belonged to whom. The resulting catastrophe has been described by horrified onlookers as something between a David Cronenberg film, a butcher's bin and the contents of a particularly unsuccessful Second Life fashion event.
The first indication that something had gone terribly wrong came when a woman called Raven arrived with somebody else's head attached to her left breast, three additional arms emerging from her arse and a pair of enormous furry ears growing out of what had previously been her mesh foo. Moments later, another resident materialised consisting entirely of six pairs of legs, a male genital attachment and the upper torso of a woman wearing a T-shirt reading LIVE LAUGH LOVE. Within seconds, the dancefloor had become a pulsating mountain of mismatched human anatomy, with enormous breasts protruding from wolf heads, male genitalia emerging from elbows and several expensive mesh hairstyles growing directly out of somebody's rectum. One particularly unfortunate resident had been fused with a seven-foot dragon, two pregnant women, a Victorian gentleman and something resembling a sexually adventurous garden ornament.
"I knew something was wrong when my feet appeared before the rest of me," explained survivor Bella Moonstone, who now possesses four breasts, an additional knee and the lower half of a man called Derek. "Then I looked down and realised my vagina was on somebody else's shoulder. I tried to detach myself, but every time I moved, a woman in a wedding dress started screaming." Emergency services were called after the enormous conglomeration of flesh began dragging itself towards the nightclub exit, propelled by seventeen mismatched legs and what appeared to be a fully functioning horse's arse. Attempts to evacuate the building were complicated by the discovery that several residents had become permanently attached to the dancefloor, while others had merged with furniture, decorative plants and an unattended tip jar. One man was found with his head embedded in a woman's stomach, repeatedly shouting that he wanted to go home, while a nearby avatar had acquired eleven fingers, three penises and a handbag containing somebody else's inventory.
The Second Liar understands that the disaster was made considerably worse by the presence of multiple mesh body systems, each attempting to assert ownership over the same increasingly unpleasant collection of body parts. Investigators discovered that one unfortunate woman had become simultaneously Maitreya, Legacy, Reborn and Belleza, resulting in a torso that occupied approximately four cubic metres and required its own parcel. "It's an unprecedented situation," explained a Linden Lab technician, who requested anonymity because he had already applied for another job. "Normally, when avatars overlap, the system simply renders them in the same space. Unfortunately, the sheer volume of teleport requests appears to have confused the attachment and skeleton data, effectively assembling forty-seven people into one enormous avatar using whatever parts happened to be lying around." The technician added that the resulting creature had approximately 138 arms, 94 legs, 63 breasts, 27 penises and one functioning brain, which investigators believe belonged to somebody who had accidentally accepted the teleport invitation while trying to ignore it.
Despite the catastrophic injuries, nightclub management initially refused to stop the music, insisting that the incident represented an exciting opportunity to bring the community together. "We're all about unity here at EUPHORIA DREAMZ," explained club owner Destiny Starfire, who had escaped the disaster because she was shopping for another neon sign. "And I think it's beautiful that everybody has literally become one. That's what music is about, hun. Connection." Her comments were interrupted when the enormous amalgamation of residents began vomiting particle effects and begging somebody to turn the fucking music off. The DJ, meanwhile, continued playing for another forty minutes, apparently unaware that his entire audience had become a single shrieking organism with seventy-three eyes and a woman's arse where its mouth should have been. "I thought they were really getting into it," explained DJ Mystikal Vybz. "There was loads of movement on the dancefloor, and somebody kept screaming. That's usually a good sign."
Efforts to separate the victims have so far proved unsuccessful, with Linden Lab engineers warning that attempting to unlink the individual avatars could result in further complications, including permanent inventory corruption, missing genitalia and the possibility that somebody might end up wearing another person's head as a handbag. The creature has since been relocated to a secure region where specialists are attempting to identify its constituent residents by examining their tattoos, jewellery and increasingly desperate private messages. So far, investigators have identified fourteen women called Raven, nine men wearing leather trousers, six wolves, three vampires, a woman who claims to be a professional photographer and somebody who appears to have been attending a completely different event.
Authorities have advised residents to avoid accepting unsolicited teleport invitations until the cause of the disaster has been established, although nightclub hosts have dismissed the warning as unnecessary scaremongering. "IT'S ALL GOOD HUNNNNN," wrote one hostess in a group notice issued shortly after the incident. "DJ COSMIC IS ABSOLUTELY KILLING IT TONIGHT. GET THOSE TPs OUT AND COME JOIN THE FAMILY!" At the time of publication, the forty-seven victims remained fused together in a writhing, semi-conscious mountain of flesh, with 138 arms, 94 legs, 63 breasts, 27 penises and a woman's arse where its mouth should have been.
The creature has since attracted considerable interest from Second Life's fashion community, with several bloggers describing its facial proportions as a significant improvement on Catwa's latest head.