HELLO FRIEND

"Hello Friend" is a reference to GURONG.A, an email virus/worm from 2006. This malware would send emails to everyone in your address book, often with the subject or first line, "Hello Friend." The phrase continues to be used in spam and is popular in hacking circles.

This is because I fucked up. All of this. I'm buried in a car underneath rubble and flesh. I'm bleeding out of somewhere, profusely. Out of everywhere maybe. I mean, that would make sense considering we did just crash. Maybe if I wiggle my arm out, I could grab his phone and call 911. Maybe I could check his pulse, too. A real looker, that boy. It'd be a waste for us to go this way, alone on a dark highway with only the sound of the sloshing river beneath us. If he were conscious, I'd ask him how we got here. But he's not. I can feel his blood dripping down my neck.

This is all because I fucked up. I fucked up. If we're going to talk about how I fucked up, then fine. Here it is: it all started when I tried to do some good. Hacktivism, I guess you could call it. I get this nice little assignment from AnonArmy –– you know, that big, bad hacker group that all corporate cybersecurity networks fear the most. AnonArmy is to cybersecurity the same way a cocked gun is to a white flag –– a merciless threat. I get an assignment as part of my initiation into the group, and what I'm supposed to do is 1. Hack and 2. Hack well.

My target is Saylor Kloss, that 12 time Grammy Award winning blonde Barbie with all of Earth wrapped around her long, dainty finger. My assignment is to uncover whatever she has on her Cloud storage. Easy. I could brute force my way in with my eyes closed, except she has a security block that's just thick enough for me to sweat beads, trying to crack it. Of course she would. These A-List celebs, they don't do anything half-assed. Luckily for AnonArmy, neither do I. I get it done in 45 minutes flat.

By intercepting the network, I own her password, and therefore everything on her Cloud. What's funny is, I really thought this was going to be simple. Maybe I'd find some selfies. Some incriminating text messages or maybe a sext or two. I'm just about ready to hand in her Cloud over to AnonArmy when there, blaring at me is a string of photos no one should ever see.

A girl, not Saylor Kloss, someone. Someone with dark hair, a petite body –– hell, it could've been me, except it's not. She's laying on the floor, half dressed, unconscious. There's a boy. There's five of them actually, just looming over her in some sort of creepy, sinister, lemme-get-her kind of way. Each photo is worse than the last. My stomach churns with every frame. There's 40 of them, all named sleeping_beauty.jpg.

I move the files onto a USB, and then microwave the shit out of it. In my college dorm kitchen, I watch it spin around on the little dish, sparking, obliterating into nonexistence. I pack up the rest of the Cloud for AnonArmy, wondering the whole time if I should've just reported her. Call in an anonymous tip –– Saylor Kloss is harboring digital photographic evidence of what looks to be a gang rape. But I don't. I know it could destroy her career, her life, her existence. I could've deleted her.

Still, something told me to just wipe it clean, and that's when I fucked up.

In all honesty, if AnonArmy wanted the files so badly, they could've just hacked it themselves. Or at least been clear about it in the instructions. Then I could've handed them the Cloud and reported her. It could've been a win-win, but now I'm being punished. Haunted.

Now, it's game over.

//////////////

I hacked Saylor Kloss on October 29th. Submitted her Cloud, minus the sleeping_beauty jpeg's to AnonArmy on October 30th. And am now reaping the consequences on October 31st.

It first begins with my TV blinking on. Me, I'm alone in my room, just leisurely surfing the web and then, blip! My TV flicks on. It glitches the same view I have on my laptop screen. Spotify, Tumblr, Google Docs. All the windows I have open just copied and pasted onto my TV screen like some technicolor mirror. I sit upright in my bed and just stare. It doesn't make sense. No HDMI or VGA cable is connected, so how is this happening?