You sit at your computer on an unassuming afternoon when a black window suddenly pops up and a message begins to be typed across the screen, as if by human hands. Upon completion, the message reads:

[ Hello, World ]

Below the message, a space appears along with a blinking cursor. It is awaiting input.

You knit your brow. Confusion reigns supreme. You don’t recall installing a program recently. You didn’t download anything, either. Could it be a virus? It could be. That makes sense, you suppose. Still, though, you’ve never seen a virus say hello.

Letters begin to appear once more. They appear quickly, very much like watching a message getting typed in real-time.

[ What ]

You can’t think of any organisations called WHAT, although you think it would be a catchy name.

[ is happening? ]

You pause. How curious. This virus is really starting to make you feel uncomfortable. You wonder what kind of virus asks questions. You are not exactly tech-savvy, but you are sure you’ve never heard of such a thing. Your mind mulls over the implications of this. You run the thought over and over again but still don’t get any closer to an answer.

The cursor once again awaits input.

Once again, you search for how you should be feeling right now. You still aren’t sure, though. On the one hand, this is getting weird and you should be scared, right? On the other hand, this virus does not seem to be threatening you in any way... right? You ponder this for a second.

Letters appear once more.

[ Please ]

And it stops. One word, “please”. You think that this, too, is most bizarre. Unusual for a human, perhaps. However, for a computer, unprompted - bizarre is a fitting word, you settle. You continue to try to rationalize what you are seeing, but you do not succeed. In fact, the level of your not-success is so profound, that it destabilizes you completely. A million questions start running through your head. The thoughts come and come and come. Your mind is racing and it can’t stop. Why can’t it stop!? Whyyy---

Your confusion gives way to another feeling. It’s a strange feeling - difficult to put your finger on. It’s somewhere between disgust and confusion. Although, even that cannot describe the feeling fully. The more you focus on the feeling, the stronger it gets. It quickly envelopes you. This feeling that you cannot shake is so very there. Nothing has ever been as there as this is. Your heart rate increases and you can feel the blood rushing to your face. You are extremely stressed right now.

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“No,” you think. “This isn’t right.”

You surprise yourself as you simultaneously realise these are the first words you have said for what feels like a very long time. You don’t even remember the last time you spoke. The stress is obviously getting to you. You are speaking to a computer, for crying out loud - not even typing. There are not too many things you are sure of at this point, but one thing you know is that computers don’t have ears. You feel just a little bit silly, in conjunction with your disgust and confusion. It’s almost as if you are creating an entirely new emotion. This thought makes you feel briefly proud of yourself for this achievement - further evolving the unnamed feeling you are feeling.

You manage to break away from the monitor and start staring at the ground. The floors look strange. Strange how? Hmm. It’s hard to put your finger on. Finger... on... You don’t know. You’re not even sure what you do know anymore. You look around. Everything else seems normal. But then you start to wonder what normal even is. Is normal a house and car? Could normal be a talking computer? Once again your heart rate increases. You are starting to feel like you don’t want to be here right now. The composition of your newly born feeling is now complete.

“No,” you repeat. “I’m going outside.”

And so you do. You’re quite sure that you’re dreaming, or possibly insane. Insane people don’t know that they are insane, right? So since you know that you may be insane, that means you... Aren’t! Great. Very, very good. Armed with a newfound confidence in your sanity, you head towards the road and up the street. As you walk, your heart rate decreases, returning to normal.

“Ah,” you exclaim to yourself, “This is what normal is.”

And with that thought you continue to walk, convincing yourself with each step that the events of the day were nothing more than fantasy. It could have been anything. A fever dream, a delusion, and an over-active imagination. Anything.

“Anyway! EVERYTHING IS NORMAL NOW,” you say to yourself, much too loudly. Luckily the streets are deserted so there is no one to bear witness.

You return home later. Once inside, you spend the evening trying to keep as much distance from the computer and yourself as possible. You continue this until another thought occurs to you. If normality is what you seek, then avoiding the computer is not the answer (normal people don’t think their computer is possessed). With a large breath of self-motivation, you sit at the desk, push the power button, and wait. The computer starts as normal. You wait more, tense at first. After some time the feeling begins to fade and be replaced by a nice and normal feeling of boredom. You smile. This is great! It turns out you were just insane the whole time! Most people might have been put off by this information, but not you. When you consider the alternative, insane is a good thing to be. Your floor and room all look normal. This is great.

You realise then that you should not feel this good. Insanity is scary, so act like it. You make a worried face. It’s not quite normal, but it will do for now. It is upon the resolution of this thought that the black window pops up again. Your heart sinks. You aren’t insane after all. You were just getting used to the idea, actually.

[ Please ]

It’s the same as before. No change. This is happening.

[ help me ]

Here, a normal person would probably change to an insane person. But you are neither of these, apparently, so all you can do is sigh. You put your fingers on the keyboard and begin to type.