"Look to your left. That object now carries your soul and you must protect it at all costs."
The words glowed on the otherwise blank screen.
Previously - about a few minutes ago - you were a regular just-graduated-from-university adult. You finished another chapter of the webcomic you were working on, uploaded them, and waited for the comments to stack up. While you were waiting, you decided to surf the net, and accidentally clicked on some random pop-up that took you to some Wicca site.
Letting your curiosity get the better of you, you had let yourself explore the web page. Who knows? You've been itching to try out the Fantasy genre for another story, this could make great research!
It was nicely done – there was gold text on a dark blue background and a full moon logo with a silver cloud partially covering it. The moon had the pentacle, or maybe a pentagram, symbol overlaid on it. The menu font was in a bold, modern font, with several sections to choose from, including becoming a member. You click on the Spells category and scroll down the spell types.
‘I wonder if there’s something here that will help me magically create pages from my mind in five seconds.’ No luck, but plenty of stuff on banishment, fairies, luck, and alter work.
You scrolled over the quizzes - What element are you, are you Light or Dark, what's your dominant chakra - then stopped at the bottom. The last and most recent one was titled 'What adventure will you get?'
Clicking on the page of your webcomic site and seeing no new comments, you try out the quiz. There were some typical questions, such as 'what's your favourite colour', to ones you've never read before, like 'what is your belief on Sanity?' and ‘does a soul exist?’. It took a few minutes to answer some of them. After an hour of answering the hundred and ten questions, you click the final button and wait for the page with your result to show up.
Instead, you get small text of words on a digital scroll. You look around the screen for the 'Get Results' button, but it's nowhere to be seen. Over the scroll the words 'Read to get results' flashes.
Well... Okay...
Imagine your soul.
Capture its senses
Its visuals
Its sounds
Its scents
Its textures
Its tastes
Its feels
Look to your left. That object know carries your soul and you must protect it at all costs.
You’re welcome and have fun~.
It’s not too hard, since it's in your native language instead of Latin, but it sounded more like… not a poem or a riddle, but anything other than a quiz result.
Then things got weird:
You read the result out loud, about your soul now being sealed inside an object to your left. You glance to your left to see your tablet and pen. The words repeated in your mind, leaving a chill down your spine, your body temperature dropping for a second before returning to normal.
What a weird result. Though, should you have expected anything else from a magic site?
But the question leaves you staring at your table and pen, not moving an inch, is…
'Is it real?'
You picked up your tablet and pen, instantly having a sensation pass through you. It was hard to describe, almost like ghost hands were resting over you. You put them both down and the feeling disappears.
No. No, no, no no no no. This... It can't be real. This was done on the internet for crying out loud! Shouldn't these things only work face to face?
...
No. Not real. Just... Paranoia from the quiz. Yeah, that's totally it! In fact, you could just break your tablet right here and now... Except that it's a good working tablet, and you really don't want to throw out an expensive and necessary piece of equipment. It practically is your soul!
What if you just, like, tap it? Not enough to cause any damage, but to see what you'll feel. You pick up the pen - feeling those ghost hands hovering over you once again - and tap it on the table. Nothing. You drop it on the apartment's hardwood floor.
The minute the pen hits the wood... something zaps through you. It’s like... touching static electricity or something close to that. This electricity bounces all over your body, not hurting but still causing you to flinch.
Oh dear.
You move your chair and bend down to retrieve the pen, biting your lip as you look it over. You hold it over the tablet and watched as the mouse moved around the screen. Good, it wasn't broken. Still, what did this mean, exactly? Could this be good or bad? Did it make you immortal in some way, so long as you keep your tablet and pen safe? What happens if the tablet breaks down? Will you die then?
Suddenly, you're feeling a bit light-headed. Maybe some sleep would get you feeling better. Help you think better in the morning. Maybe. Before you exit out of the site, you save the page. This quiz is real suspicious and you want to look a little more closely into what you have just gotten yourself into.
Stepping into your apartment’s bathroom, you take a look in the mirror. You look a little pale, but that’s probably because of discovering that magic not only exists, but it works on the internet. Maybe.
As you brush your teeth you place your other shaking hand to your chest, feeling a tense heartbeat.
‘So I’m not a zombie.’ You spit and turn on the faucet, cleaning your mouth and toothbrush. Staring in the mirror again, you turn your head, inspecting every inch of it again.
Actually, you know what? It probably doesn’t exist. The strange quiz scared you and you only felt that zap because you were expecting it. Just your imagination running away on you again – away in Lalaland, as Mom and Dad like to say.
Yes, a good night’s sleep is what you need. Wiping your face with the small cream towel and walking towards your desktop, you check your web site. There are a few new comments, maybe… no, you’ll answer them tomorrow. However, you make a status update, thank you the support so far for your story, as well as asking about the Wicca site you found. There’s has to be somebody who’s come across it.
You glance over to the tablet and pen again and frown. Nah, it has to be a fake, and on the small change that it is real, it would be better if you took the quiz after you replaced the tablet with a cintiq. Turning off and unplugging the desktop, another feeling strokes your spine and you deflate with fatigue… caused by the evening’s fright, of course, not some curse. Slipping into your nightwear, you roll into bed and wrap yourself in the soft covers.
‘Cursing over the internet with quizzes. What ever happened to chain mails? Too 90s?’ And what kind of person would do that, anyway? What if kids found the site and tried it? Well, it’s a long quiz, but what about people who try it and actually believe the result? That’s too wild.’
If you had a character like that in your story, they probably wouldn’t be human. They would be reckless, maybe not bad, but one of those troublesome characters with either no regard for human life or morality issues. The last kind of person who should have access to magic, the internet, or both.
You prefer characters that learn about foresight and responsibility, characters that know their influence on life and don’t do anything to rash. They think about what they’re doing and don’t mind if it means trying to keep a simple life. Of course, stories can’t work that way.
‘Maybe this is revenge for all the trouble I’ve given my characters.’ Yeah, right. The quiz scared you because it was all a prank by some stupid Pagan. It probably won’t even bother you tomorrow, and if it does, well, hopefully one of your fans will have an answer for you tomorrow.
This one I based off of a sentence prompt, that sentence being the first one in this story. I actually chose the tablet because that really was the first object to my left and just went on from there.
Critiques are appreciated - Monos DOA
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