Let me tell you a story, about a terrible program that will drive you insane. Nobody listened. All I hear now is silence, but yet there is something in my void of hearing just ebbing away at my sanity. That noise… Just subtly killing me inside. Call me insane, just go ahead. I’m sure that I am. But, nobody else listened. Please, for the sake of your soul listen to me. Just this once, I am not lying to you. It was day of Halloween and some of my friends and I were telling horror stories for the Halloween spirit, normal right? As we were all hanging around in the room… Something popped up on my phone. It was an email. I went to my account on my laptop to check it out. My friends and I looked at the file t. It was labeled Silent.exe. An odd thing was that when I looked at the address of the sender… It… Didn’t have one. We all brushed it off as some prank and I downloaded the file… That was by far, the worst and last decision that I’d made. For some reason, the usual firewall didn’t pop up. The application… Launched on its own. When it opened it was just a black screen, with the word “Start.” We had just assumed it was some horror game, so I clicked the button. Something happened… Within seconds, my heart raced and I felt… Bad… Lethargy, anxiety, paranoia and absolute terror. I trembled, anxiously asking if they felt the same thing. They all sat there, mute with a horribly disturbing expression. Almost like they had witnessed a murder. Their eyes were still and their jaws were gaping… It was terrifying… I repeated if they felt how I did, still no response. Just the expression of dread. I looked back at my laptop which only displayed static. “What the-” before I could finish my sentence, a painful screeching static noise ruptured the silence of my horror. I looked back, covering my ears to find one thing. My friends were gone, with no trace. The static, it got louder and more painful to me. It stopped… Finally… But… I couldn’t hear anything… “HELP ME!” I screamed, in tears… I could hear myself, yet nothing else. I looked back at my laptop in panic. There were two white dots, not far from each other. “Hello.” It called. The voice was raspy and dead. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO ME!?!?” I shrieked. It gave me no response. “GO AWAY!” I yelled, in my tsunami of dread. “I can’t leave, David.” It knew my name… I jumped backward in terror. “I can see you, but am I what you see?” “Why are you here?” I weakly mumbled. “I am here because I am everywhere.” My file explorer opened, only for me to find the word Silent plastered over all my files. I scrambled, looking through them, to find Silent.exe. I quickly dragged it into the recycle bin and clicked empty. “I’m afraid I can’t allow that.” It whispered in a taunting voice. My laptop froze and made that painful static again. Again, it ended. Everything went dark, it was a power outage. I grabbed a flashlight and ran for my house door. I stumbled into my car and drove to a gas station. I pulled out my phone and dialed my parents. They picked up, and I frantically asked if I could go and stay with them for a while. Then, something terrifying happened, my phone responded with something horrible. “Don’t think you can hide from me just like that, David.” It taunted. My skin crawled in dread. “How about a game of HIDE AND SEEK?” It asked playfully, but in an un-nerving manner. “I’m hiding near you, try to find me.” It rasped. I glanced around, only to see a silhouette standing in the window of the store. It had two white dots and a gaping white smile on it. “You found me! But now, it’s MY TURN.” It rasped in a demonic, deep voice. The second it finished it’s sentence, I turned on my car and drove away fast, not looking back. I drove to the house of my parents and went inside with them. I told them every detail of what happened, yet the didn’t believe me. They concluded that I was hallucinating from insomnia. I felt their words of disbelief pierce my heart. I went back out into their yard to unwind from the horror that had just scarred me for life. As I sat on their bench, I saw IT. “I’m still here.” It mumbled, shortly breaking into hysterical laughter. The ambience of the neighborhood had faded, and I heard one single word. SILENT. It taunts me indefinitely, and I’m telling you this now so it doesn’t happen again. NEVER DOWNLOAD THAT FILE. I hope you are listening, w h i l e y o u s t i l l c a n .