The Day I left You

Looking Up and Down

A few days had passed and my orientation was coming up in 2 days so I was getting nervous as the days went by. Just general new job nerves, but still there was a minor fear of even going to a regular place and having my face be shown every day at the same place. I couldn't let Ryan scare me into submission like that any more. It was starting to control my life and I knew I had limited time before I just accepted this as something I couldn't get away from.

I sat at my computer with Felix again, watching him play some games while I rooted for him in the background. We took turns every time someone died. Felix was in the middle of a match when my PC shuts off completely and restarts.

Felix freezes and looks over at me confused as all hell. I'm also confused as I wait in silence for it to restart.

"Uhhhh...Not sure what that was. I'm sorry it kicked you so suddenly. That's never happened before."

"Yeah that was weird. I'm sorry it's having issues. I can try to diagnose it, if you want. I've had so many computer issues. Probably just a processing problem." He says as he logs in to my profile and opens task manager.

He does a bunch of keyboard commands I had no idea existed so he could see the internals of my CPU and GPU.

"That's weird..." Felix says slowly.

"What?"

"You're GPU usage is average, but your CPU doesn't match...It's like it's being used twice as much. Uhhh, lemme check something else." He does a few more things and checks my social media accounts. "So, I'm gonna sign you out of your Facebook and I want you to try to log back in."

"Uhh, why?"

"Just do it."

I log out and try to log back in, only for it to fail and say my password is wrong.

"What? I haven't changed my password in months. Why isn't it letting me in??" I ask.

"Do you use a VPN?" Felix asked.

"No..."

"Okay, so don't be alarmed, but I believe someone might have hacked into your computer. There's a few applications that weren't there before."

"WHAT??"

"You should get a VPN asap. I'm sure we both have a suspicion on who might've hacked you...Luckily these are temporary dorms and they change every time so the IP address won't be used again after we leave. But we are still here for at least two more weeks, so I'd still consider it and you can use it anywhere."

I sigh and bury my face in my hands and just feel like I want to cry. I was so tired of dealing with this.

"Felix...should I just throw this thing out? Would that rid me of this crap?" I ask desperately with a hint of annoyance.

"I wouldn't get rid of it! You can definitely save it. Here. Let me download a free firewall. It'll kick whoever is invading out, but your socials...that's a different thing." He downloads a few programs to help my PC out.

After installing, he runs to my CPU and the number decreases by half.

"There you go. Whoever was hacking is now gone, but it doesn't mean they can't do it again. This is only a band-aid so you should still invest in a good VPN, okay?"

"Thank you for doing that and I'm sorry about your game..."

"No worries. I'm happy to help. I know it's probably scary for you right now." He says patting my back.

I hear my phone buzz and see a voicemail pop up.

"What? I didn't even get a call." I open my phone app and listen to the voicemail out loud with Felix. The number was anonymous.