At first, Vinny thinks Hitomi is nothing more than an NPC, a bot created to help newbies. Hence why Hitomi kept repeating the same helpful phrases over and over. But then, as Vinny starts talking to the “NPC,” he starts realizing that no, Hitomi might be an actual person. That’s when things start to get creepy.

The whole thing feels like something out of a creepypasta, and not just because of the mysterious Hitomi Fujiko. The art style of this user-generated Active Worlds map is also slightly sinister, and there’s something inherently spooky about exploring a place that was presumably once heavily populated.

Some of you may wonder, could this have actually happened, is the video legit? It’s hard to say, though at the start of the video Vinny says it is all real:

“Considering there were close to 6,000 people watching, it’s a safe bet that many people were trying to register and join at the same time, which clusterfucked their servers, preventing any new sign ups,” Vinny wrote in the YouTube comments. “People were reporting that they were unable to register, so this seems very likely.”

I reached out asking for more details about the whole thing, but honestly? Even if this was a set-up, it’s a damn entertaining one. I want to believe Hitomi Fujiko. Maybe he’s still out there right now, waiting for somebody to drop by once more.

There does appear to be SOMEthing going on with Hitomi that’s not quite normal, though. Players over at the Vinesauce subreddit have found a website under Hitomi’s name that has hidden messages in it, making some users believe it’s actually an ARG of some sort. A very obscure one at that, because what are the chances someone would just start playing Active Worlds again? (Thanks for the tip, Luis!)

You can check out more Vinesauce here, or if you’d like to watch the full, unedited Active Worlds livestream, see below: