Delete

It started with my friend in Japan. He was a hacker, always leaving his computer on, along with AIM and MSN. When he logged out on both, I assumed his computer finally died from overload.

It was then I noticed all his posts on our favorite sites were gone. All his accounts, all his videos, all his comments.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Nathan and I’m a shut-in. Agoraphobia. I live in North Carolina and I program for a living. My sister does the shopping for me and I live in a basement. No windows. That might very well be the only thing that’s keeping me safe.

I woke up a month ago, at 3 AM and sat down at my desk, ready to work a bit but mostly chat. That’s when I noticed KaosSrida was gone. I don’t know his real name so don’t bother asking. Besides some spelling issues, he was a fairly good English speaker and I enjoyed talking to him. He also knew everything about computers, stuff I could never imagine possible.

That’s why I wasn’t worried. It was well within his expertise to hack into sites and delete his own posts. I assumed he had gotten sick of the internet. He’d been complaining about it for years.

I tried discussing his disappearance with a mutual friend. He seemed confused, like he was forgetting who Kaos was. This friend was really old. I worried about his mental health. I decided to let it go and talk about sports a bit.

By this time, three or four people had stopped logging on. Not the most unusual thing in the world. People got busy sometimes or just didn’t feel like talking. Only, their posts disappeared as well.

Now, it had been a couple of days since Kaos went missing. And I was getting fairly freaked out so I turned off the computer and watched TV for a while.

That’s when shit got scary.

One of the news anchors was gone. The other would sometimes look to the spot her partner should be and look confused for a while, only to return to speaking as usual. A local show called Three Sisters or something, was now Two Sisters. And yes, the third sister was gone. As with the news, sometimes there would be times where the third sister was important and for a moment they seemed to remember. But then they just kept acting. A cooking show just showed the studio, with no host.

I am a rational man and I was quick to rationalize everything. The news anchor wasn’t used to working alone while her partner was sick and the show with the sisters was part of a plot, I wouldn’t know, I didn’t watch it. The cooking show was harder to explain. Perhaps they left the camera running while they had to leave for some reason, and the network guys didn’t notice.

I had calmed myself and decided to watch something else. I got a TV guide my sister had gotten me and flipped through it. That’s when I noticed the freakiest thing yet. The Two Stooges. I stared blankly at the name, squished between an old britcom and one of those shows about how good the fifties were.

It was soon to start so I flipped over to the channel. Sure enough, the title screen said The Two Stooges. Surely, this was some joke or a rip off.

But no. It started as I remembered it. Only with a stooge less.

I freaked out and turned off the TV.

So here I am. It’s been a month and around a hundred people are missing that I know of. My sister is gone as well. I’m posting this in every site I can, hopefully reaching as many people as I can.

If you can notice the people missing as well, my name is Nate Creek and I live in a small town in North Carolina, please PM me as soon as possible.

“Hey Bob. Bob, help me out here.”

The man stared at the computer screen, furrowing his eyebrows.

“What do want, Jim?”

Bob walked over to him, a bored look on his face.

“One of the AIs has a glitch.”

“How so?”

“I deleted several other AIs and an entertainment pack so I could install the new versions but this AI didn’t delete its memories and is panicking.

I thought it was the lack of a support AI because I deleted the sister file as well, but the memory logs show it started much sooner. He’s been at his computer for hours.”

“What’s he doing? Working? Creative writing?”

“Autobiographical-diary, it says. I thought we didn’t install that module on this one.”

“It’s probably a glitch of some sort. Just delete and do a clean install with the others.”

Jim sighed.

“I kinda liked this one.”

“It’s just a program Jim. It’s not like it’s sentient.”

Jim watched the visual representation of Nate_Creek_5 type furiously.

“I guess you’re right, Bob.”

Jim right clicked the AI and choose delete.