They’ve finally allowed me to have a computer again. It’s meant to be some form of therapy; to rid my fears of the internet. Since my arrival, I have been kept on a very tight leash. They watch my every move, control my every meal, where I sleep, where I go to the bathroom, where I spend my free time. An entire institution built to strip the very essence of what you truly are.
“Kill yourself you fucking loser. The reason you suck at this game is because you’re poor, and nobody fuckin likes you. Get out of this game.”
“Sorry I’m not as good as you. Sorry I don’t dedicate my life to a stupid video game.”
“Literally kill yourself dude nobody wants you, nobody loves you. You’re sitting here playing this game and ruining it for everyone because of how bad you are.”
“Whatev-”
“Kill yourself. Kill yourself. Kill yourself.”
He went silent after that. This kid is so bad at this game it gets under my skin. All I want to do is win and this actual moron couldn’t hit a single one of his shots. I continued to mess with him until the end of the match. Finally, the game ended.
“GG’s everyone. Except for you cintro, you know what to do.”
I left the game. Nobody has ever annoyed me so much in my life. The way he spoke screamed poverty, and the fact he couldn’t even come up with a single comeback must mean he’s actually stupid. Why does CS2 always pair me up with these clowns?
After the game, I took a shower to relieve myself. CS2 has been so much fun lately, but I honestly can’t stand being paired up with such terrible kids. Shower was nice, but standing inside a 6x6 tall box was uncomfortable, to say the least. I dried myself off and went to the kitchen to have the usual dinner; craft mac and cheese. College tuition has me eating like a peasant. After eating my dinner, I put my plates away and talked to my roommate. It’s my first year of college, and I’m going for an Astronomical Science degree. Homework practically takes over my entire life; playing CS2, and dreaming of becoming a pro player, definitely takes the edge off.
“Who were you screaming at in there?” My roommate asked, walking out of his bedroom.
“Oh, just some idiot who shouldn’t be playing CS.”
“You told him to kill himself though. That’s not cool man.”
“Shut up pussy, it’s just trash talk on the internet. Everyone is so soft nowadays.”
“Whatever dude. Just know you might piss the wrong person off one day.”
“They’re just internet losers. They won’t do shit.”
My roommate retreated to his room. The conversation we exchanged was not the usual; the lines went something like “How you doin man?” and “Oh cool.” Whatever, just another softy. After cleaning up my dishes, I headed back into my room to play another round before staying up all night to finish my homework; unfortunately, it was due bright and early so I had to get it done.
“Kill yourself, idiot.”
Again, another team filled with morons who can’t hit their shots. I top-frag every single game, it’s driving me nuts.
We lost. Defeated and dried out, it was time to do homework for the rest of the night. I went to check my email. From cintro225: “I killed myself.” Weird. I didn’t know how to deal with this at first, but then I realized my email was on my Instagram page, and that’s how he must’ve gotten it. Don’t know how he found my Instagram though. I had it there for business purposes, mainly for future projects and internships, so it’s not like he found out any of my personal information. I was gonna brush it off but I had to reply to this no life.
“You didn’t do a good job. Fuck off.”
I sent the email, then blocked him. Not even 50 seconds later, somehow, I got another message. From cintro225: “You told me to kill myself. I’m dead. My new self will hunt you. My new self will watch you. My new self will be at your end. I will be watching. I am dedicated to you. Enjoy my life, friend. I’ll see you soon.”
What a loser. I thought to myself. I brushed it off as just another creep on the internet trying to freak me out because he’s upset at some trash talk. People take things way too seriously. I heard a knock at the door. I wasn’t expecting anything and I didn’t order food tonight. I walked up to the door and took a look through the peephole; nobody. Opening the door, no one was there. It was as if nobody was there, to begin with. Assuming it was other college kids in my building who occasionally ran down the hallways drunk, knocking on random doors; I walked back to my bedroom and began my work.
I woke up in a sweat, hearing a loud knocking at the door. It’s been a couple of days since the last knock. Usually, it’s a slow knocking, then silence. This time a note: “Hello:)”
The constant knocking at my door on an almost daily basis was really starting to mess with my mind. I had midterms coming up, and couldn’t afford the extra stress. And what better stress to have than a possible stalker? The next day, another note: “Luck.”
At this point, I was feeling pure dread. How does he know where I live? I’ve seen too many movies now, and I know very well the police won’t help me if I have no evidence to provide or person to report.
All I have is that email address and two notes, and it’s certainly not enough to earn police protection of any form.
The knocking eventually stopped for a while. The first day of my midterms it finally went silent, and I was able to think straight. I had investigated outside my door so many times, only to see absolutely no one. I even installed a camera on the outside of the door. One of those tiny black boxes that sticks to your front door. It never caught anything significant. It was such a long hallway, that there was no way someone could knock on my door and escape the line of sight by the time I had opened it either.
Despite this, finally, I had some time to study and was able to focus on my work without distraction.
Last day of midterms. One of the most stressful days of my life. I thought freshman year would be a joke, turns out my High School did not prepare me for this at all. After a long and stressful testing period, I headed back to my apartment to relax for a while. I walked in the door.
“How was midterms man?” My roommate asked, sitting at the kitchen table.
“It was alright. How were yours?”
“Oh, I didn’t take them.”
“What? Won’t you fail?”
“Can’t fail when you don’t go to school. Dropped out last week.”
“Damn, dude why? What are you gonna do?”
“I don’t need a degree. I think I’ll be just fine.”
My roommate barely came out of his room after that. We barely spoke, to begin with anyway, and we weren’t really friends so it was not my concern. He too, must be on edge from all the knocking. He never did ask about it.
With midterms over, I packed my bags for winter break.
It’s been eight weeks since I could find somewhere I feel safe. I am nothing but belligerently paranoid, though that doesn’t excuse the recent events that have occurred. All the bouncing around from place to place isn’t helping. You can only spend so much on AirBnB. I left college with a degree. But ever since I left, he haven’t left me alone. He is always with me wherever I go. At night the phone rings; I’d answer: “Leave me the fuck alone got it. When I find out who you are your fucking dead!” Dead silence. The knocking came back. Everywhere I went, no matter where it was, no matter where I slept; there would be a knock at the door. A sick joke; just to make me aware that he is always with me. No matter how hard I try I can never catch them when opening the door. He always gets passed my cameras. If this keeps up, I’m going to lose my mind. This isn’t even a normal type of stalking, whoever this is; they’re insane. He even left messages on my computer.
I opened it up one day and my screen went completely black with another message from my tormentor: “Hum.” My computer isn’t the only thing that’s been hacked, but any computer I decide to use. Even cell phones. I’m on my 10th one. The first thing I see whenever I open up a new device is another black screen, followed by text: “Children.” I’ve tried everything. The police were no help, they told me I should consider medication when I tried to make a report. They didn’t believe me.
“And we’re supposed to just believe that someone hacks every single device you use. And only you? Don’t think something like that is possible son.”
“But it is! You guys arn’t listening to me. This guy sent me this email a while back. Look I have it right here.”
When I went to search for it, it was gone. The police men stared at me, waiting for my apparent evidence.
“I swear it was here. You have to believe me! He’s hacked all my devices, and he deleted the messages from my own inbox. I don’t know how but he’s making me go insane.”
They both smirked.
“I’m afraid you’re already there kid.”
I don’t think cops are supposed to say shit like that; almost as if they’re in on it. Ever since I got my degree and left college, my life has felt like a constant hostage situation. I don’t think I’ll ever step outside again. It’s not like that matters anyway, he’s watching me right now. He’s outside my window, staring. I can see his smile through the darkness that hid his face. I don’t know if it’s in my head or not. Maybe I am losing my mind. And there’s this hum. It was quiet at first. It started after about a month of hearing the damn knocking. After midterms, I went home to visit my family. Every single night, he would knock. And every single night, the hum got louder; scratching every single inch of my brain until I couldn’t take it anymore, and would pass out from anxiety or bang my head against the wall; prompting my parents to call a psychiatrist. Now, it’s always there, teasing me, reminding me that I’m fucked. I want to kill myself.
Everything has changed for the better. I just got married and moved into our brand-new home with our two daughters. My job is something else; landing my dream job at NASA as part of the Mars Research Segment for future colonization plans. My wife and kids, they are the loves of my life and I wouldn’t trade them up for anything. After years of therapy and endless paranoia, I was finally able to rid myself of that crazy delusion. Temporary insanity they called it; brought on by extreme levels of anxiety over an extended period of time. Basically, I lost my shit and got it back together. No more knocking; it was all a delusion. I contacted my old roommate. I found him on Facebook. Turns out he wasn’t too far from me so that was nice to have an old friend close by. I called and asked him if he remembered the knocking; he didn’t. In fact, he said there never was any knocking to begin with, and he had no idea what I was talking about. What a relief. Hearing that was like music to my ears. I came to the conclusion that all of my misfortunes came down to the demand and workload of my college experience. You don’t get a job at NASA being a slacker. Kaylee, my daughter, her birthday is today. Her little sister Bri is helping her set up in the backyard. We’re having a huge party with all of her friends. It’s gonna be a really good time.
He’s back. And things have never been worse. Turns out this entire time, he never left my side. Briana started complaining about a knock at her door in the middle of the night. Not only does this fucker know where I live again, but he came into my home completely unnoticed. I thought it was all in my head, but the doctors were wrong. Everyone was wrong; except for me. I knew I should’ve trusted my own brain when everything was going to shit. Maybe I could have found a way to prevent myself from being found. I thought changing my name would have been enough, I guess it never was. Weird files have been coming up on my computer recently. When I went to inspect my documents folder for some work-related shit, there was a file that I never made, just sitting there. It read: “HELLO.” The shit inside this folder was enough to drive someone insane if they looked at it long enough. Scary enough, within the folder, there was a collection of other files. One of them named: “Hum.” When I opened it; I nearly threw up on the spot. Children.
My god it was some fucked up shit. Pictures of everything from newborns to some as young as 5 years old. The things these men were doing to them. Women too. I can’t even begin to describe to you what these photos were, but I considered killing myself right when I saw them. Knowing that I live in a world where this kind of shit happens is almost unbearable. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what would happen to my mental if something happened to my kids. Hence why I’m extremely nervous about the knocking on Briana’s door. Kids have really broad imaginations, but I know it’s him.
Eventually, the knocking will start on my door, I know it. The rest of the files on my computer contained a bunch of generic satanic-worshiping nonsense. None of it seemed to make any sense. Documents on everything from devil summoning rituals to detailed instructions on body disposal.
It was as if someone gathered the most disgusting aspects of mankind and all the fucked up practices you could imagine, then just stuffed it into my computer. All into one grand file. One of the files made my skin crawl. It was called “Eye check.”
Pictures of my fucking kids with their eyes being pulled open by someone while they slept. Not just a couple of pictures….months worth of them. And it wasn’t just my kids. What’s fucked up is he didn’t even try to hide it. How did he get onto my computer? I was already under the suspicion that I had been hacked, but now I’m starting to think he’s been in here the whole time. I’m starting to think that he’s in my home right now. I’m going to use this as evidence for the police. Maybe they’ll finally believe me.
“PUT YOUR HANDS ABOVE YOUR HEAD AND GET ON THE GROUND!”
The walls were bloodstained. All the slashing sure did paint the town red. I woke up in a sweat again, hearing knocking at my door in the middle of the night. He was here, and I was going to kill him. My head was spinning when I tried to get out of bed. As I approached the door slowly, my vision began to distort and twist. Every surface began to flow in one continuous motion. What started as a symphony of movement, became an absolute hellscape. A loud hum projected itself throughout the entire house. It was so loud that I could feel the entire foundation beneath me vibrate. I heard a scream. My wife was not in the room with me. In a panic, I opened the door, and that’s when my entire world became red. The pictures on the wall, the people in them, smiling ear to ear, ready for murder. Blood oozed from every crevice and crack that belonged to my dear home. The hum got louder.
My vision became more distorted. The sound of my footsteps slowly moving down the stairs began to loop in my mind as I began to lose all sense of balance. Shadows moved wildly, running along the walls without fear of being detected. The floor began to twist in endless whirlpools. Reaching the kitchen, I went into the secret compartment I had installed in the pantry, where I hid my gun. No ammo. He must’ve preemptively removed the ammunition. He’s always five steps ahead of me. But tonight, I am ahead of him. I grabbed two kitchen knives from the counter and began walking toward the source of the hum. When I walked into the living room, the most terrifying revelation was revealed to me. It’s not just one person, it’s four. Four people dressed in dark cloaks with witch-like fingers protruding from the oversized sleeves. Their fingers long and molded. Their faces, a shade of deadly red, horns exiting the skulls. These were not humans. It all makes sense. It explains everything. How they were able to keep track of me; following me everywhere I went for years. They were something entirely different. Something not from here. Doesn’t matter. Tonight I will finally be free. I wasted no time. The leader released the three other demons towards me. As they ran, arms open, I began my charge, stabbing the tallest one in the heart. I slashed away as hard as I could to wipe out the imps. There was one more left. He laughed at me. The laugh echoed through every inch of my home.
I could hear sirens outside. The police were here to help me and now I have him trapped! I went for the kill, thrusting my knife as hard as I could muster, to save my family, to save my own life. Dodging and dashing, the demon avoided my strikes, all while belting the most sinister laugh.
Falling to the ground after a failed strike, claws damaged the surface of my face. One impact, then another, then another; all to my head and stomach. I began to scream in pain.
“Who are you screaming at in there?”
That voice. It sounded so familiar.
“I told you I would be here. Remember? It’s not over just yet though. Enjoy my life, best friend.”
The demon sprinted away, out the back door, to inevitably return and destroy my life. At least my family is safe. I will always protect them. If they died, I would kill myself.