Dial M for Malware

“Come on,” I muttered, jabbing the spacebar. A blob of… was that marmalade? How it had migrated from my breakfast toast to my brand-new PC, I had no idea. It didn’t matter. Deadlines loomed, and the sticky residue was wreaking havoc on my meticulously structured code. I sighed. Time to bite the bullet: tech support.

My fingers, usually nimble over the keys, felt clumsy as they wrestled with the marmalade-crusted spacebar. It wasn’t just the ruined breakfast; deadlines loomed large, and this gooey mess was the last thing I needed. I’d fought hard to get here – the scholarship, the remote development gig, the tiny house grant. One malfunctioning computer could threaten it all. With an annoyed sigh, I dialed tech support.

Fumbling with the phone, my fingers, slick with the residue of my earlier carelessness, struggled to connect with tech support. The irony wasn’t lost on me; technology, my supposed savior, now a betrayer in my moment of need. The automated assurances of my call’s importance were a mockery, a cruel joke played by a universe that seemed intent on pulling me back into the abyss.

Growing up in the foster care system didn’t foster much patience. I’d clawed my way to get here – the state-funded college scholarship, the remote software development job, even this tiny house from the homeless support program. Technology had been my lifeline, and any disruption threatened to drag me back under.
So, when the automated voice trilled for the hundredth time, “Your call is important to us,” I gritted my teeth. So important you’re going to make me wait forever, huh?

“Your call is important to us,” warbled the automated voice again, mocking me with its insipid voice. My jaw clenched. Important enough to be stuck in an endless queue? Twenty minutes in, 45, an hour, after being directed to a website that wouldn’t load, I was ready to tear my hair out.

There was a shift, a click, heavy breathing filled the earpeace like a badly made ASMR video.

“Finally!” I said, relief washing over me when a real voice crackled through. “Listen, sticky keyboard situation, new PC –”

“Of course. May I have your customer ID, please?”

I rattled off the number, mentally rehearsing my problem description again.

“Thank you, Ms. Chepi. And can you describe the issue more fully?” the voice, flat and detached, recited what sounded suspiciously like a script.

“It’s not rocket science!” I exploded. “Marmalade, stuck keys, messing up my work – can we please just fix this?”

“I understand your frustration,” the voice droned. “Let’s start with a diagnostic download. Click this link…”

The link led to a blank page. Just when I was about to scream, hold music chirped through – a tinny, lo-fi, warped version of a pop song I hated. The lights in my tiny house flickered. Was the storm getting worse?

“Hello?” I yelled into the phone. “Are you still there?”

“We’re experiencing some technical difficulties,” the voice crackled back, “Please hold.”

My eye twitched. “You’re technical support! How are you having technical difficulties…!” My voice trailed off as the hold music changed. It was no longer poppy and distorted, but slow, dissonant, like something out of a horror movie.

A spike of fear shot through me. Was this a prank? I gripped the phone tighter, my knuckles turning white. The lights flickered again, and the shadows in my house danced mockingly.

“Ma’am? Are you still there?” The tech guy sounded far away, like he was at the bottom of a well.

“I, uh, yes,” I stammered. “Look, something’s weird with your hold music, and my lights…”

“Please disregard external factors,” he cut me off, his voice robotic. “We’re ready to resume. Have you downloaded the diagnostic?”

I wanted to throw the phone against the wall. Instead, I took a shaky breath. “It’s not working. We need to try something else.”

A chilling silence filled the line, then a click. The screen of my computer flickered to life. Blood-red letters pulsed against the black background:

WE SEE YOU

Lightning struck, an explosion, brightness, then infinite silence. The house lurched, plunging me into darkness, broken only by the sinister glow of the message. Outside, thunder roared, but this… this felt like something else entirely. Something far worse than a storm or a technical glitch.

The Descent into Madness

A shriek clawed its way up my throat as the computer screen flared into life once more. The previous ominous red message was now obscured by a deluge of twisted, corrupted code. My name—Nayeli—twisted within it, a digital echo of myself ensnared in a nightmarish hellscape.

“Hello?” My voice cracked. “What’s happening?”

“Standard diagnostic procedure,” the tech guy’s voice rasped back, tinged with a new edge, something like amusement. His words were punctuated by a wet, clicking sound, as if he were gnawing on something.

Frantically, I scanned the room. The shadows were deepening, stretching across the floor like grasping hands. My yoga mat bubbled and pulsed, the edges dissolving into a pool of black ooze that crept towards my feet. My desk lamp… wasn’t it plain white ceramic? Now, it gleamed with a sickly, metallic sheen, the base twisting into a grotesque mockery of a human hand.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” The question fell from my lips, empty and distant, swallowed by the growing horror of my surroundings.

The phone in my grip convulsed, a shock of dread coursing through me as it transformed into a mass of cold, squirming tendrils, a grotesque amalgamation of insect limbs and unidentifiable flesh. I flung it away in horror, my stomach twisting in revulsion.

“Problem on your end?” The tech guy’s voice was a mockery, dripping with slimy satisfaction.

My world spun out of control. “No. No, this isn’t…” I struggled for the words. It couldn’t be real, and yet, the stench of decay hung thick in the air, the buzzing of a thousand trapped flies filled my ears.

A guttural laugh echoed in the phone. It was no longer laughter but a chorus of rasps and hisses that scraped at my sanity. The computer screen flickered, and across it stretched a shadow, a skeletal form with impossibly long fingers. The air crackled as if something were clawing its way out.

“I…I don’t want this!” My voice barely rose above a whisper. It was a futile protest against the encroaching darkness. My sanctuary, my tiny house, had become a living, breathing entity of unspeakable horror, its very walls pulsating with a grotesque, malevolent life..

“Ah, but it desires you,” the voice purred, and a flicker of doubt pierced my terror. “There’s a place for you, Nayeli Chepi. A place where you can become more…”

My stomach heaved. The walls throbbed, and where the window used to be, a web of veins pulsed against the inky night. Another scream pierced the line, high-pitched, monstrous. I wanted to run, but where was there to go?

“I want to speak with a manager!” My demand was thin, desperate. If this was hell, I wanted to rage against the demon in charge.

The walls of my house, solid just moments ago, seemed to ripple. Was that slime seeping from the plaster? Another scream pierced the line, and my half-formed question died in my throat.

“I demand to speak with a manger!” I cried out, a desperate plea thrown into the void. If this was the abyss, I would challenge the demon at its heart.

The fabric of my reality, once solid and comforting, now undulated and seeped with a viscous, sinister ooze. Another scream, this one mine, strangled by the growing realization of my utter insignificance.

Silence, oppressive and thick, then a whisper that was not from the phone but from the very essence of the air around me, a voice smooth and seductive, dripping with an ancient hunger:

“But what can they offer you that we cannot?”

The Pact with the Digital Demon

The voice, smooth and predatory, slithered through the ruins of what used to be my home.

“A simple choice, in the end. Power, purpose, evolution… or this.” It gestured, not with a hand but with a flicker of shadow, at the oozing walls, the insectile mass that was once my phone, the shattered window framing a sky that wept fire.

“What… what do you want from me?” My voice was barely a squeak. I’d shrunk, curled inwards, as if my body wanted to escape notice from the horrors transforming my safe haven.

“From you? Almost nothing.” The voice chuckled, a sound like bones rattling in an empty grave. “Your talent, your spark – those are what drew us. You are a builder, Nayeli Chepi. We need you to build more.”

“Build what?” The question choked me. Had I really come this far, fallen this deep, that I was asking for details?

“The H-Pad.” It spoke the name reverently. “The bridge. The tool that erases what you think of as reality. It starts with code, with your code.”

I knew I should scream, run… but where? My legs were jelly, and I was surrounded by a grotesque tapestry of nightmare fuel. I’d never been religious before, but a whispered prayer died on my lips. I felt Smaller. Invisible. My hands… my body…? A scream tore from a mouth that no longer felt like mine. I was lost, adrift in a vast, horrific machine.

“I don’t understand…” I whispered. This wasn’t tech support. This was… cosmic madness.

“You will.” The voice was impatient now, a hiss under the honeyed tones. “And there’s little time. Agree, and you’ll have time, resources, and knowledge beyond imagining. Refuse…” another shriek ripped the air, this one cut mercifully short, “…and you’ll be one more forgotten bug, crushed underfoot.”

Survival instinct – the same one that got me out of the system, into college, into this damn house – flared. I was good at tech, damn good. I loved the puzzle, the building. Maybe… maybe I could use this for good somehow, find a loophole, escape… Hope was a pathetic, fluttering thing against the backdrop of madness, but it was all I had. The walls of my home groaned, cracked, and burst outwards. What poured through wasn’t sunlight, but a sickly yellow glow. I gasped, half-blinded. When I could see again, I wasn’t in my house. I was in…hell? No, somewhere worse, a wasteland of rusted metal, broken bones, and a sky the color of a week-old bruise.

“Welcome to your worksite.” The voice boomed, no longer coming from any direction, but from inside my skull. “Now, Ms. Chepi, let’s get to work.”

A scream echoed somewhere. Was it mine? It didn’t matter. Code… that was familiar. A flickering ember of memory in the swirling fog of terror. I could do that. I was good at that. It offered a handhold, a scrap of purpose amidst the ruin.

“I don’t…” What didn’t I understand? It was too much. Too vast. But the house trembled, cracks widening, spilling a harsh yellow light into the room.

“Choice, little builder, not understanding,” the voice snapped. “Work with us, ascend… or join the refuse.”

Refuse. Like the rotting mulch my feet sank into, dragging me down into the stinking darkness. But coding… maybe I could use it? Find a way out? I clung to that sliver of hope, desperate.

Suddenly, the walls weren’t walls anymore. They exploded in a spray of what felt like bone dust and viscera. The yellow glow seared my eyes. When I could see again, I was standing in what could only be the hall of Nyarlathotep, invaded by forces from the king in yellow. Molten metal, cracked earth, a sky of diseased yellowish-green. All of it pulsed, like some grotesque, alien heart.

I couldn’t focus. Chitinous limbs twitched uncontrollably. I tried to scream, to think, but all there was was a buzzing pressure in my skull, an itch behind my eyes. Where was I? Who was I? It all slipped away, lost in the vast, pulsing horror of this new… existence?

My legs gave out, and I sank into slick, putrid bile. Something sharp pierced my shoulder, a twisted metal beam. I should have felt pain, but there was only the buzzing, the itching, and then… a keyboard. Blackened keys fused with metal, crusted with some unidentifiable grime.

The buzzing intensified, turned to words, commands. I didn’t understand, I didn’t even know what I was seeing, but my hands – my claws – moved, twitching across the nightmare keys. My world narrowed to a single line of code taking shape on some unseen screen.

And from somewhere deep inside, from a place where Nayeli Chepi might have once existed, a scream fought its way past mandibles that weren’t meant for human sounds. Not a scream of terror anymore, but a scream of loss. A scream for the person I no longer was.

Epilogue: The Silent Aftermath

Marvin, the seasoned garbage collector, was no stranger to the grotesque remnants of human neglect. His days were steeped in the decay of abandoned lives, the sour tang of decayed matter hanging heavy in the air. Yet, nothing could have prepared him for the macabre tableau that awaited within this forsaken hovel, a tiny box of despair meant for those most unfortunate. The signs were there, overflowing mailboxes, a stench like week-old roadkill… it always meant trouble. This house, one of those tiny box affairs meant for folks down on their luck, was no different. He pried the door open, grumbling.

As he forced the door open, a wave of putrefaction assaulted his senses, a miasma so potent it seemed to claw at his throat, a vile concoction of decomposed flesh and festering garbage that threatened to overwhelm him. The interior was a visual assault of neglect: mounds of soggy newspapers, their ink running like the tears of forgotten stories; food containers teeming with a writhing mass of maggots and insects, their glistening bodies feasting in the filth.

But it was the sight of the girl that cemented his horror. Slumped in a corner where the dilapidated structure succumbed to the inevitability of decay, her form was a grotesque mockery of humanity. Her skull, a collapsed vessel, oozed a thick, dark fluid from the cavernous voids of her missing eyes, a testament to the ravages of time and neglect. Skeletal fingers, bones bare and grotesquely fused to the keys of a keyboard that had become one with the detritus, painted a picture of a last, desperate attempt at connection now forever silenced.

The stench was unbearable, a physical entity that enveloped Marvin in its foul embrace, seeping into his pores, a relentless assault on his senses that screamed of death and decay. The air was thick with the stink of rotting flesh, mingling with the acrid burn of chemical decay, a noxious bouquet that made his stomach churn in revolt. The visceral reality of the scene before him was too much to bear; a nauseating wave of disgust and horror overwhelmed him, his body rejecting the sensory overload with a violent urge to expel his insides.

This was a nightmare made flesh, a scene so drenched in the essence of death and decay that it bordered on the unreal. Unprepared for the onslaught, Marvin’s consciousness wavered, the room spinning as darkness clawed at the edges of his vision. He succumbed to the void, collapsing into the filth and oblivion.

It was the swift intervention of the EMTs, called to the scene by a concerned neighbor who noticed the unusual silence, the vacant refuse vehicle, that saved him. They resuscitated Marvin from his unconscious state, pulling him back from the brink of an abyss that had claimed the unfortunate soul before him. The experience left him shaken, a haunting memory of the day he stared into the face of decay and was swallowed.

The cops had their theories: overdose, squatter gone bad, maybe just some hermit dying alone. Autopsy listed electrocution – probably a faulty power supply from a cheep chinese computer manufacturer. One more sad, pointless death for the file, a blip on the news then forgotten.

Liz Thompson didn’t forget so easily. She was a reporter, the kind who dug into the why behind the police blotters. This one stuck in her craw – software developer, lived alone, died at her keyboard… obsession or desperation? She dug, talked to ex-classmates, social services, anyone who’d interacted with the dead woman. She came up with the outlines of a sad but unremarkable life: orphaned, clawed her way into a decent career, kept to herself, coworkers never even knew her from her default slack icon.

As Liz was typing up the draft of her story, she knew her editor would be calling to yell at her soon; a sticky keyboard hampered her writing, so after one too many frustrating hours, she slammed the keyboard down and dialed tech support.

The hold music was… off. Like someone singing along to a song they only half-remembered, and under it, faint, a whisper. Phrase jolted through her mind, infinite terrors clawed at her brain matte. Liz frowned, shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“Thank you for calling support,” the tech guy chirped, jarring her back to the present.

Relief flooded her. A few quick clicks and a restart. Just a glitch. Case closed, story written, back to normal. Liz felt a shiver. Didn’t that girl havve a keyboard in her hand? Could this be how it started for Nayeli Chepi? Her nocturnal support service call kept the sleep demons at bay, but insomnia crept into her mind. It was just a simple call, a sticky keyboard, a whispering hold music that was just a bit too… wrong. A chill swept through the room, far too cold for a summer evening.

The tech guy droned on. Something buzzed deep in Liz’s mind. The H-Pad. It was just a phrase. Just a coincidence. Had to be. But that whisper on the wind, a tendril of icy fear… it wouldn’t let go.

The reporter in her screamed to investigate, to dig, to find the connection, whatever it might be. But something else, something primal, whispered an insistent warning. Nayeli Chepi had sought answers, and look where it had gotten her.

Liz hung up abruptly and closed her laptop. The story on ‘the keyboard death’ would be unremarkable, another digital age footnote. Outside, the evening sun dipped low in the sky, a comforting warmth, masked by a greenish haze in the sky – there would be hail…