‘Fire Fairy’ Game Has Disturbing Consequences For Kids

Police are reportedly investigating a disturbing game spreading across Russia that tells children they can become “fire fairies” if they secretly turn on gas rings in their kitchens. 

The social media scam uses imagery that makes it look as if it’s related to a popular animated show called “Winx Club: School of Witches,” but the text of the images leads children to believe that if they engage the burners on their stove and repeat “magical words,” they will turn into “fire fairies.”

One 5-year-old girl suffered severe burns after turning on a gas oven.

Translated from the original Russian, the text of the social media scam reads as follows:

At midnight when everybody is asleep, get up from your bed and go around the room three times, then say the magical words: “Alfey kingdom, sweet little fairies, give me the power, I’m asking you.” Then go to the kitchen silently, so no one notices you or the magic of the words will disappear. Switch on the gas stove, all four burners. But do not light it. You don’t want to get burns, do you? Then go to sleep. The magic gas will come to you, you will breathe it while sleeping and in the morning, when you wake up, say: “Thank you Alfeya, I’ve become a fairy.” And you will became a real fairy of fire.”

Investigator Irina Minina said that the game, described as a potential “suicide game,” was being looked into and the people behind it were being sought.

One Russian mother told the Daily Mail what happened when her own daughter fell victim to the post:

I woke up in the night and felt the strong smell of gas. My daughter, seven, had just left the kitchen and went to her room. It turned out that she had read in the Internet that to become the fairy of fire you need to go to the kitchen when everyone is asleep and switch on the gas oven. If I had not gone to check, our family of eight would not wake up in the morning. I talked to her and she promised not to hide her plans from me and tell me everything.

Iginio Straffi, the CEO of the company behind the Winx franchise, demanded in a statement that the people behind the scam be brought to justice.

“Rainbow deeply regrets the distribution of material, which apparently contains instructions for committing suicide and uses Winx Club characters,” Straffi said. “The company Rainbow, which products are aimed at promoting the values of kindness in children, is shocked by such cynical materials apparently aimed at causing harm to children.”

Many people on social media agreed that the people who were responsible for the disturbing prank should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.

“What sicko would deliberately tell tiny people to secretly do something so harmful and deadly. These children could burn themselves or their homes, or even just kill everybody with has while they sleep. Those responsible for betraying the trust of these children in such a malicious way should be prosecuted,” one Shared reader wrote on the site’s Facebook page.

“Its totally sick that some idiot would come up with something so evil however what is so much more disturbing to me is that children that age are allowed on the internet or allowed to watch videos indiscriminately with no adult supervision or overseer, call me paranoid but I check everything my kids watch and their is no internet unless I know whats happening…call it what you will but at least my children are safe,” another said. 

Sources: Daily Mail, Shared/Facebook / Photo credit: Daily Mail