Webcam Offline

''Love can be an intoxicating emotion. It has the remarkable ability to completely render useless any course of coherent thought, making the feeling of love truly blind. Most would do anything for the ones they love, even if it results in their tragic end. Once you find your soul mate, you’d want to be with them so badly, that not even death can separate you. '' I sat, staring out of the frost covered window of my apartment, my laptop casting its fluorescent light onto the glass causing a dual Image of my surroundings to reflect back into my eyes. Just as I was beginning to lose myself within my daydream, I heard a loud bing coming from my computer, someone had messaged me in the chat room. I turned my attention to the screen and smiled when I saw the username, darkraven93. For about 5 months now, we’ve been in a serious relationship, the only problem is that I had yet to see her face. Tonight, that was going to change. We arranged a webcam meeting for 9:00 p.m., it was now 8:43.

Darkraven93: hey, sorry I’m so early I just couldn’t wait to talk to you, hope that’s ok? Coolguy42: no need to apologize we are dating after all, I’m actually glad you messaged me. Darkraven93: I’m so happy to hear that! I’m setting up my webcam now, I’m so excited! I haven’t used this thing for a while now, I hope it still works. Coolguy42: I set mine up about an hour ago, haha. Mines pretty old too. Darkraven93: an hour ago! You must really want to see me. Brb, have to go grab the USB cable for this thing. Darkraven93 is offline.

I felt so lucky to have someone like her. She was so vibrant, so lively. To be honest I wouldn’t care if I ever saw her face, her personality is what made me fall in love with her. I stared at the clock, it was now 8:54. Only 6 minutes until we’d finally get to see each other for the first time. The minutes ticked away at an apathetic pace and I was beginning to get a bit antsy. The moment I heard that all too familiar bing my heart suffocated inside of my chest. It was 8:59. Darkraven93: hey, I’m back! Miss me? Coolguy42: I sure did, got everything set up? Darkraven93: Yep! Took a bit longer than I thought it would, I definitely have no future in the tech business! Ok calling you now, get ready to answer. A chat box popped up with the words: darkraven93 is calling, do you accept? I quickly clicked accept and heaved a deep breath.

She was beautiful. Her long, wavy black hair flowed past her shoulders, her pale skin radiated with a pink hue from the dim lighting of her laptop. Her eyes glowed a soft green and her lips were stained with a bright shade of red. She was stunning, I felt luckier than I had a few moments ago. “So, what do you think, is it how you imagined I’d look?” She flashed a smile as vivacious as I envisioned it to be. “I think you’re beautiful.” I managed to stutter out the words with a shaky vibrato in my voice. I couldn’t believe a video chat governed such timorous behavior. She began to laugh, which managed to make even more nervous than before. “Well, you’re not too bad yourself.” She paused for a moment, biting loosely into her bottom lip. “I’m glad we finally got to see each other.” “Yeah, me too.”

We continued talking and for a while it was quite enjoyable. We talked about our hopes and dreams, our plans for the future. We even talked about the chances of us moving in together if the circumstances ever allowed it. Everything was going the way I thought it would, until, her laptop began to glitch. A distorted image of her beautiful face was now presented before me. A loud static echoed from the speakers as she tried to speak. “Hey, I think something’s wrong with your webcam, it’s completely blurred, I can’t see you at all, the audio’s pretty bad as well.” “I… wrong…you…hear…now?” She tried to speak against the static but it was swallowing her words like a boa gulping up its prey. I was just about to type in the chat when a horrifying image burst onto the screen. It screamed a deafening scream that threatened to shatter my eardrums. I quickly backed away from the laptop, gazing at the screen in pure terror. Her webcam quickly shut off and she went offline. Not a minute later, the chat box reappeared on the screen. Darkraven93: Hey, sorry about that, I don’t know what happened. We were just getting to the good stuff then my webcam malfunctioned out of nowhere. Coolguy42: It’s fine but, what was that? Darkraven93: what was what?

Before I could type an answer, a video chat request popped up on the screen, it was from her. I hesitantly hit accept; I regretted the decision almost instantly. What showed on the screen wasn’t her, but a car, my old car. The car I had gotten into an accident with almost 4 years ago. How was she filming it? I had the car scrapped right after the accident; I couldn’t pay for the repairs. The image quickly changed to an askew photo of a woman lying on a gurney. Her face was mangled, her jaw almost separated from her face, her body twisted out of proportion. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, it was my ex-girlfriend.

The day of the accident, she was with me. We’d been drinking that night, she warned me not to drive but I thought that I could handle it. She died almost instantly after we crashed; I panicked. I didn’t want to go to prison for causing her death, so I covered it up. I dragged her body to a trench far from the crash site and covered the hole before notifying the cops of the accident. We were in the middle of nowhere, I knew it would be easy to get away with. Over time I was able to forget what I had done but, it never really left me. I told her parents she’d ran away after an argument, I even participated in the searches for her; they never found her body. Everyone looked to me as a suspect, but without proper evidence, I was relieved of suspicion.

The tears I tried so hard to hold back came rushing out, the image of her aslant body was too much to bear. Darkraven’s face appeared on the screen, she stared blankly into her webcam, smiling just a bit too widely. Her face began to glitch, shifting between my ex’s disfigured features and her disturbing, absent stare. “What do you want from me, why are you doing this?!” She said nothing. “Do you want an apology? Fine, I’m sorry ok?! I didn’t mean for you to die, I’m sorry I covered it up! If I could do anything to change things I would!” She unhinged her mouth, it switched between my ex’s tattered jaw and raven’s intact one.

“I just want to be with you, I came back because I love you. We were going to be together forever, we still can.” Her voice sounded as though she were trapped in a matrix. She glanced over in the direction of my pocket knife, my eyes widened. “I am not killing myself for you!” “But, don’t you love me?” Her voice deepened, almost sounding demonic. “Make up for what you did, set things right!” She began to raise her decrepit hand to the screen and slowly pushed it through. I screamed, falling backwards in my chair and cowered in fear on the ground. I felt her cold, dead fingers touch the bare flesh of my face and froze in terror. “Please, please stop. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry!” I could feel her hand retreating from my face, then I heard that all too familiar bing. I slowly stood from the floor and looked at the screen, it was darkraven93. Her words sent chills down my spine. Darkraven93: hey, I tried video chatting you but it says your webcam is offline.