"Untitled"

Annie settled into her computer chair, clasping a steaming cup of oolong tea between her palms, eager to touch her tongue to its complex, earthy flavours. After a day of household chores and errands, she had nothing else in mind but a session of pure relaxation; and, what better way to relax than with one's computer?
She nudged the mouse to wake up the desktop, waiting for the pixels to buzz into life; her computer was relatively old, as she had just recently moved out of her parents' house and had very few funds to pull from, what with rent and food to consider. Unfortunately, having gotten used to light-speed electronics - courtesy of her parents' forty years of hard-earned money - adjusting to this piece of technology was not the most pleasant of transitions, but a doable one at that. It could be worse, she thought, I could be stuck without a computer at all.
Tipping her mug gently to her lips, she tried to ease the steaming tea into her mouth; the computer spat out a sudden beep, making her hands shudder and forcing a good amount of scolding tea directly onto her tongue. She slammed the mug down onto her desk and touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth in an attempt to calm the tender sting radiating throughout her mouth.
Annoyed, Annie took a closer look at her computer's screen to see what had caused the poorly-timed commotion; in the middle of the screen was a notification that read, "Do you want to save your changes for document, 'Untitled 1'?". What? I just turned the computer on.
Perplexed, yet utterly intrigued, she prompted the computer to save the changes and waited for the icon to pop up on her desktop - sure enough, after a lagged response time, she was able to open up the document. It was a Word document, displaying only one word: Annie.

NIGHT

After an oddly busy day, Annie was able to drift off into a peaceful slumber, but was interrupted three and a half hours through her lengthy snores. Being a light sleeper, she was known to wake at the noise of a pin dropping in a room down the hall from her bed, so it was not surprising for her to wake at the sound of another one of her computer's random beeps. The noise immediately prompted several flashes of memory from that same afternoon, when the noise not only scolded her tongue, but revealed a strange document that seemed to know her name. Her superstition pushed her to believe that a disembodied force was causing the document's existence, but her logical sense of reality, that she had attained from watching her savings account make a nosedive in the first week of living on her own, pulled her to believe that the old technology had had a glitch and her personal information on the computer interfered with the workings of its applications. But, even as her logic technically prevailed in her internal debate, superstition was serving as a cloud that wouldn't wisp away.
Throwing off her covers and fumbling with her lamp's light switch, Annie eventually managed to get out of bed in her groggy state. She approached her computer, whose screen had obediently lit up at the sound of the notification, and was met with the same notice as before: "Do you want to save your changes for document, 'Untitled 2'?" Not this, again - who's pulling this shit on me?
Knowing full well that she wouldn't be able to go back to sleep without seeing the contents of this document, she clicked 'Save' and found the small icon right underneath the previous one. Clicking on it, the document page opened, casting a bright white screen across her face. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the light and focused on the word that had typed itself - Are.

MORNING

Annie stood in front of her coffee machine, eagerly awaiting her morning cup to brew. She rubbed her eyes and let out an irritated yawn - after her computer's second message, it was increasingly difficult for her to fall asleep for a second time. Had the notification been in the day, falling asleep wouldn't have been much of an issue that night. But, since she was awoken at night, something about the threat of the daunting darkness surrounding her had interrupted a perfect cycle of slumber.
Leaning on her counter, she brushed a stray hair off of her blazer, thinking about last night's message; what was the reason for that particular word? It seemed as though a sentence was forming - but who was sending these messages and, most of all, what did they mean? Whoever it is obviously has no respect for designers, she thought, checking her watch to make sure she wasn't going to be late for work. Being punctual had taken on a whole new meaning for her now that she was wholly reliant on herself, and her ability to keep a steady job; seemingly anything had the ability to take her job away from her, in her mind, at least.
The sharp beep of her coffee machine broke her from her rapidly disintegrating anxiety, reminding her that, no matter how bad things got, there was always coffee to soften the blow. The strong perfume of the coffee snaked its way into her nostrils, bringing a slight upturn in her lips as she lifted the pot from underneath and spout and poured it into her travel mug.
BEEP.
"Fuck!" Before she knew it, there was coffee all over her counter and soaking through her blazer and trousers. She instinctively reached for her kitchen rag to soak up the mess, but was stopped by the reminder of what followed that notification - another message. She was faced with a minor dilemma - check the message and be late for work, or ignore it and throw on a new outfit, making it to her office just in time.
If I don't check it, I'll be thinking about it all day, which will distract me from my work, which would cause a worse outcome than being a little late, in the long run. In her mind, Annie knew she was snowballing in order to create a weak justification, but she was desperate to see the next message. What if it had a huge significance in her life? What if it was a warning or an omen?
Either way, she knew she did not possess the responsibility, nor the willpower, to ignore the notification. She rushed to her bedroom and encountered a notification on her computer, just the same as the previous ones: "Do you want to save your changes for document, 'Untitled 3'?" Clicking 'Save', she waited for the icon to pop up and clicked it vigorously, as if the quantity of times that she clicked it would speed up the computer's response time.
Ten painful seconds passed before the document opened and presented her with another word: "You".

EVENING

"You seemed a little off today," Annie's boyfriend, Chris, mentioned over the phone. "Is something wrong?"
Annie settled into her couch, debating whether to brew a pot of tea. She toyed with a loose thread hanging from her ratty old sweater. "Yeah, I'm fine - I just didn't get much sleep last night."
"I wish I was the cause of that," he chuckled. Annie blushed.
She stood up and wandered over to her kitchen, resting a hand on her counter. "You and me, both," she flirted. "I guess last night was just not a good night to sleep." She had neglected to tell Chris about her computer's new personality; of all the people she knew, her boyfriend was the least superstitious, and had no tolerance for myths and urban legends.
Chris was silent over the line - he wasn't much of a conversationalist, and he never had been. Neither was Annie, so she elected to end the conversation before it got any more awkward. She had been throwing around the idea of ending things with him for good, but she still didn't have a feel for the situation. Still, this conversation was definitely not something she wanted to carry on. "I'm pretty worn out - I'll see you tomorrow, okay?"
"Sure, good night babe," he remarked, promptly hanging up the line. Annie did the same, setting her phone down on the counter.
She sighed and decided to make that pot of tea after all; what's the worst that could happen?
As if on cue, as she was filling the kettle with water, the familiar beep sounded from her bedroom. At the noise, an icicle of fear shot through her stomach and up to her heart; what was the next word?
The screen was lit up as she entered her room, with the very same notification: "Do you want to save your changes for document, 'Untitled 4'?" She saved the changes and waited for the icon, opening it as fast as she could, only to be met with, what seemed to be, the end of the sentence: "OK?"
Annie was puzzled - why was her computer quoting a Michael Jackson song? There was no way that this was a glitch - it was definitely some sort of sick joke.
Suddenly, another buzz erupted from her computer, along with a bright spark that arched out of the mouse and ripped through her body. Immediately, Annie fell to the ground, paralyzed from the shock. The sheer terror gifted her with one last moment of peace before she realized that her heart slowing and her breaths were becoming significantly more shallow. Desperate for help, she tried to drag herself to her phone, fighting the incredible urge to close her eyes and fall asleep. She reached the cold tile of her kitchen as her vision began to dim against her will - she could barely wheeze a single breath, but that didn't stop her from slamming herself into her cupboards in an attempt to knock her phone to the floor from the counter top. The phone didn't move an inch, and she could barely see a thing. With her last burst of strength, she reached her hand to the top of the counter and swept it across, just barely knocking the phone to the ground.
9-1-1, 9-1-1, 9-1-1, she repeated in her mind, over and over again.
The phone's screen lit up.
You've been hit by,
You've been hit by,
A smooth criminal.
The ringtone was accompanied by a caller ID. Letting out her last breath, Annie could just make out the name of the caller: Chris.

Featured in the "Short Stories Newsletter (May 11, 2016)"