BE VERY CAREFUL . If you get this, you are infected with…
That was the message that appeared on Olivia’s phone screen at exactly 3:17 a.m.
At first, she thought it was just spam—another sketchy link or clickbait scare. But something about it felt… different. The message came through not as a text or email, but as a full-screen notification. It blocked all other functions. No buttons worked. The only option: “Tap to continue.”
She held her breath and tapped.
The screen went black. For ten full seconds, nothing happened. Then, white text appeared.
“You have been chosen. The infection has begun. You have 72 hours.”
Olivia’s heart pounded. She tried restarting the phone, pulling the battery out—anything. But the moment it powered back on, the same message reappeared.
By morning, she figured it had to be some elaborate prank. She wasn’t tech-savvy, but her friend Jonah was. She rushed to his apartment with the phone still frozen on that message. Jonah laughed it off—until he plugged it into his laptop.
“Uh… Liv… this thing is overriding my system. What the hell kind of virus is this?”
His screen flickered, lines of code scrolling fast. He yanked the cable out—but his laptop didn’t stop. It continued running, the fan whirring louder, screen blinking rapidly.
Jonah cursed. “Okay, this is next level. I think your phone just infected my computer. I don’t even know how that’s possible.”
On the screen, the message now read:
“Two hosts infected. Seventy-one hours remain.”
By midday, they were sitting in the back of a cybersecurity shop downtown. The owner, a retired hacker named Raven, frowned as she examined the phone.
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she murmured. “This isn’t malware. It’s something else.”
She tapped her keyboard, but the phone blinked again.
“Three hosts infected. Seventy hours remain.”
“What does that mean?” Olivia asked, her voice shaky.
Raven stared at her, unease creeping into her expression. “I think it’s keeping count of the people who interact with it. Like a virus. Only… it doesn’t behave like software. It behaves like something alive.”
Things got stranger.
By nightfall, Olivia started hearing things. Whispers—distorted and low, like someone speaking from underwater. At first, she thought it was her imagination. Then Jonah called, voice trembling.
“I saw something. In my mirror. It was me, but not me. Its eyes were… wrong. It told me the infection is learning.”
Then he hung up.
Olivia stayed up, terrified. At 2:44 a.m., her phone updated on its own.
“Symbiosis initiated. Sensory override in progress.”
She dropped it. The screen lit up on its own, showing her face—live video—but her reflection didn’t match. The “her” in the screen was smiling.
She wasn’t.
Desperate, Olivia returned to Raven. But the shop was abandoned. Lights off. Door open. Inside, it looked ransacked—like someone had left in a hurry. On the floor, Raven’s monitor still flickered. One final message displayed:
“Four hosts infected. Host resistance terminated. Sixty-three hours remain.”
Olivia realized she had to find answers on her own. She took the phone apart—completely. Removed the SIM card. Destroyed the battery. Even smashed the screen. But the infection wasn’t just in the device anymore. It was in her.
The whispers grew louder. She stopped sleeping. When she closed her eyes, she saw symbols—glowing runes etched into her vision. Her hands began trembling uncontrollably. At times, she’d lose hours—only to find herself in places she didn’t remember walking to, with messages scribbled on her arms:
“Don’t resist. Integration brings clarity.”
By the second day, Olivia wasn’t sure what was real. Jonah had gone silent. Every device she touched began glitching. Screens flickered near her, TVs turned off, streetlights dimmed. People around her noticed—some stared, others crossed the street.
And then she saw the man in the grey coat.
He appeared every time she turned a corner. Pale, tall, featureless face. No expression. Just staring. The phone—now somehow whole again—buzzed in her bag.
“You are being monitored. Comply.”
She fled to the library—one of the few public places with no facial recognition or modern tech. There, buried in dusty books and conspiracy forums on an ancient PC, she found fragments of stories. Unconfirmed, redacted, urban legend-tier tales.
A digital infection. Not a virus in the traditional sense—but something sentient. Something that learned. It used tech as a gateway but eventually took root in the human mind. It was called Nyx Code. Named after the Greek goddess of night, shadow, and madness.
Only a handful had survived exposure. And they all claimed the same thing:
You don’t delete it. You contain it. Or you surrender.
At hour 60, Olivia made her decision.
She recorded a video. Her eyes looked sunken. Her voice calm but resigned.
“If you’re watching this, you’ve either received the message or are close to someone who has. I don’t know what it wants. I don’t even know what I am anymore. But I’m leaving this here… so maybe someone else can prepare.”
She uploaded it to a private forum, burned the computer’s hard drive, and walked out into the night.
The phone vibrated in her hand.
“You have accepted. You are now a node. Welcome.”
Three days later, her video began circulating online.
Some called it art. Others labeled it a hoax.
But people started receiving strange notifications.
BE VERY CAREFUL . If you get this, you are infected with…
And the cycle began again
