I’m not sure how far this thing has spread. If you’re reading this, close your windows, shut off any displays you have, and honestly, once you’re done here, get the hell off of the internet. It is not worth the risk. I’m one of the lucky ones.
The day started normal. I had the graveyard shift at the corner store. My shift ended at around 7:30 a.m. and I waited a little longer for the next guy to arrive. He didn’t show up so I just left. It’s the weekend, so parents with good jobs and all the kids off from school were in the streets, doing their thing. I was walking across the street from an electronics store, one of those classic looking ones with the T.V.s in the window. Anyways, the clock hit 8 and all hell broke loose. Suddenly all the T.V.s in that store, probably all the T.V.s across the country based on what happened, lit up with this… image. Can’t get that shit out of my head, but I guess that’s the point.
It was a man, I guess. Just staring. But he didn’t have a nose. And his eyes and his mouth were a little bigger, just enough to have something be noticeably off. And his smile. It was a sickeningly wide grin full with white teeth. He just stood there on a grey background, staring out of all those monitors. I don’t know if it was a video or just a picture, but he didn’t move. It was only there for a few seconds. I froze in total fear, but other than that I was fine, unlike those around me.
Everyone that saw it started having their faces contort. They yelled in sharp pain before they froze in perfect posture while they grumbled and had their faces rearranged. They all started to look like that guy on T.V. Everyone who saw them turned, and the people who saw those people turned, and so on and so on. Sharp, panicked screams cut off instantly and gave rise to a dumb, frozen statue with an ugly alien grin. Goes without saying anyone driving a car lost control. I dove into an alley and watched the carnage unfold.
The ones that turned seemed to try to find people that didn’t yet and stare at them. It spread like wildfire. My heart was beating a million times a minute and I couldn’t control my breath. It was that same fear you feel in a nightmare, the one that takes over your whole body and makes your head feel distant and frozen. I felt in a sort of primal danger. I stopped watching and hid behind a dumpster, eyes shut and hyperventilating.
I hid there in that alleyway for what seemed like ages. I kept hearing distant screams, screeching brakes, rumbling explosions. Pretty sure I heard a plane or two falling out of the sky, and some useless emergency alerts from an unfortunate person’s phone. Once I had gathered the courage, or moreso the want to progress my nightmare until I hopefully woke up, I peeked out from behind the dumpster I had called my home for the past ten minutes. Before I even moved, I felt like I was being watched.
Down the alley and across the street, there was just one of them. Staring straight at me, smiling like an idiot. It’s big eyes were relaxed but contorted from the giant, toothy smile plastered on it’s face. I froze and my hair rose like a cat. Why wasn’t I turning? Was it going to happen soon?
We just kept staring at eachother, our contest framed by smoking cars and broken spouting water pipes. I knew it knew I was there. I felt that gaze in my soul. It blinked, oddly enough, but that didn’t really make it any more friendly looking.
Then it kept blinking. Faster, and faster, and faster. It’s face twitched slightly, the smile not affected in the slightest. Then it twitched more, and more, and more, and then its body twitched, and then it started grumbling, and its body twitched even more, and then it started screaming, and then it was running at me on all fours. Still smiling.
I screamed in response and ran like hell. I turned into a back alley behind some apartments and kept running, looking for any sort of place to head into. Not afraid to say how fucking afraid I was of this thing. I’m pretty sure I soiled my pants twelve times over knowing this thing was on my tail.
I kept hearing it screaming behind me. It sounded angry, and only loosely human. I’m pretty sure the tears in my eyes were the reason I didn’t see the brick wall I had just corned myself in front of.
I whipped around and fell to the ground, backing up against the wall. That thing was still galloping towards me. It was as if some sort of inhuman thing was controlling a human body. It had no idea how to use it.
By this point I was sobbing and wailing out loud. It slowed on it’s approach and stumbled towards me before straightening into an erect position. Then it stared again, hoping to turn me into one of itself.
I think I was doing one of those sobbing smiles, the ones where you’re obviously not happy but your mouth, at the very least, resembles a smile on the surface. I guess that’s what saved me. It kinda just turned around and walked off all robotic like, making sure to get in one last stare but before turning back down the alley into the main street. I was still there sobbing, wondering what the hell just happened.
So that’s how all this shit started. I somehow got back to my apartment unscathed and charged my phone back to life while the world fell apart around me. My phone read 8:30 am. Only half an hour had passed since that smile came on screen. I wanted to write this in a hurry as a warning / last mark on earth, especially since, knowing the nature of humans, I bet that smile made it onto the internet - accidentally or deliberately.
I live in a small city out in the midwest, so maybe it might take a day or two to really start spreading, or maybe the government did this all as a test run and we’re in a controlled space, or maybe I’m stuck in a hellish nightmare– anyways. Get the hell off the internet or browse carefully. I’m lucky to be “immune” I guess. Maybe smiling back at those things will save you if you aren’t, but I’d say just avoid seeing them all together, immune or not. That face haunts me every time I close my eyes.
So again, close your windows, shut off any displays you have, and get off the internet. You never know when or where you’ll see that picture. And if you still happen to encounter one of those things without departing into a nightmare reality, just smile.