March 9th, Undecim's Journal
Undecim returned to her bedroom after she relieved herself. Soft relaxation music played from Undecim's computer speakers, it was difficult for her to sleep without sound so she always left her computer on. She shook the mouse to check the time. Six o' six in the morning, she could get two or three more hours of sleep. Undecim minimized her music program and took a moment to smile at her wallpaper. It was a screenshot from an episode of Sparkle Savannah, where Nirah the lioness and Leon the lion sang "This Love Tonight" under a waterfall during a season finale. It was a song that Undecim held dear to her heart for years, she wished to know what it was like to feel the emotions Nirah and Leon conveyed in their duet. Undecim crawled into bed and cuddled up to her plush animals, she closed her eyes with a relaxed sigh. Undecim sat up in her bed and questioned whether she was awake or asleep. She spun around to face her computer monitor when her music came to an abrupt stop with a thump, it seemed the computer had shut itself off. She assumed that it was trying to install an update, though reloading her programs again would be inconvenient. Undecim pressed the power button and waited for it to boot up. The loading screen was absent and the monitor remained black, tension generated an unusual sense of dread as the machine whirred softly. A horrifying image on her desktop replaced the fashionably cute lions from Sparkle Savannah. In the right corner of the image was a grey spectral face with a wide smile and black hollow circles for eyes. Behind it was an autopsy room made up of digital noise, it lacked proper gradations and the only colors it consisted of were black, red, yellow, and white. Butchered bodies lie on the tables under an intense lamp light with a severed head on a shelf. The speakers vibrated from the sound of a gale through a forest, the volume threatened to blow them out. Undecim fell back on her bed with a scream and the computer shut itself off again. Undecim shifted to slide off her bed and a masculine hand grabbed her arm before she could move. Nobody was present when she looked back but she knew it was a silent warning from Satanael. Undecim ignored his attempts to protect her and rushed to the tower, she unplugged her external drive to protect it from a potential virus or a hacker. The machine booted itself up when the plugs were pulled from its ports. Undecim backed away and watched with dismay. The desktop returned almost instantly with a different image that did not consist of colored noise. The face from before dominated the foreground as it had done previously, behind the stranger was a dark forest with multiple bodies hanging from branches with nooses fastened around their necks. The computer shut itself off within seconds of viewing the image. The girl managed a breath as she trembled. Again the machine lit up as it whirred to life and displayed an image faster than it had the past two times. It was a marred face with bulged eyes obscured by digital distortion, it stared at Undecim as though it were attempting to express its pain. Undecim wanted to press the power button and force the computer to restart but she could not bring herself to move. The next cycle brought up a sketch of Satanael that Deca made in her year. Undecim felt a sense of comfort in seeing his face rather than the malicious specter that appeared in the previous images. It was a short-lived reprieve as the forest image replaced Satanael without warning, a loud gale piped through her speakers and fear took hold of Undecim once more. This time an instant message box appeared before her with text from an unfamiliar user named OverDosekills1852.
OverDosekills1852: OverDose knows.....
Before Undecim could even begin to question it, another text came in.
OverDosekills1852: bye.
Undecim woke with a gasp after her computer shut down in the nightmare. The red numbers on her heart-shaped clock read eight o' two. Her family members were still asleep and she was too afraid to lie back down. Undecim got out of bed and gave her computer mouse a quick shake, relaxation music played and her usual desktop image with Nirah and Leon was present. "Thank God." Undecim sighed. She convinced herself to lie down and go back to sleep. Undecim sat up in what felt like her waking life. "I'm glad that was a dream," she said as she looked at the digital clock. The time read eight o' seven, it felt wrong but she chose to ignore it. Undecim approached her computer and it turned itself on before she could touch the button on the tower. She backed away, eyes wide with disbelief as she choked back tears. A flurry of graphic, gory images flashed before her eyes as the computer reset itself at unnatural speeds. It flicked between a pure back screen and random imagery until it halted on an image of a skinned, pixelated face. An instant message box appeared:
OverDosekills1852: do you like what i've done?
Undecim could not bear to look at the text for too long. She clicked on the username and it took her to a profile page, but all it offered was a single name. Joshua. No surname, no state address, no age, no About Me page, just Joshua. The computer shut off seconds after accessing his profile. Undecim woke once more. She felt a sense of freedom once she realized it was nine forty-five. She hesitated before checking her computer and struggled to let her shoulders down when her normal desktop appeared. Undecim steeled herself against the chills that came from remembering the nightmare and began to write it down on a dream pad stored on her external drives.
——————————— Art by @princesslovelydreams
Story and Characters by @delicatexnightmare and @princesslovelydreams