• Virus Scan
    By Claire Hawthorne


    Emily sighed, watching as the numbers in the first bar climbed higher, but as the number in the bar just below it stayed at the same zero. She wished that she was staring at the number of gallons filling into her tank, with the price just underneath, but unfortunately it was not such a case. Instead, she was home alone with the lights down low, watching as her clearly-infected computer showed no signs of viruses.

    “Stupid piece of crap…” she muttered, glaring at the screen as if it would make something come up. Nearly one-hundred-thousand files had gone through the scan, and nearly one-hundred-thousand files had been found clean. Usually those infected came up first, so perhaps she didn’t have a hope in hell. But by the fact that the Internet was slower than a sloth if in the rare chance a page would even load, and the fact that none of her files would open, it was quite obvious that something odd was going on.

    Was this some sort of new virus that didn’t show up until the last moment, when her computer would be grasping for its final words? Perhaps. She knew computer hackers and virus-programmers were insane, but they were brilliant. Anything was possible.

    She decided to check back on its progress in a short while.

    Slugging across the carpet, Emily collapsed on her dorm-room bed. It was a bit stiff, but she didn’t care. She was absolutely exhausted. Late-night classes with early-morning shifts was getting to her, and she could just keel over.

    Her fingers groped around her bed, feeling their way up to the nightstand next to the bed. Once they collided with her prize, she grabbed the cup and chugged down several mouthfuls of Starbucks coffee. That sacred substance was probably the only thing left that kept her alive.

    Whoever said college wasn’t party-time wasn’t lying, but at the same time she had the urging wish to shoot that person in the face.

    She gave a cough and a curse immediately after. If she got sick, it would hurt her even more. She’d be so behind, and that would mean more late nights and more early mornings. More coffee, more exhaustion… Absolutely not, she could not get sick.

    Several minutes passed by, with the only activity that Emily could manage being taking more sips at her coffee until she had finally licked the cup clean. That just meant that in an hour or two she’d be off to find some more.

    However, she wasn’t going anywhere until she could figure out what was wrong with her laptop. If she couldn’t get it to work by that evening, she’d be properly ********.

    Speak of the devil… She hoisted herself off the bed to shuffle back over to her sick laptop, but immediately was knocked back down onto her sheets by a pounding headache. For a moment she thought someone had snuck into her room and punched her square in the face, but that was not the reality.

    A cough. A headache. Not a good sign.

    The college girl raised herself back up onto her somnolent legs and stumbled over to the medicine cabinet, where the Advil was waiting impatiently for her. She took as many that she needed, though she wasn’t entirely sure if it was going to help. The pain was so immense, and it was right in the stitching between her hair and her forehead.

    Perhaps it was just her sinuses, from the weary weather.

    Perhaps she just had a tickle in her throat.

    And perhaps the rain had just shorted out her laptop when she made that mad dash to her room the day prior.

    She just hoped that her hypotheses were the reality.

    When she returned to her computer, she was discouraged to find that it still had found nothing hidden in the coding of her hardware. A sigh escaped from her, only because it seemed that her prediction about the rain was coming true.

    Her hand met with her forehead, rubbing the stress away. Right; she had nothing to worry about.

    But with her hand to her head, she noticed that the headache had grown, and now was giving off heat… Her forehead was warm. She felt her cheeks. Warm, as well. Not melting, but she felt herself become a bit on the bothered side.

    Something urged at her, though, that there was one last thing left to check. Slowly, her hands left her face, and placed themselves on her computer.

    It was like sticking her fingers into an open fire.

    “Coincidence,” she breathed, trying to reassure herself into a state of serenity. “It’s just a coincidence… You’re getting sick, and your computer is working too hard.”

    Of course.

    If only that was the case.

    A volcano seemed to erupt in her lower stomach, rumbling and aching Emily into a near-coma. She collapsed onto the floor from the intensity of her sudden cramp. At first, it reconciled into a slight growl, giving her a false sense of security.

    And then, the show began.

    Her abdominal area blew a gasket once again, this earthquake even more deadly than the one before it. Emily rolled around and groaned in pain as she felt her headache beat in time with her cramps and the hotness in her cheeks and forehead boiling up.

    “What’s wrong with me?” she asked out loud, wondering if there was anyone who could answer her question. But, there was only more silence, save for the racket that her body was making.

    Tears mingled with her flushed cheeks, rolling down and pitter-pattering onto the floor like the rain droplets that collided with the dorm’s window.

    “Oh, God… What’s happening to me?”

    The heat grew even more, and she felt herself become fully enveloped in flames. The headache echoed throughout her body, mixing with the stomachache that was putting her through so much pain.

    “What is this?”

    She could barely get the words out before a cold grip constricted her throat. Tighter and tighter… So this was what it was like to have a noose around your neck. It was a feeling she thought she’d never know, but unfortunately that proved untrue.

    With her last breaths, Emily glanced around the world around her. What had she done to deserve this? What deadly sin had she gotten caught up with?

    And then, it caught her eye.

    They were barking mad, but they were absolutely brilliant.

    Infected: 1

    The End.