A Ghost Story about YOU.( just to warm you up.)

Do you sit late at night, very late, even into the early hours of the morning, working on your computer. When the house is silent and the only source of light is your keyboard. The heating has switched itself off, and the metallic clanks of the radiators cooling have faded away.
You are alone, sitting there, discussing with virtual friends, or just quietly browsing, repeating your favourite paths of interest, maybe searching for that illusive download.

Your screen flickers, and the darkness seems rather more intense. Every one is sleeping, the rain still beats monotonously against the window. A low wind is rustling the leaves outside, creating shadows that throw dappled patterns on the walls of your room.

The door is shut, the speakers hushed, your imagination and senses are fuelled by the phenomena of your situation and the images flashing across the screen.

You were here last night, and that had not seemed so tense, what is different about tonight, what is keeping you so alert. Normally your head would be nodding gently towards your chest, your eyes beginning to close as sleep inevitably replaced your interest in the technological excitement of the computer.

There was the faintest hint of a soft breath on the back of your neck, not enough to disturb you, hardly anything at all, just the wind that crept up the stairs and filtered under the ill fitting door. The house had been standing since 1705, and was uncomfortably draughty. Most of the windows had been replaced over the years, except the one in this room. This one had never been replaced, the frame was twisted, the lintel misshaped, gradual subsidence has distorted the wall around the opening until it would have needed a major rebuild to allow the frame to be repaced.

There is that breath again, stronger this time, disturbing the hairs on the back of your neck. Leaving you shaking, adrenaline pumping around your nerves. You try to lift your hand from the mouse, you can’t, your hand is cramped into position. Your other hand is playing over the keys, you have no control. The breath again, much stronger, the slightest hint of a gentle panting behind you, the rustling of draughty breezes through the ill-fitting window. The ragged curtain lifting and falling, the screen goes dark, the room is pitched into blackness. You hear the door being pushed open, can you turn to see, do you even dare.

The cursor is beating in the centre of the screen, a solitary point in the heaviness that pervades the room. You manage to lift your hand from the pad, still clutching the mouse, you try to rise, your legs are weighed down. Your body no longer under your control, locked in a bent position over the computer.

There is a sucking noise, at first gently, then increasing, the screen is changing, it becomes a void, the blackness develops a depth, you feel the power of its animosity. You are being pulled downwards, closer to the flashing cursor, your body is no longer yours, it is rising from the rattling chair, you seem to be floating, just above the keyboard, your legs swinging in an arc behind you. There is a sudden crash, the door to the room bursts open, the sucking noise increases, it has become the voice of your past and certainly the tragedy of your future. The screen has become reddish, pulsating beneath you, a frightening hole that is pulling down. You are being sucked into a mighty vacuum, your body has lengthened, and stretched, you have no control, there is a final mighty rush of air, and your head is in the screen, a loud clattering, and a last scream as you become part of the computer.

You are still aware, but unable to feel, to touch, your body no longer exists, you are just another memory, another gigabyte, senseless without someone to control you.

A virtual prisoner, or perhaps you always were?