Ben stared at the message on his laptop screen. It had appeared suddenly, not in a notification, not in a pop-up, but embedded deep within the code of a file he hadn’t downloaded.
The file name? take_me_500_words.txt
He knew better than to open unknown files, especially ones that seemed so deliberate. But curiosity—it was louder than caution.
Click.
The file contained one line at first: BE VERY CAREFUL. If you get this, you are infected with “take me” — 500 words to comply.
Then the words began to type themselves.
At first, it was nonsense—random characters dancing like static across the page. But then sentences formed. Sentences that knew him.
“Ben Larson. 32. Lives alone. Grew up in a quiet town. Moved to the city to escape, but the silence followed. You still hear her voice at night, don’t you?”
Ben froze. His hands weren’t touching the keyboard, but the screen kept writing.
“You remember Lucy. You remember the accident. She begged you not to take the road near Miller’s Bridge. But you didn’t listen.”
Ben backed away. His breathing was shallow, panic crawling up his throat like a noose tightening.
The text continued: “You survived. She didn’t. You blamed the weather, the brakes, fate. But deep down, you know—you chose.”
He slammed the laptop shut.
A second later, his phone lit up. New note created: “take_me_500_words”
No app did that.
Another message blinked onto the screen: You must finish the story. Or I will.
Ben’s pulse pounded in his ears. What kind of sick virus was this? Or was it something else? A digital haunting? A ghost embedded in code?
He opened the note app. The story had grown.
“Ben sat in his apartment, hands trembling. The weight of guilt finally catching up, carried by phantom keystrokes and haunted files. He knew what had to be done. It was never about punishment. It was about confession.”
Ben swallowed hard. Somehow, the file wanted him to write. To tell the truth. To reach 500 words. Every time he stopped, the lights flickered. The air grew colder.
“Take me,” the voice in the screen said again—now through the speakers.
It was Lucy’s voice.
Shaking, Ben sat back down. He typed. Through tears, through memories, through the suffocating guilt he had buried for five years. He wrote the truth: about the night, the argument, the sharp turn, the screams.
Word after word poured out of him, until the document blinked and displayed one final message:
497… 498… 499…
500.
The screen went black.
Ben blinked.
Then his phone vibrated.
“Thank you,” the message said.
He exhaled—and smiled for the first time in years.
The next morning, Ben’s laptop was clean. No trace of the file. No virus. But he kept writing, as if something had been unlocked.
Some say he was possessed. Others say it was therapy in disguise. But Ben? He knew the truth.
Sometimes the only way out… is to write your way through.
