The Blue Marble

I sat in the dark office, the wall plastered with newspaper clippings, images of cats, and the occasional drawing from my son. The only sense of warmth in the room was the buzz and glow from the computer screen. The only noises to be heard were that of the keyboard clicking and the occasional car driving past. I hated these late nights. The work load was enormous and I only have the four hours to daybreak to complete it. I tried not to get distracted, but to no avail.

 Half an hour later I found myself on the internet, browning through popular pictures, viral videos and checking Facebook every now and again. In my ignorance I failed to acknowledge a popup which had appeared in the bottom of my screen. It was one of those phony pages made to scare you. I was bored and no one was online so I decided to check it out. I have done many things when I have been overtired, but this has to be the stupidest one yet. The popup window read “Find out how YOU die! Click here!’ What harm could it do right? I mean it’s only an ad.

 I was wrong. I clicked on the link and found myself on a black and red page. The cliche was getting old and was only scary in the face that took up half the window. It was a tortured face, almost unrecognisable in the way it looked. Although it was my first time visiting this page, the face looked strangely familiar but I thought nothing of it. Next to the picture it had a form to fill in. It looked fairly straight forward. If I entered my name, birthday, and mobile number I would get the answer.

 It seemed legit. It filled in my details and clicked go. I should never have entered my phone number. I had no idea what it would bring and if I did you bet I would never have clicked continue. In fact, I I had known I never would have clicked the link in the first place.

 The screen flickered for a bit and the face popped up again, this time less tortured, but still unrecognisable. The familiarity of the face started to unnerve me and so I skipped over it and went to the results. My blood was pumping, the excitement racing through my body. At the time I thought it would really tell me how I would die, but I was still a little skeptic. The page loaded for a bit and then suddenly everything went dark. I tried again and again to turn it back on. I though about a blackout, but then the lights on the hallway were still on.

 I unplugged my computer and then plugged it back in, pressed the on button and hoped for the best. The machine whirred to life and I thanked god that it was still working. It went through the normal stages of booting up. ‘Windows 7 is loading.’ It then went to the log in page, but instead of having the usual ‘Harrison’ it was simply ‘User’ This was not out of the ordinary as my computer was old and not supposed to be running on such advanced software.

 I clicked on it and no password protection came up. This was suspicious, as I always locked my account with a password to keep certain personal things personal. I clicked log in and waited. It was taking longer to load than usual and so it gave me some time to think. Why was my computer actin up in such a way that it forgot my details. Was it a virus spread by the popup ad?

 The computer finally finished logging in after what seemed like an hour and it was to my horror as to what I saw. The face was there, staring at me with it’s distorted expression and painful emotion. It was slightly less tortured again, but this time it was recognisable. It was mine. The text below was legible but I didn’t read it. I was too horrified by the face staring at me from the monitor.

 I read the text below after I couldn’t bear to look at myself anymore. It read ‘Check your phone.’ At that moment my mobile buzzed in my pocket. I was petrified, unwilling to look at the message I was sent. I was from an unknown number but I could already guess who sent it. I unlocked my phone and went into messages. I checked my recent ones and there it was. The message that chilled me to the bone.

 ‘Behind you...’

 I daren’t look behind me in fear for my safety, but I felt a presence. The kind of feeling you get when someone is watching you out the window and you don’t know where they are. I felt someone’s hot breath on the back of my neck and I slowly turned in my office chair. My heart was racing and I couldn’t hear myself think over the thumping in my chest.

 I turned to face the darkness. The computer screen had gone black and as I looked into the abyss I thought about panicking and yelling for help. But I was transfixed to what was in the darkness. One single blue marble, suspended in mid air. It was unusual and it seemed like it was looking into my worse fears. Little did I know it was. Suddenly there was a flash of silver and everything went black.

 I awoke in a dark room, similar to my office. But in this room I had no control. I was tied to what seemed like a wooden chair and the darkness seemed to go on forever. There was a small sound and a mechanism started moving above me. Ever so slowly a mirror was lowered about a foot from my face. A light turned on behind me and what I saw shocked me.

 The bruises on my face were giant purple blotches and it looked similar to that on my monitor. The cut that stretched along my face had probably been the knife that cut me before I was knocked unconscious. My eyes were red and strained and it looked as though I hadn’t slept in days, even though I had been unconscious for what seemed like quite some time.

 I voice echoed above me, announcing where I was. ‘You are in a isolated cell and nobody knows you’re here. Your family, friends, co workers, and even your enemies have no recollection of you ever existing. You are here because you wanted to know how you died. I am going to tell you step by step how you die in the funnest was possible.’

 I struggled frantically against the ropes constraining me. I screamed for help but remembered what the voice had said. No one could hear me scream. I tried anyway, but fell silent when I saw a glow in the distance. A bright blue marble approached me, hovering about six foot off the ground. As the man came into focus I realised who he was.

 He was me. His bright blue eye the only thing distinguishing him from me. Well, that and the fact that he didn’t look like he had just been mugged. ‘Welcome. This is the place in which you feel most at home. This is your mind. Notice it is empty?’ The clone chuckled at his lame joke. ‘I am going to lead you through the steps of your death.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> And so started the torture. ‘First, your left eye will be removed and held in front of your face so that you can see how ugly you are for the last time. Then, each of your fingers will be cut off and fed to you one by one. If you struggle it will be your toes as well. Understand so far?’ He waited for my answer but I was too petrified to give one. ‘No? Well let me demonstrate.’ He pulled out a silver pocket knife and advanced towards me.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> He grabbed my head and turned it to face him. Although he was apparently me he was certainly stronger. He raised the knife up to eye level. ‘Beautiful knife isn’t it. You get in from the fair in a year’s time.’ In a quick movement he jerked the blade forward and an indescribable main entered my body, through my eye. Then he started twisting.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> I screamed. I’m not afraid to say that I screamed my heart out. He turned it again, and again, and again until finally it snapped free. He pulled it out and held it in front of me. ‘You see this?’ He turned pulled a rolling desk out of the darkness. The eye was placed upon it and in one quick movement it was smashed by his fist. Blood spattered all over his white business top.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> ‘Do you need another demonstration?’ He asked, a playful ring in his voice. All I could manage was a whimper and the burst into tears. ‘Well, I’m not sure about you but I didn’t exactly hear a no.’ He smiled and pulled out a second knife. He forced my had on the table and tied it down with some straps attached to it. He slowly cut through the knuckle of my first finger, sending blood running down my arm.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> He then cut through the second, and then the third, and so on until every one of my fingers had a cut in it. I almost passed out from the pain. I thought that was bad, but what he did next was even worse. He pulled out a butchers knife and place it on my first finger. He slammed down his other hand on top of the knife and it cut clean through the bone. I cried in agony.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> The second and third finger were done at the same time, but the last two were done slowly and painfully with a saw. My clone seemed to be enjoying this. He seemed to be enjoying it too much. ‘Shall I spare your other hand?’ I nodded slowly. ‘Alright. Fine. But what did I tell you about crying when you get tortured.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> Another mechanism slowly lowered down, this time behind me. Two metal arms came forward and clamped onto my cheeks. It slowly opened my mouth and the other me collected up the five fleshy, blood covered fingers off the table. He put them in my mouth one after the other while whispering in between ‘Don’t worry child, just one more.’ Once the were all in the machine retraced and closed my mouth. He stared at me and piped up ‘Well, aren’t you going to swallow?’ I shook my head and tried to grumble ‘No more’ but it simply came out as ‘mph mmm’.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> The clone started to get annoyed. ‘Well’ he said ‘swallow. Come on.’ I vigorously shook my head. Then he snapped. He quickly lowered down to my height and put his nose against mine. ‘I said swallow!’ he shouted, spittle flying out of his mouth and into my face.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> I woke with a start, looking at the clock I realised it was almost morning. The computer had gone to screen saver. I moved the mouse to find it on the document I needed for work. It turns out everything was fine. Everything was ok. I made my way to my bedroom to try and get some decent sleep before I had to go to work. I was getting out of my work clothes and into my pajamas when I saw it.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> On the bedside table was a blue ball. A blue marble. Next to it was an envelope addressed to me. I opened it and read the note inside. It was one sentence that made my whole world come to a halt.

<p style="margin:0.0px0.0px0.0px0.0px;font:12.0pxHelvetica"> ‘You may need this...’