Selfie Inflicted

7

My eyes were sore from crying and from sitting at the laptop for so long.

On the couch Lyza was snoring quietly. After finishing the wine we had opened up a bottle of scotch my dad had brought round ages ago. I hated the stuff so only sipped at my shot but kept slamming them back till the bottle was empty.

She had cried and cried, telling me story after story about Ryan. Eventually she'd put on some music, lay on the couch and passed out.

The whole time I had been exploring the internet, digging deeper and deeper into more and more obscure sites and posts to find out anything I could. I'd discovered a lot.

There were thousands of posts about curses and possessions, about how demons and other evil spirits could inhabit houses and places and objects. I'd found a few posts about phones but it was hard to work out what was potentially legitimate versus what was just made up nonsense.

For every post that seemed somewhat familiar to what we were going through there were hundreds of "top ten signs your phone is haunted." and "How to tell if your cellphone is a gateway to hell."

But there were some posts. Some comments.

Some people that had said things, posted in the most hidden away places I could find.

There were stories about a phone dating back years, way back to the 90s. People from apparently all over the world talking about how people they'd known or heard of had found a phone and thinking they had scored something awesome for free had held onto it. The stories came from everywhere, but as I read through them I noticed a pattern. The stories seemed to move over time. I could see a whole period where the stories were posted in Europe - London, Paris, Budapest. Then there was an entire period when they'd centerd in South East Asia. There were cases of people disappearing or dying in horrible ways in places like Bangkok, Singapore and Manila.

More recently I could see the story centered nearer to me with posts from Atlanta through Chicago and even nearby in Rochester.

The most recent post I could find was by a guy who had the username Narcissa who had posted in a hundred places warning people to never use a phone they had found.

I sat back, rubbing at my eyes. What was I doing? What was I thinking? I looked over at Lyza. She'd drunk too much but maybe I had too? I should be calling Ryan's mom. I shouldn't be looking up crazy stories online.

We needed to rest. Needed some good sleep. This was just a regular, everyday tragedy. Anything else was just my imagination running wild - too much stress and too little sleep. My best friend had just died. Surely that was an event that would be hard to take.

It was time to go to bed. I shut out the lights and went to the kitchen and poured myself a big glass of water from the sink. I looked out the window to the woods where the trees still arced and bowed in the wind.

So many times I had walked through those woods with Ryan. Wandering over for a drink or to go shopping. A few weeks ago the trees had been a beautiful blaze of colors. Red, gold, yellow. The sunlight had been so warm and fuzzy and thick it looked like maple syrup spilling through the woods. We'd taken some amazing photos and my posts had gotten hundreds of likes, especially my selfies.

Now the trees were mostly bare, the rain and the wind stripping them ready for winter. The sky glowed as it always seemed to do with a dull orange huge, but the woods were dark, like blots blurred into the ground.

And then, I saw something.

There, at the base of the trees. Something was standing there. No, someone.

They were standing still,half hidden by branches. Yes, it was a person. I could just make out their silhouette against the darker background. 

It was a man, I think. He stood there. Looking up. Looking up at me.