The light from the laptop’s screen seemed to pull the surrounding darkness of the room into its orbit. A figure sat on the floor, looking up at the light. The shape was that of a boy, young and tall, with black hair that poured over his shoulders. His skin as pale and smooth as cream, broken only by a scarlet blemish that pooled by his eye. As he began to mutter a quiet incantation, his shoulders rose and fell in a haphazard rhythm. A bitter chill began to enter the room, and a metallic creaking sound moved around the room as if it was methodically pacing. The boy snapped his head back and gasped sharply, and the room fell quiet. The air remained heavy and still until an unknown script appeared on the laptop’s screen. At first, it was just one character, but the screen began to output more at an exponential rate. Line after line flew by, and the metallic pacing sped up, matching the script’s tempo.
The boy raised his head towards the screen again and continued the incantations. The text on the screen began to move not from bottom to top, but from side to side, increasing further until no individual character could be made out. Through the velocity of the script, a face began to emerge. Its skull was misshapen and knobbled, and although its eyes were black and empty, the boy could tell that it had locked onto him. A twisted smile began to form on its face, revealing a mouth housing broken teeth. An electronic moan of anticipation began to play from the speaker, adding to the cacophony of noise. The metallic pacing had created a whirlwind in the room, and through the whistling wind, the grunting had lost its digital sound. Instead, it was now behind the boy, and his hair began to stand on the back of his neck. The boy began to yell.
“RISE AND WALK! NOW!”
The wind had forced the boy onto his back, pinning him down. He could see the light from the computer shining on the roof begin to dim as he felt a presence begin to emerge in front of him. A smell of filth filled the frigid room. The room went completely dark. All sounds stopped, save for the heavy breathing of the boy. Sitting up from the floor, he stared at the towering silhouette, blacker than the night around him.
“Remember my face well, golem. Remember that you serve me.”
The silhouette remained motionless.