1 Waking Up to a System Overload

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

I woke up to the sound of a steady, monotonous beep. I tried opening my eyes. All I could see was endless darkness. It was a weird feeling. It was like I opened my eyes, just to see endless darkness.

Did I go blind?

That thought really scared me. Going through life without sight would really suck.

Suddenly computer screen of some sort lit up the darkness in front of me. No matter where I tried turning my head, the black screen labeled with a white hp in the middle and white loading circle of death beneath the letters hp always stayed in front of my sight.

Although, it was suspect to say that this darkness was inside my head.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep. The annoying beeping sounded like the cardiac monitors found at all hospitals. I chose to ignore the beeping and returned my attention back to the screen.

Maybe it's just a dream. A very lucid dream.

Finally, the system booted up and displayed a nice background of a gorgeous mountain landscape with the current date and time labeled [9:13 Sunday, September 16] in the bottom left corner of the screen.

I only thought to tap the screen, but it was like I actually did tap. It was fairly intuitive and faster. I just had to will an action through the screen. It was like my Windows 10 laptop...

Moments later, I began browsing through the internet, keen on finding out what happened to me and what this screen in my head meant.

I went through all sorts of reputable news sites, finding only reports on the damages of last night's worldwide storm and the failure of every satellite in the world. Although these things seemed important, to me right now, nothing was more important than figuring out why and how I have a computer interface within my mind.

This can't actually be a dream, can it? How can I see with such details these reports? It just doesn't feel like a dream.

I could not grasp what was happening to me. The internet in my head seemed so real, so lifelike. There is no way this is just a dream. But with nothing about supernatural powers, did that mean I was the only person with such a strange occurrence? Will this never happen again?

I tried social media. Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp, Instagram, Youtube, Tumblr, Quora, Reddit. Any social media I could think of. I looked through so many posts and found nothing about people gaining any sort of superpower or any such supernatural occurrences.

Finally, I began searching the deep web. I began browsing cautiously in fear of getting maliciously attacked. Eventually, I came across an anonymous chatting site and chanced upon an interesting conversation.

'The world has changed. The United States government may be trying to hide this from us, but this is an undeniable fact. The world as we know it is gone. Everything is going wack. All notions of reality have been shifted. Just like the Dinosaurs after the asteroid collided, we are on the brink of a new era. The era of rapid evolution will descend upon us. We, humans, may survive, but we will forever be changed. The real reason why we cannot contact the Eastern World is that they are all dead! The United States government is trying to hide the fact that Europe, Asia, Africa, etc. are all dead only to comfort us and ease it on the people. We are the only ones left, so we much survive.' - anonymous1.

|'Why aren't we all dead if it's like with the dinosaurs?'- anonymous2.

||'Birds and reptiles are theorized to evolve from dinosaurs. All life on Earth did not just disappear when the meteor hit.' - anonymous1.

|Hey Hey!! Check this out:

manbeast.jpg

transformation.avi - anonymous3.

2 files were posted. One for a picture, another for a video. The picture showed a reptilian man. I wanted to say it was a cosplay, but it looked way too real. Besides, the picture quality looked way too bad for such a good cosplay.

I nervously clicked the other video file 'transformation.avi' The name was ominous to me. It could be confirmation that I wasn't alone. That I wasn't hallucinating such a real dream.

"Hey, hey! Look!" slurred speech spat in front of the video camera. "Is it on?"

"Yeah, it's on. Show us what you can do," a woman's slurred voice could be heard from behind the camera.

The tipsy man slowly backed away from the face of the camera. "HA HA! watch me! I can now become! I am Superman!"

As he backed away, slimy scales started to grow from the man's skin. Green scales popped out, starting from both of his hands and growing towards his torso. "AAAAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I am Superman! No! I am... REPTILE, LIZARDMAN!"

The drunk man tripped and fell over onto his back. The video camera moved down and showed a fully transformed combination of a lizard and a man, waving his thick tail back and forth.

"Dude, your so dumb," the woman behind the camera chuckled. The video was cut there.

I stared strangely at the final scene before the video was cut. A grotesque picture of a huge half-human-half-lizard creature waving his limbs around lingered within my mind.

Wha...

Suddenly, the message was somehow deleted.

ERROR.

737570657268756d616e7372756c657265676d616e73%%$!,2'%+=¥4(&..£!?~#|/a$!,}<>?

What is this!

I was being attacked by something. It seemed like thousands upon thousands instantly struck into my brain.

ERROR. SYSTEM OVERLOAD.

"AAGGHHHH!!!"

BEEEEEEP!

"Sir! Mr. Li, please calm down. You are safe now. Nothing is going to happen to you anymore. Please calm down. I understand that you must be confused. Please calm down and let me explain slowly. There we go. Nice and easy. Are you thirsty? Do you need any water?" A soft voice quickly calmed me down.

My body was trembling, but the pain in my head was gone. The pain of thousands of needles poking into my head was gone at this point, but the memory of the pain was still vivid.

"What... what happened?" I asked cautiously. I didn't know what was going on. First I wake up to a screen inside my head, then I get sent a virus that broke that computer inside my head. Actually, it may just be a dream. That I can still vividly remember. The pain from overloading data still lingered. I felt like it was a personal attack on my brain.

Did my mind become a computer?

"Mr. Li, do you remember anything about last night?"

"I... I think so..."

"Can you tell me what you think happened?"

"I remember a searing headache; like thousands of needles were poking into my head."

"Yes, anything else?"

"No, nothing."

"Mr. Li, you are in the best of care. When we checked up on you, you as healthy as can be. No serious injuries or infections. You had fallen through the floor of your room. The migraine may be from a hit to your head last night. I will ask you a series of questions and take you through a series of tests to diagnose your current condition, and I hope you will cooperate."

"Okay."

Crash!

"Go, go, go!"

A squad of 6 SWAT officers quickly shuffled into the dark small room while 6 remained outside to guard the others. 2 ancient old men lay in front of the 6 officers. One was sitting on the only chair in the room while the other lay face down on the ground. Wrinkles covered their entire bodies. They both looked as if they were well within their 90s. They barely reacted to the 6 officers breaking into the room.

The 6 SWAT officers glanced at each other in confusion. They really were expecting someone more youthful. But they were sure the 2 men on the ground had something to do with what happened. They were inside the room that housed the supercomputer that somehow hacked into almost every single major server and many other smaller ones.

The leader of the officers put up his arm to signal the others to put down their guns. They all still remained wary of any other occurrences.

"What did you do?" The leader asked. A good 10 seconds of silence was given before the old man sitting on the chair replied.

"I have given us eternal protection. I have sacrificed mine so that he may forever protect us," the old man sitting on the chair whispered in a raspy old voice.

"What did you do?" The leader repeated in a more threatening tone.

"Cough. We shall forever be protected by his will..." the old man seemed to lose all of his strength and started to slip from his chair. In an almost inaudible whisper, he laughed, "haha. I am now a martyr of our kind."

Thud.

The room became silent. The 6 SWAT officers looked at the two old men in silence.

Finally, the leader took a few steps forward to examine the two bodies. Both of them were dead.

"Sweep every room in this building twice. Then, call the cyber agents. I believe something big is going on. Why were there 2 old men, I believe the perpetrator is still alive. We may find the answer in this computer."