The Computer Virus

             Milly is a secretary to the CFO of a Company in the city. She would wake up and do her daily routine at home before arriving at work. As usual, she would arrive at work on time, sometimes early, which she didn't mind. On this particular day, she sensed something was strange, different even. She parked her car in the parking lot, and started heading to the door of the garage exit, she noticed that her car was the only one in the parking lot, but thought nothing of it. She arrived at her floor, and as she was getting off the elevator, the sense of strangeness grew again. She looked around at her surroundings, but nothing seemed strange to her. As she passed by each cubicle and office, she looked into them and saw the usual people in them, but they didn't look back at her. Usually people would wave, smile or say hello back at her, but not this time. Each and every person was glued to their computer screens, like zombies, which is strange even to her. She ignored that odd hallway and arrived at her office, but realized that her boss wasn't in his office, "Strange. He's usually here first," she muttered to herself. She closed the door to her office behind her and sat down. Her hand immediately reached for her office phone, but it didn't ring. Many times as she stepped into her office, the phone rings abruptly, as if the caller knew her schedule and when her feet stepped into her office. This morning, it didn't ring and Milly stopped her hand at mid distance towards the phone; she once again muttered to herself, "Huh, strange". She proceeded by looking at her boss's calendar on the computer and saw that he was booked as usual. "Where is he?" she thought to herself as she looked at his calendar and saw that he had a meeting in his office this morning.

                No calls, no boss in the room next to hers; she didn't have much to do, since she's always on top of things. She looked at her computer once again to see what she could do, and while staring into the screen, she starts to feel a force pulling her even closer than usual to it. She blinks constantly, trying to avoid that feeling and force; as she pulls back from the computer screen, she sees something odd in her blind spots. The walls seem to move, grow something green, even. She glanced at the walls, yet saw nothing. Shaking her head as she moved away from looking at the walls, she argued with herself, "It can't be mold. We passed the inspection last month", but still wondered what it is that she saw. After that odd incident, she decides to walk around the hallway and get some air. As she steps out of her office, she sees everyone literally like zombies. She once again blinks constantly and shakes her head a little, and the image disappears. She heads to the office lounge to get some water, and as she reaches for her disposable cup, her cup turns green to the point of that mold like substance growing toward her hand. She immediately drops her cup and holds her hand in fright. She blinks, and everything is normal again, so she proceeds to get her cup of water. Once she finishes, she heads back to her office, careful not to look at anyone in the hallway as she passes them. She doesn't want to see that image again of them being zombies or the walls moving and growing something green. She arrives at her office, and as she is closing the door behind her, Milly sees her walls moving and turning green. She blinks, like she has been, but it didn't change this time. "What is going on here?" she quietly asks herself, but to no avail ‐ no answer ensues. She sits down, covers her head with her hands, and slowly breathes in and out until she thinks that everything is back to normal. She looks back at her computer screen, to see the time, and once again that odd force captures her attention as if she was forcefully baited on the hook of a fishing rod. This time, she wasn't able to escape its strong force, and the screen started to swirl and change colors. As that was happening, the walls of her office started to move, and turn green, and moved in closer and closer.

              As her hands slip from the edge of her desk in front of her, a small dinging noise started to grow louder and louder in her hearing; she wakes up from the trance and gets pushed back. She looks around and wonders what just happened to her. She takes a sip of her water and looks around her office once again. She gets up and stares at her co‐workers through her window in her office and she sees that everyone is also in a trance stage, just staring into their computers. She wonders what she should do, to help them out, but nothing comes into mind. She sits back down and starts to think what it could be, trying not to look at her own computer in the process. At this point, all her co‐workers are at the stage of drooling and are still staring at their computer screens, as if their lives were being sucked out by that force from their computer screens. She looks at the time on her computer screen, but immediately remembered that she shouldn't be looking at her screen, but alas, the force caught her attention in that mere second. As she stared at her computer, a hand popped out of the screen and reached for her face and started to gently caress her face. Her face glowed with happiness, as the hand continued to caress her face. The hand ended at her chin and just hung there at mid distance from her face while her face still had that smile; she stared at the screen and hand.

                Seconds turned into minutes and the hand was still hovering in mid air and in front of her face, but in a mere second, the hand grabbed her whole face with such harsh force that she tried taking it off her face by holding the wrist and pushing it back. The hand was stronger than her and dragged her face closer and closer towards the computer screen. The hand yanked her head into the screen with such a fierce force she closed her eyes as that happened. Once inside the screen, she opened her eyes, and looking through the hand's fingers that left a "V"‐shaped crack in each digit, she saw numbers flying around and calculations that she tried ignoring during her school days. As she explored more of that strange world, she saw the faces of her co‐workers in there too, except they weren't as scared as she was. She started to cry and then scream; the hand was losing its grip a little, then that strange dinging sound was heard again. Strangely enough, the hand also heard it and pushed her head slowly back to where it came from. She continued to scream and cry, almost as if she was throwing a tantrum, like a baby would if their favorite toy was taken away from them. She kept on hearing that dinging noise again and again and wondered to herself what it could be. The hand obviously didn't like that sound, so on one hand, she was glad that it was getting louder and louder. Finally, the hand stopped close to the opening of that weird and strange world that it lived in; still holding her head, it suddenly pushed her head forcefully back into her world. She entered her world again and flew off her chair.

             At that exact moment she was flying off her chair, she woke up back in her bed and in her apartment, sweating in terror. She touched her face where the hand touched her, as if it left its body heat on her face still. She looked around her room; everything was normal. "Thank God, it was just a dream. What a bad computer virus that really was," she said to herself chuckling as she said it. She thought to herself "I shouldn't complain about a small computer virus at work anymore after I had that dream!"

                                                                                  The End.