Mind Games

Chapter 28 - Cassie

Cassie looked on in a daze as the image of her mother glared at her with hatred.

"Silly girl. That boy didn't even know you existed or cared. Then you had to invade his life, trying to get take away the time he spent with me."

Cassie tried to fight the fog the medicines created in her head. The apparition who looked like her mother almost sounded like a jealous girlfriend.

"Why do you care how much time he spends with you? You aren't even real!" Cassie heard Ned ask her incredulously.

The creature laughed. "The more time each user spends with me the stronger I get. I spread into all the computerised systems around. I spread into all the WiFi networks around. Soon, I shall be able to control everything you humans created."

"You are a virus." Ned hissed at her.

She shrugged and gave him a conspiratorial wink. "But humans enjoy their time with me." She smirked. "They think they are using me. They don't know I am using them."

Ned shook his head angrily and started striding to his phone. "You are just a computer program. All I need to do is switch you off."

The street lights around them suddenly switched off.

Cassie gasped.

There was no moon. The cloudy sky didn't let any starlight penetrate the night. They were stuck in full suffocating darkness.

Cassie suddenly felt breathless. A sheen of sweat appeared on her forehead. She recognised the anxiety attack for what it was, but it didn't stop her heart from racing.

She felt dizzy and disorientated in the pitch blackness.

She tried to consciously breathe. One breath at a time.

From the speaker of Ned's phone she heard a taunting laugh. "Try and stop me, little boy."

"Ned!" She called out breathlessly.

She heard him move towards her. She reached out and he grasped her hand.

"It's OK." He said. But she could hear the fear in his voice.

Inside her house, she suddenly heard her grandmother begin to howl.

She rushed back in, her eyes trying to peel through the darkness. She heard Ned stumbling in behind her.

"Grandma!" She called out. "What happened?"

Her grandmother kept sobbing as she fumbled her way up the stairs.

She reached out to the vague silhouette of her grandmother.

"He's no more." She sobbed.

Cassie hugged her.

"She told us it was our fault." Her grandmother whispered. "Your mother..."

"That was not my mother." Cassie said, angrily.

"What was it?" Her grandmother asked. Cassie could hear her voice tremble.

"A computer program." Cassie said, wearily. "A virus that has spread in our lives."

"But she looked like your mother. She sounded like your mother. She knew about things only your mother would know."

Cassie hugged her grandmother tighter. "I know, grandma. Mom was alone. She needed a friend. She turned to this thing. And it poisoned her mind. Poisoned her heart."

Cassie felt her anxiety slip away as she heard her own voice in the dark, as she heard Ned behind her, as she felt the need to protect this woman who was now the mother figure in her life.

Her voice grew stronger. "But she lies. She thinks we are weak. But she is wrong. We will destroy her. One way or the other."

She felt Ned put his hand on her shoulder. "Yes we will." He said, quietly.