I was doing what I always did as a student. I was procrastinating.

Like any student at my college, I was procrastinating with Facebook. Looking at people’s profile pictures from 3 years ago was somehow infinitely more interesting than the paper I was supposed to write. This is why I’m not a good student.

I clicked the “Home” button to see what was on my news feed, when all of a sudden a new Facebook IM chat window came up. Someone wanted to talk to me.

It was someone named John Michaelson.

I strained my memory to think of who John Michaelson was, but I couldn’t come up with an answer. Maybe a friend of mine had changed their name because my mind was drawing a blank.

The weird thing was that this John Michaelson hadn’t actually typed anything. The chat window has just popped up out of nowhere. I had never seen this happen before.

I went up to the search bar to find out who John Michaelson was. Nobody came up. I clicked the button for “See more results for john michaelson” and the page just refreshed back to my news feed. I was confused.

I looked over at the Chat sidebar and typed in “John Michaelson,” but again, nobody came up.

I just figured that this was some sort of weird Facebook glitch, and actually started to write my essay. This weirdness was good for my productivity.

*****

A half hour later, my inner (stupid) need for Facebook called again. When I logged back in, the John Michaelson chat icon was gone.

I went to go check a new event I had been invited to when “John Michaelson” popped up again. The little writing symbol appeared this time, however. John Michaelson typed for nearly 20 minutes, but nothing was actually said. I just stared transfixed at the screen like an idiot, waiting for this mysterious unknown user to actually say something to me.

When I realized I had been staring at Facebook for twenty minutes, as if in a trance, I snapped out of it, and shut my computer. I walked to the other side of the room and paced for a while. I had no idea why this seemingly stupid Facebook glitch was bothering me. I opened my curtains to let sunlight in and look out the window, to clear my head.

To my horror, as I walked back to my desk, I noticed that my computer was open again, with Google Chrome running and Facebook open, just as before.

The little writing symbol was gone. John Michaelson had finally sent something. It was a YouTube link. My original suspicions of this glitch being a virus vanished. What harm could opening a YouTube link be? A lot, apparently.

I clicked on the link. To my surprise, it did not take me to YouTube. The screen was jet black, with a non-descript video player in the center of the screen. Definitely not YouTube.

I was torn between curiosity and dread. Something inside of me was telling me that watching this video would be a very bad idea. I had no idea what the video could possibly be. This element of the unknown fed my curiosity, but also made me very scared.

I decided to press Play.

There was a crackling noise, then a low ominous drone. I already didn’t like this. The screen flickered twice then settled on a grainy black-and-white shot of a battered wooden chair in the corner of what looked to be a fairly old cabin. There was a painting on the wall that I could only see the bottom of. The picture was too grainy to make out what was depicted in the painting. Something about this image unsettled me greatly.

Before the video could get past 6 seconds, I clicked out of it. I decided I didn’t want to see this video anymore. The fear of the unknown is greater than anything in this world. I’m fairly certain of this. I closed the computer, and decided to go to bed. There was no way in hell I was getting work done tonight.

*****

The next day, I headed to the library before class. I wanted to check my email on a separate computer.

I found a computer in the crowded lab on the main floor of our library. I logged into Webmail, and saw that I had 4 new emails. One was from Amazon.com, begging me to buy something that I didn’t care about. Delete.

The next email was from Skype, asking me to update to an international calling plan. Delete.

The next email was from a professor canceling my afternoon class. Score!

The fourth email was from my dad. My dad and I share very similar musical tastes, and exchange a lot of emails about the subject. He had sent me a link to a new Rolling Stone article that detailed “The Top 100 Guitarists of All Time.” I had a bit of time before class so I decided to get a quick look at who made the Top 10.

The link took a while to load, for whatever reason.

I looked away to see if anybody else was in the library that I knew, then looked back. It was the jet black screen with the non-descript video player again. It was paused at 6 seconds, on the shot of the battered chair in the old cabin. Instead of being scared, like I should have been, I just stared transfixed at the screen. Clearly somebody somewhere was hell-bent on getting me to watch this video.

Should I watch it in the library? I didn’t have my headphones, so I’d have to be that douche who listened to something in the library through the speakers of the computer. Eventually, time made a fool of me, and I noticed that I was 2 minutes late for class. I’d have to check the video later.

*****

In class, I continued to ponder the video. Should I watch it through? My curiosity was clearly overtaking my dread at this point.

I couldn’t focus in class at all whatsoever. I always sit near the window in class, so when I get bored, I can look out the window. I looked out the window. It was fall, so a few stray leaves blew across the lawn in front of the building. The wind whistled ever so slightly through the trees.

I let my gaze wander back to the classroom. The professor was writing something I didn’t really care about on the board. I decided the window was far more fascinating and looked back out of it.

Only, it wasn’t a leafy fall scene out the window this time. I was looking into a cabin, as if it was directly on the other side of the window. A battered, worn chair was placed in the corner of the cabin. Somehow, someway, I was looking at the cabin from that video.

The picture was much clearer than the video, since it appeared I was actually looking at a real cabin.

I glanced upwards at the painting on the wall that I wasn’t able to see before. It was an old portrait of what appeared to be a Civil War general. The belt buckle he wore had the initials “CSA,” indicating that he was a general for the Confederate States of America. He wore a dusty jacket, and his hands were crossed across his chest.

But when I saw the portraits face is when I lost it. Calling what he had on his face a smile would be misleading, because it was impossible to find happiness in it. His lips were bloody, and twisted upwards in a truly demonic, sadistic grin. There also appeared to be blood dripping out of his ears.

The moment I laid my eyes on this horror, I had enough. I grabbed all of my books, and dashed out of the room as quickly as possible. As I left, I couldn’t resist the urge to look back. My professor was staring at me in disbelief. I also noticed that blood was starting to trickle from the edge of his lips.

I left the room.

*****

I went back to my room and went to bed. The ordeal I went through today had made me very tired, and I had no desire at all to go near a computer. At least if I was asleep, this couldn’t bother me anymore.

Ha.

I woke up about 3 hours later due to feeling a heavy weight on my legs. At first, this feeling incorporated itself into the dream I was having. The dream involved me walking through an art museum, gazing intently at each and every one of the paintings. I lead a boring dream life.

The walls of this art museum were whiter than white, almost blindingly white. It was a circular room, with no doors anywhere to be seen. The ceilings were incredibly high. In the center of the round room were two old wooden benches, set about 15 feet apart. In between the two benches was a black metal spiral staircase. The staircase went up about twenty feet before just abruptly ending, about 150 feet before the ceiling. There was no discernible way out of this round room.

So all I could do was walk around and admire the paintings.

The first painting I looked at was of a dark, fiery volcano shooting into the sky. Lava seemed to be flowing down the rocky sides of the mountain. At the bottom of the volcano, screaming people with pained looks on their faces were trying to outrun the lava. The sky was an ominous dark red. Off in the distance of this spewing volcano appeared to be a dark forest.

However, one man stood on an outcrop of the mountain, staring off at the sky ahead of him. He was smiling as he stood his ground. His lips were twisted upwards in an eerie grin. As I studied this part of the painting closely, I noticed small red drops of paint began to form around the edges of his lips.

It was at this time that I began to notice the sound of a low, ominous drone running through the museum. I moved on to the next painting.

The next painting was black and white, and was of a dark and shady passageway through a forest. The trees were skinny and almost skeletal. A penetrating fog appeared to swirl throughout the trees. The artist was good at depicting motion in a still painting. Or maybe the trees were actually swaying, the wind blowing, and the fog swirling. I guess I’ll never know.

Off in the distance of this picture was a dark, rectangular shape. Although it was small, and dark, it looked like a building of some sort. I couldn’t exactly make out what type of building it was. I couldn’t exactly tell, but there appeared to be smoke emanating from the top of this building.

The droning became louder, and I moved on to the next painting.

The next painting, not to my surprise, showed me what the building off in the distance was. It was a cabin, set in a lonely clearing in the dark woods. Broken steps led up to a porch covered in leaves. The middle slat of the steps was broken, and rusty nails appeared to be still be jutting out of the wood where the middle slat should have been attached to. There were two rocking chairs on the porch. One was black, and one was white. Both looked like they had been there for a really long time.

The cabin was made out of wood, and had been painted white at one point in its existence. The paint was peeling in many places, revealing old, rotten wood beneath.

There was one window on the porch, in between the two ancient chairs. Although I could not see the details of what was inside the cabin, a faint light seemed to be seeping out of the window.

This picture unnerved me the most, because I knew had seen the inside of the cabin before. I stared at the painting intently for a very long time, drawing my face closer and closer to it, trying to understand all of the details of it. I stared so long at the painting that I didn’t realize that I was biting my lips incredibly hard. Blood was trickling from my lips onto the floor.

I almost couldn’t move on to the next painting. I knew what it would be. It would be the inside of the cabin. But as the droning grew louder, and reverberated around the inside of my ears, I knew I had to move on and look at the next painting.

But to my surprise, the next painting was not the inside of the cabin. It was still a painting I recognized though. It was a portrait of a surly looking Confederate general, with a belt buckle that said “CSA.” His face was impassive, and showed no emotion. I noticed there was a tag on the sleeve of his right arm, and it said, “JOHN MICHAELSON, ’26.”

I studied him further to see any more details, and let my eyes stray away from his face. When I looked back up at him, my heart stopped.

The painting was moving. Blood was beginning to slowly flow from his ears, and his lips began to twist upwards in the loosest definition of a smile. His malevolent eyes, like shiny black marbles, glinted and stared at me, and wouldn’t leave me. I stepped backwards in horror, and turned around to run away. Before I could take a single step, I felt a crushing weight land on my legs, tripping me up.

I looked over my shoulder and saw that the painting had fallen off the wall, onto my legs.

It was at that moment that I woke up.

I groggily rubbed my eyes and noticed that there was a heavy weight on my legs. I opened my eyes, and let them adjust to the darkness.

My computer was open and sitting on my legs.

The screen was open to the non-descript video player, and the video was already playing. A low droning sound came out of my speakers. The screen flickered two times, and then settled on a shaky black-and-white shot of an old cabin, with a battered chair set in the corner. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it.

The video remained this way for 20 seconds.

I then noticed a dark shadow slowly pass across the bottom of the screen. There was somebody in the cabin.

I screamed loudly, grabbed my computer and threw it against the opposite wall as hard as I could.

Unsurprisingly, this woke my roommate up, and he began screaming at me. In a daze, I grabbed my headphones, put my shoes on, and ran out the door. I breathlessly ran out the front door of my dorm, and tried to figure out where to go.

Even though it was 3am, the night sky was a deep shade of red, almost as if blood was painted across the heavens. I ran up the hill towards the library. It was the only building I could see.

To my surprise, the doors were unlocked. I ran inside. On the fly, I decided to run downstairs. In my panic, and since I wasn’t completely woken up yet, I tripped down the stairs. I hit my head incredibly hard at the bottom. Pain seared through my head like never before. The world around me began to twist and swirl around. I had never felt pain this acute before.

I was in a daze, and had no idea what I was doing as I stood up. I walked, almost zombie-like, down the rest of the stairs, and entered the computer lab. I knew something that could alleviate my pain. I knew just the right medicine.

I turned a computer on, and logged into Facebook. Every single item in my newsfeed was John Michaelson posting that same Youtube link. My chat sidebar didn’t show anybody but multiple John Michaelsons. 8 chat windows were open, and all of them were from John Michaelson, sending me the link.

I clicked the top item on my newsfeed, and it directed me to a familiar page.

I couldn’t take the pain anymore. I put my headphones over my years, and pressed Play.

*****

The next day, the first student library worker came in to set up at 7:00 am. She turned on all the circulation desk computers and went downstairs to check and make sure everything was in place. She entered the large lower computer lab and was surprised to see someone at one of the computers in the first row.

“You can’t be in the library this early!” she called out, thinking some of the janitors must have forgotten to lock one of the doors. How could it be this late in the semester and students still didn’t know the library hours?

There was no response from the student. He had headphones on and was just staring at the screen.

“Seriously, I’m going to need you to leave and come back in a half an hour, sir,” she called out again. There was still no answer.

She strode up to the computer to tap the student on the shoulder, thinking he couldn’t hear her over his headphones. She tapped him on the shoulder and peered around to look at him. What she saw was absolutely horrifying. She screamed in abject terror.

The smell hit her first. There was a strong smell of burning sulfur about the computer area. The top of his head was very badly bruised. The ear pieces of the headphones were stained in dark, red, viscous blood. Blood dripped down the sides of his neck from his headphones. His eyes were closed, but heavily bruised with a deep black and blue hue. Blood streaked down his face, originating from his eyes. It almost looked as if he had been crying tears of blood. The keyboard was also covered in blood, with several keys missing. Broken pieces of fingernail filled in the cracks between the missing keys, almost as if he clawed at the keyboard in agony. The student had clearly died a very painful death.

The most terrifying part, however, was that despite the obvious pain the student had been in near death, he somehow had a twisted smile on his face. Blood stained the sides of his lips, twisted upwards in a truly demonic grin.

In horror, she glanced at the computer screen. It was a jet black screen, with a fairly non-descript video player in the center. The timer of the nearly 5-minute video was at the end. Curiosity over what the student watched so close to death overtook the student library worker and she pressed Play.

The video buffered for 2 seconds. There was a crackling sound, followed by an ominous drone. The screen flickered twice before it settled on a shot of a battered wooden chair in an old cabin. She noticed a painting in the upper left hand corner that was mostly out of the shot.

A dark shadow flickered across the screen.

She continued watching.

***************

THE END