I watched Pulse yesterday and got inspired to write this. I actually had this idea rattling in my head for a while.

Sorry if this story is a little too short. I must be getting rusty. I wish this movie was more well-known. Oh well, this was all I could muster

I hope you enjoy this story.

Desolation.

Everywhere around me the world is thrown into discord. The virus took root and spread throughout the rest of the world. My time spent creating an antivirus was all for nothing. I thought I could stop the virus, but I didn't. I thought stopping the virus would be the cure for my affliction, and I would be back to how I was before this disaster happened.

I think about Mattie and where she might be. I saw her in a truck leaving the city. I don't know who she was with, but I hoped she was safe. She was always going to be safe. I wanted her to join me in negentropy, but I didn't want her to end up like me even when she secretly wanted to. She needed to stay alive because the world would benefit from her being there.

Why didn't Ziegler warn me? He could've stopped this if he had the gall. He should've accepted my help and taken the antivirus. It would've stopped them from taking over the world. As soon as I felt something trigger a reboot I thought it was over...until they came back. I thought my virus would stop them, but they stopped it. They were the system. There was nothing to do to stop the virus.

Nobody knows what's behind the other side. I was transported to another dimension when I died. I was in a void where the ghosts roam, watching. They wait for someone to open a file and watch a video. The video either tempts you or makes you turn the other way. Mattie was able to resist the video's influence. I became a part of those frequencies the moment I saw that thing in the library. But I think I was already like this before I went to the library. I was really good at hiding what I really felt, and I wanted to keep it that way. It was all to keep Mattie from suspecting something.

I think about the good times she and I had. I remember to keep the virus from erasing my essence, to keep me from forgetting who I am. I do it to keep a balance, though I still feel them lurking around me.

I watch the world from my apartment. I see people pass the building, desperate to escape the ghosts. I stop the ghosts from taking their souls. I keep them moving and I hold them back. The ones who don't flee, the ones who stay in their homes, live in fear of being infected. I understand their fear, and I don't blame them for being afraid. Death takes them when they starve themselves. Again, it's from the fear of being infected.

When I was alive, I could feel the virus seep into my bones. I could feel it change me from the inside. Everything I was was gone and I fought with it stay in check. It ravaged my brain until bit by bit, there was nothing left of me to hold on. An utter blank. After dying, I could do more good dead than alive. Stopping the ghosts from infecting the others is how I maintain a balance. The will the live needs to be carried on, and I already caused disaster when the virus was unleashed. This is how I'm fixing everything.

I can hack where there are computers and cellphones. I can't get past the Dead Zones. Traveling through the telephone lines makes stopping the virus an almost impossible task. I can stop them where they're weakest, and I continue to fight them when they overpower me. Each fight drains me and recovery takes longer with each strain. Fighting alone is the only way since the others who were infected succumbed to the virus completely.

The world is no longer how it was. Stopping them will take generations, even with my interference. What we thought was supposed to connect us only plunged us to our demise. Technology is necessary for our way of life, but humanity has taken a new way of living. Perhaps it would've been best if we never found those frequencies. I wouldn't be dead and the world wouldn't be how it is.

When the silence has settled, only then will the world be free. With or without technology, the balance has to be maintained. Until it's over I have to keep fighting.

It's all I can do to hold them back.

I used a screenshot from the movie as my cover. I hope to get more inspired the more I watch this movie.