The “Red Rose” phenomenon resembles the Blue Whale Challenge, which scared people around the world. There were multiple instances where people claimed that the game had a series of deadly challenges, with the final challenge requiring the person to take their own life. Even though multiple suicide cases were allegedly linked to the game, none of them were proven, and the concept of whales altogether is still a huge source of confusion for many researchers. Social Media can be a boon and a curse for many; if used in the right way, it can work wonders, or else it could bring your world crashing down around your ears.
“Red Rose” shows how this game was created by a young high school boy named Jacob, who was way too timid to confess his feelings to his long-time crush, Alyssa Penrose. Jacob wanted to get closer to her, and he thought making this app would help him do so. Jacob recorded videos of himself on his iPad and maintained a video diary that contained all his personal information. Each day, the videos he recorded would reveal something new, and one of them showed that he had the conception of the idea for the website in mind. He named it the Red Rose. Jacob had been well-versed in the language of coding and used it to create this app. But Jacob committed a huge mistake when he made this app on the Dark Web. Some of his so-called friends on the Dark Web who claimed to be helping him had decided to stab him in the back, and they somehow manipulated him into creating this app.
Jacob was young and naive; he was in love with Alyssa, and he would do anything to get her. Once the app and website were made, Jacob wrote down the entire code of this website in his diary and hid it inside one of his books. The next day, he sent a link to Alyssa, and her curiosity compelled her to click on it. She started communicating with Jacob on the app, and all this time, all his friends from the Dark Web read his chats. His intentions were naive, but he’d created a destructive app that could destroy several lives. Jacob started to delve deeper into her likes and dislikes and found more information on her favorite books, colors, foods, and everything else. Soon, he started keeping an eye on her through the CCTV cameras and her phone itself. His friends tried to manipulate him into watching Alyssa change her clothes, but Jacob refused to do so. Despite all his efforts, Alyssa didn’t notice him, so his friends manipulated him again into confessing his feelings to Alyssa.
Spoilers Ahead
What Happened To Alyssa Penrose?
Jacob gathered his courage and went towards Alyssa, who had been studying in the library, and initiated a conversation with her. Finally, he confessed his feelings, but Alyssa rejected his confession and told him that she liked him as a friend. Jacob was heartbroken and became extremely anxious. He came back home and blamed his friends for forcing him. Jacob spent hours crying and even recorded a video in which he claimed that his heart was broken. The next day, Jacob tried to talk to Alyssa again, and he noticed that she was very scared and constantly checked her phone. Alyssa rushed back home, but her mother wasn’t there. She called Alyssa and told her that she would be coming in a few minutes, but Alyssa couldn’t hold on. One of his friends, who claimed to be the Gardener, started messing with Alyssa’s mind, and when she was home alone, he started playing with the television and other internet-connected devices. This time, when the television screen went on, she noticed that it was a video of herself. Everything was fine until Alyssa noticed that the video also had an eerie creature behind her who looked just like her.
Believing it was a ghost, Alyssa ran away from her room and went upstairs to her bedroom. She knew that someone was in the house but she quietly waited for her mother to arrive. But when Alyssa’s mother arrived, Alyssa could no longer distinguish between reality and lies. The moment Alyssa’s mother banged on the door, she went upstairs and jumped to her death. Red Rose was used in such a way that people believed that they were haunted by evil spirits and Alyssa believed that her mother’s call had been morphed and it was not her. She chose to kill herself rather than check if it was her mother. Even though she did change her mind in the end, Alyssa was pushed to death by the Gardener. When Jacob came back home, he noticed that the members were using his website to scare her, and she was about to kill her. They didn’t stop even though he requested them so much. So, Jacob rushed to save her, but he witnessed her death, and it was too traumatic for him to take in. Before he could do anything, the Gardener warned him that he would be the next person to lose his life. Out of this fear, Jacob killed himself, but we can still assume that Jacob was killed too.
Before dying, he made a video on his iPad and spoke about Alyssa’s death. He was way too scared to do anything since his ideas were used as the genesis of a malevolent idea to kill people. At this point, Jacob might have felt that suicide was the only option to escape this fate and thus decided to kill himself. If only he had gathered the strength to delete the website and the application, many lives would have been saved, and Rochelle Mason wouldn’t have been murdered by the Red Rose members. He would have also saved Wren and his friends from many other troubles. There is yet another possibility: that the Gardener forced Jacob to kill himself or killed him like he had pushed Alyssa Penrose from the terrace. In the series, Jacob’s death is still a mystery, though what he left behind was way more deadly.
