NIL

I'm a computer man. A techy, a code monkey, if you will. I'm an information and technology specialist; I know my way around these machines.

And of course, whenever someone finds out, they immediately feel the impulse to tell me all of their computer problems, as if I could fix them.

This happened recently with an old acquaintance of the family. Always a strange person, he hadn't known about my profession until just now.

He told me of his fifteen year old dinosaur of a computer that "could use some fixin' up." I was so amused by the request that I decided to go into his spare room and give it a go.

I booted up, and a strange icon was on the desktop. It was a file called "soon.nil." I had never heard of the ".NIL" file extension before. I was intrigued.

With great trepidation, I opened it. A dialogue box popped up.

"No! NO! TURN BACK. SAVE YOURSELF."

I admit, I was surprised. And confused. Maybe this was some sort of strange, obscure virus from back in the day, So I clicked [Cancel] and ran a virus scan.

The progress bar of the scan immediately shot from 0% to 100%. It then went right back to 0, and shot back up to 100 again. It repeated the process for about a minute. When it finally let up, it showed that 400% of the hard drive was corrupted. A dialogue box popped up.

"RUN. RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN. LEAVE DON'T COME BACK, DESTROY THIS DAMN MACHINE. RUN, HIDE BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE."

I was creeped out. Yet I was convinced this was a virus. I tried to reboot. When I went to the menu and clicked it, there was yet another dialogue box.

"NO! Just leave it, PLEASE, just run! GO!"

I closed it, and another popped up.

"PleasePleasePLEASEPLEASESAVEYOURSELF. ESCAPE, IT'S TOO LATE FOR US, GO. DESTROY YOUR MACHINE AND GO!!!"

Panicking, I ran my hand around the back of the machine and unplugged it. I sat there for a moment. What the hell was that? Surely, the strangest virus I'd ever seen. Was the purpose to get people to trash their computers?

I hesitated for a moment before turning it on again. I felt that I should've heeded the warnings. Take a hammer to the hard drive. Stay somewhere else for the time being. But...just for one second. I was just being silly?

Plugging the computer back in, the screen flashed to life at maximum brightness. The screen was moving fast, dialogue boxes flooded the screen, appearing and disappearing too quickly for the naked eye to discern. They made a picture. A mass of faces, all full of sorrow and grief. They were disappointed at me. They were pitying me. The speakers let out a long garbled static. It sounded like a chorus of voices.

"We're sorry. We're so, so, so, sorry."

The computer returned to normal and I retrained my cursor over the location of "soon.nil." It wasn't there. All there was "yes_now.nil." With a dreadful amount of conviction, and a deadly curiosity, I opened it.

It...it all happened so quickly. The monitor flashed again, and the room was flooded with white. As if everything in the room became suffused with it, I couldn't help but stare right in the center of it.

I felt like I was going blind, But I kept staring. An unknown force help me fast, and I heard static. Endless amounts of white noise. Loud. Louder than anything. Louder than existence. I didn't think it was even a noise anymore. I tried to scream over the sound. I could not hear myself. I screamed, and I screamed. The only thing I could pull off to prove my existence. I couldn't stop shrieking. My body wouldn't let me.

My throat became raw, and I tasted blood. It became numb. Everything became numb. The clothes on the body, the floor beneath my socks, the warmth of the rusty heater. Everything.

I was blinded, deaf, and dumb. I could not feel, or love, or appreciate my existence.

And I didn't exist. I didn't know where I was. I could've been in my room, in the hospital, sitting on the right hand of God. I was completely deprived of my natural senses.

I could cry if I wanted tears to come out. I wasn't even sure if I had eyes to cry with. All I know the blast of light from my monitor, the spirits, the damning light on my soul. Endless blank.

But now, I do feel one thing. The presence of others. I am in some earthly, ungodly placed, surrounded by souls that suffer the same way I do. Nothing makes sense. No sense, no nonsense, no boredom. How much time had passed?

I feel something else coming this way! A real person! I can see and feel him! Someone with hope!

I fear for them. They need to leave, they need to avoid this! I need to sacrifice myself to send them a message! The existence of an actual person is probably more valuable that mine...right?

No! No! Turn back! Save yourself! Run while you still can! Leave, don't come back, destroy this machine. Run, hide, before it's too late for you...

---

Credited to InappropriateName
Originally uploaded on May 26, 2012

Comments • 2

Loading comments...