Mira sat in her dimly lit bedroom, eyes glued to her laptop screen. The blue glow reflected off her glasses as she scrolled through the dark corners of the internet. As a cybersecurity analyst, she had seen all kinds of digital horrors—hacked databases, deepfake scandals, and rogue AI gone wrong. But nothing had prepared her for what she was about to encounter.
It started with an email.
Sender: Unknown
Subject: You Shouldn’t Have Looked
Mira frowned. The email contained nothing but a link, a URL that looked like a scrambled mess of characters. She had a strict rule: never click suspicious links. Yet, something about it intrigued her. Curiosity won. She copied the link, ran it through multiple security checks, and found nothing. No malware, no phishing threats—just an empty, anonymous webpage.
Against her better judgment, she clicked.
The screen went black.
Then, a single line of white text appeared:
Hello, Mira.
She shivered. Her system didn’t have any permissions enabled for sites to access her name. How did it know? Before she could react, more text appeared.
You have been chosen.
A distorted audio file began playing—a voice, broken and glitchy, whispering in a language she didn’t recognize. Her speakers crackled as a faint static hiss filled the room.
And then—her screen flickered.
Her webcam light turned on.
Mira's breath caught. She disabled all external access to her camera. Yet, the tiny green light glowed defiantly.
She yanked the USB cord from her external webcam. The light remained on.
The screen flashed again, showing a live feed of her own room—taken from a strange angle. The footage wasn’t from her laptop’s camera. It was from somewhere behind her.
Her heart pounded as she turned slowly.
Nothing.
She grabbed her phone and turned on the flashlight, scanning the corners of her room. Just her bookshelf, her bed, her closet—everything was as it should be.
Then her phone buzzed. A new notification.
Unknown Number: Look Again.
Mira’s hands trembled. She refused to turn back. Instead, she slammed her laptop shut, unplugged it, and powered off her phone.
Silence.
For a long moment, she sat in the dark, listening to her own breathing. She wasn’t paranoid—this was real. Someone had hacked her system. They were watching her. But how?
She forced herself to take deep breaths. This was just another cybersecurity challenge. She had dealt with breaches before. First step: regain control.
She powered her laptop back on.
The screen was different.
No desktop icons. No boot screen. Just a blank black background with one folder labeled: Don’t Open.
Mira swallowed.
A cruel trick. A psychological game.
She opened her command prompt to wipe the system—except it was already running a script. Lines of code scrolled down her screen at rapid speed. She recognized some of it—deep web protocols, cryptographic hashing—but other parts made no sense. It was as if someone had rewritten the very fabric of her operating system.
And then, the folder opened on its own.
Inside was a single video file: Mira.mp4
She hovered over it, debating whether to open it. But before she could decide, the file launched itself.
A grainy, night-vision recording played.
It showed her.
Asleep in her bed.
Mira's pulse hammered in her ears. The timestamp showed it was recorded last night.
She watched as, in the video, her sleeping figure twitched. The blanket moved slightly, as if something unseen was tugging at it. Then, in the footage, she sat up—except she didn't remember waking up.
The recorded version of herself turned toward the camera.
And smiled.
Not a normal smile. A stretched, eerie grin that split her face unnaturally wide. Her eyes were pitch black.
The Mira in the video leaned closer to the camera and whispered in a distorted voice:
"You let me in."
The screen went black.
Mira slammed her laptop shut, her breath ragged.
This wasn’t hacking. This wasn’t a virus.
Something else had entered her system.
Her room felt suffocating, the walls pressing in. She needed to leave. She grabbed her keys and phone, rushing out into the hallway of her apartment complex. The cool air calmed her racing heart.
Her phone buzzed again.
A new message. A video attachment.
She didn’t want to open it.
But her finger moved on its own.
The video showed live footage—her apartment door.
From the inside.
Mira’s blood ran cold.
The camera moved, panning across her empty bedroom, finally stopping in front of her closet.
The door was slightly open. A sliver of darkness beyond it.
And then—
A pale hand reached out.
The screen glitched. The video looped, showing the same scene again and again.
Then, another message appeared.
You can’t run. I’m already here.
The lights in the hallway flickered.
Mira turned, heart pounding, as a shadow moved at the far end of the corridor.
A figure stood there—its face just like hers.
It smiled.
The last thing Mira heard before everything went dark was her own voice whispering:
"You shouldn’t have looked."
