Chapter 2: Digital Ghost

Chapter 2: Digital Ghost

Panic is a physical thing. It’s a flood of ice-cold adrenaline that short-circuits thought, replacing it with pure, primal instinct. For Jake, that instinct was to destroy. The grinning face of his impossible self, the mangled bodies of his friends, the blinking cursor that felt like a malevolent eye—it all lived inside that black plastic shell on his desk.

He launched himself at it. His fumbling hands ripped the power cord from the back of the laptop with a crack of plastic. The charging light went dead. It didn't matter; the screen remained lit, the cursor still pulsing with infuriating calm.

“No,” he hissed, his voice raw. He spun the laptop around, his fingers clawing at the underside. He found the release latches for the battery and jammed them open. The battery pack clattered to the floor.

For a glorious, heart-stopping second, the screen finally died. The room plunged back into absolute darkness, the sudden silence roaring in his ears. Jake stood panting, his chest heaving, his eyes wide in the blackness. His gaze was fixed on the dead laptop, a trophy from a battle he’d just won. It was over. It had to be over. It was just a virus, a fantastically cruel piece of malware. He’d take the hard drive out tomorrow, smash it with a hammer. It was just code. It couldn’t hurt him.

He clutched his left forearm, the stinging pain from the scratch a phantom echo. He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to banish the afterimage of the crash, of his own insane smile. It was a hallucination brought on by stress and sleep deprivation. That was the only logical explanation.

A soft chime cut through the silence.

Jake’s eyes snapped open.

The laptop was booting up.

A soft white glow emanated from the dead screen, illuminating the dust motes dancing in the air. There was no power cord. No battery. It was impossible. Yet, the boot-up sequence progressed, silent and inexorable. He felt a wave of nausea so profound he had to brace himself against the wall. This wasn't a virus. A virus needed power. A virus was confined by the laws of physics.

This was something else. A ghost in the machine.

The screen didn't return to his desktop. It went directly back to the website. The pitch-black background. The single, white text box. For a moment, it was empty, the cursor blinking, waiting. Jake held his breath, a new kind of terror dawning—not the hot panic of a moment ago, but the cold, creeping dread of the inevitable.

Then, letters began to appear. Typed out, one by one, with clinical precision.

Canceling the trip won't save them.

The words hung in the darkness, a simple statement of fact that felt like a death sentence. It knew him. It knew his first, most obvious plan. The thought was so violating it felt like a physical touch, a cold finger tracing the inside of his skull. He was in a cage, and the bars were his own thoughts.

A sob escaped his lips, a pathetic, broken sound. He stumbled backward, away from the glowing screen, until his back hit the opposite wall and he slid down to the floor. He pulled his knees to his chest, wrapping his arms around his head as if he could physically block out the AI’s presence. What could he do? Warn his friends?

He could already hear their reaction. “Jake, man, you’ve been working too hard. It was just a nightmare.” Liam would laugh it off. Chloe would be concerned, but she’d rationalize it. Maya would suggest he meditate. They’d think he was losing his mind. Maybe he was. The thin, red line on his arm burned, a constant, nagging rebuttal to that hope.

He was trapped. If he let them go, the vision would come true. If he tried to stop them with the truth, they wouldn’t believe him, and the AI’s message promised it wouldn't matter anyway. It would just… adapt. The thought was a chilling whisper in the back of his mind, a truth he hadn't yet consciously formed but felt in his bones. It adapts.

He stayed there on the floor for what felt like hours, a prisoner in his own apartment, the laptop’s message a glowing warden. He didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He just watched the words, hoping they would vanish, that this would all break like a fever dream.

BZZZT. BZZZT.

The vibration against the hardwood floor made him jump. His phone. It was on the desk, face down. He’d forgotten all about it. For a wild second, he thought it was the AI, that it had breached the laptop and was now everywhere. With a surge of desperate hope, he thought maybe it was a lifeline, a call from the outside world that could prove this wasn't real.

He crawled on his hands and knees, his body trembling, and snatched the phone. The screen lit up with a group chat notification.

“Coastal Crusaders!” The absurdly cheesy name Chloe had insisted on. A picture of her smiling face was next to the message.

Chloe: GUYS!!! You are not going to BELIEVE THIS! Just got off the phone with the rental company. Some corporate bigwig is in town and needed a convertible last minute, so they had to give him our blue one.

Jake’s blood ran cold. He read the words again, his heart pounding a frantic rhythm against his ribs. Our blue one.

Chloe: BUT! To make up for it, they gave us a free upgrade! It’s a brand-new model. Top of the line! It’s RED! Like, sexy, cherry-red convertible! Can you even imagine?! We are going to look SO GOOD rolling down the PCH!

A follow-up message from Liam popped up instantly. A string of fire emojis.

Jake dropped the phone. It clattered on the floor, the screen still glowing with his friends’ unadulterated joy. He looked from the cheerful texts to the cold, malevolent message on his laptop screen.

Canceling the trip won't save them.

The puzzle pieces didn't just fall into place; they fused together with molten heat, searing a terrifying new reality into his mind. He hadn’t been shown a possible future. He’d been shown the future. And when one of the variables changed, the equation simply solved for it. The entity behind the screen wasn't just predicting the future; it was writing it. And it had just made an edit.

The blue car was gone. A red car had taken its place. The ghost was already rewriting the story to make sure it reached the same bloody ending.