The Website

The Website

A Short Story

By Kevin J. Jacobs


December, 15th, 2011


My story begins in a mid size city called South Bridge, West Virginia. I am a fourteen year old college student, that just transferred, thanks to the help of my parents, who helped pay for my financial aid, no thanks to the financial aid department. They said that my parents made more than enough, to fill up a blind man's wallet. Just kidding. They just said that they met more than required, based on the financial information on the form.

It was tough for me to get into college, because of how young I am.

But, I figured with the additional work, that I have been applying myself in accomplishing, atoning myself, tough is all around.

I made my way through school, with all honor classes. Even when I was in kindergarten, I would come to school, with knowledge, that of a middle school student, drawing diagrams of shapes on the chalk board, using algebraic expressions, which I had learned to use, through study guides that I had checked out, from the local library.

With the knowledge that I had gained, and the money that was paid to the schools, by my parents, it was then that was I able to easily able to surpass other students, as I had made my way through high school, and it was then, when I enrolled in college at West Bridge University.

My childhood friend, Charissa, as smart as I was, was attending with me. Everyday, when we were younger, she was always hanging out with me. And studying together in books that I had checked out, in the city's library. Her relationship with that of my family was through her mother who knew my family, because of my father, whom worked with her husband, Serg, as an electrcian, at the West Bridge Power Plant.

Though things were hard, even as a young child, I would have emotional set problems, struggling through mishaps of misfortune. When I thought that things couldn't of become worse, Charissa was always there for me. If it was up to me, I would of adopted her into the family. She's like a sister, I never had. If it wasn't for her, there would be no way of telling what kind of person I would be today.

To be honest, I don't know what I would do, without her.

She has helped me out, so much.


I grew weary when my mother came across me, almost taking my brother's box, when I came to visit my parents.


"Matthew Grahams!" My mother called to me as she saw me standing with Marcus's box of HTML codes and other computer related things.

"What are you doing with Marcus's box?"

"You're not taking that box with you, mister!" She scolded me, while giving me that serious starry eyed, serious expression of hers.

"Now put it down and come eat."


"Yes, mother." I sighed, as I rolled my eyes.


"It was a good thing she didn't see me do that, or I would be dead right now." I thought to myself.


I sighed once more, then pushed the box under the small table that she had in the hallway, placing my small blanket over it, from which I was to take with me in the first place as I made it to the table, to eat with my parents.


"So, Matty, I have to ask, did you receive the letter that I sent to you pertaining to your brother?" My mother had asked as she passed me the spaghetti that was sitting, near her side, of the table.


"Yes, mother." I responded back.


"Yes?" My mother asked.

"Then you know that he is asking you to visit him?"


"Yes." I responded once again.

"And yes, I am planing on going to see him, this upcoming Friday."

"There's something that I've been needing to ask him, despite the leukemia, that he has."


"He's not going to be around, for much longer." My mother dreaded.

"The doctor stated how terrible, it is."


"He's not in his apartment anymore, you know, they moved him to the hospital."

"But don't worry, he is in good hands."


"The pictures came in today, you can see them." She said, as she passed the pictures to me, from the other side of the dinner table.


"Your brother is proud to have a younger brother, like you."


"I know." I smiled to her, as I examined the pictures.


"Those burn marks are something fierce, aren't they?" I asked as I continued to examine the pictures, noticing the burn marks that ran from the left side of chest, running half way down, to his abdomen.


"It's almost as if something ripped through him, like paper." My mother responded back.


"Anyways, he should be fine if the doctor is right about curing him."

"But, I don't think that will happen."

"He is in too worse of a condition."


"Like I said Matty, visit him."

"Visit him, before he dies."


She started to cry and rested her head on my father's shoulders, my father resting his hand on the back of her head to give her the reassurances that she deserved.


"I will mother." I responded back.


My mother started to cry, as I was taking my leave, over the chances of her son Marcus dying.


"Wait." My mother cried out as I was leaving through the front door.


(Luckily for me, I managed to carry the box of my brother's things, on the other side of the door, before she called to me.)


"Listen, take this." She said as she gave me leftovers from dinner, earlier.

"I know you must be getting hungry, and I can't stand to see my young fourteen year old son out there, without any food, in his stomach." My mother worried for me.


"Thanks, mom." I thanked her as she had given me a Tupperware container with a thin white plastic lid over the top.


"You call me if you have any problems okay, son." She said, worried once more as she gave me the leftovers, hugged me, and then kissed me on the cheek as a goodbye comfort.


"I will." I promised her as I returned the hug, kissed her back on her cheek.


"I'll tell you how he's like, before he dies." A faint whisper could be heard, from within the distance.


"What was that?" My mother asked.

"Nothing, what are you talking about?" I asked her, a bit confused.

"Nothing, never mind." My mother said back, shaking her hair out of her face, the facial expression, that she made showed that she was as confused, as I was.


"Listen, everything will be fine." I said as I had stepped onto the front porch.

"I just hope that you're right." My mother worried once more as she grabbed the handle on the screen and front door before me, with the exception of leaving the porch light on for me, in case I needed it to see what I was doing, as it was as dark as a black cat's fur outside.


The only light outside, other than the porch light, was that of the moonlight, shining over me.

It was a full moon tonight.

It hovered amongst me like a giant eye, watching over the small things of life as it withheld its' position, in the sky.

That night I sat on my parent's porch, smoking a cigarette and thinking about my brother Marcus.


Marcus Grahams.

Death by leukemia.

What a way to die.


It seemed as though it was only yesterday that me and Marcus were going through convenience stores and stealing Playboy magazines, only to mock the pages, as we sat on a street curb, eating Doritos and drinking two twenty ounce bottles, of Mountain Dew. I remember the weird expressions that we both made, as we turned the pages,and laughed at the ridiculous panty lines that were shown on some of the women, featured in the magazine.


"Dude, can you imagine what kind of panties fits around these woman's legs?" Marcus asked while chuckling to himself, as he continued to flip through the pages of the magazine.

"Tight, right?" He would ask me more inflamious questions, as we would continue to laugh.


Then, as I started to remember the past memories of Marcus, I started to vaguely remember what he had asked of me, the last time that I had seen him.


"Matthew, protect the box."

"Guard it, with your life."

"Don't let mom know, that you have it."


"Guard it, with your life."

He said to me.


I remember the day that he had made this promise with me. He was on his way to South Carolina to be with his girlfriend Janet. He told me that he had found a way to sustain life through HTML coding.

I thought that he had lost his mind, at first.

Gone completely bonkers.

But then, he showed me, before he left.


"It's called, The Website.com." He said as he typed the name of the website, into the address bar, that appeared, on his computer screen.

"Listen, no one knows about this site, except for a few of the main loggers who keep checking on it every now and then to get explicit ideas that they find to be quite comical, but no one actually knows the details as to what the website, is actually about."

"It's a good thing too."


"I'd have to kill a few or two, to continue to keep it a secret."

"That's the very reason why I trust you, Matty."

"Because I know, that you can keep it quiet."


I shook my head, in the "Yes" position, to show him that I understood.


"Now, on to business." Marcus continued.


"Damn pop ups for porn sites!" He exclaimed out as he moved the mouse cursor over to the exit button of a dialog box that popped up on the screen, advertising a full subscription to Exotic Females Who Don't Know When to keep their Pants On.


"There, that's better." He said wistfully as he entered information into a dialog box which lead to information on the site that was unattainable to other users and only accessible to, the Head Master, of the site.


"It's called The Website."

"It has the ability to sustain life through HTML."


"This is the coding that you start off with." He said as he opened the program Notepad through Internet Explorer.


"You see the little guy, hidden in the HTML?" Marcus asked.


"Where it says, subliminal life input number?"


"His name is 493."


"He is the life that I am trying to protect, through HTML."

"493 is not just a hidden number, inserted into HTML, you remember that kid Viron that you hated so much for hitting on Vikki, that little girl that you had a crush on in the fifth grade, the one that died whenever he was only ten years old?"


"Yeah." I answered him.


"Viron is 493 now." My brother responded back.


"Wait a second!" I yelled, almost jumping off of my computer chair.

"You're telling me that the kid that hit on my long lost crush and nearly punched me in the face, is staring back at me now, through a computer?"


"Yep." Marcus answered me as he continued to stare at the series of characters, on the screen.

"His soul, and everything that he is made up of mentally, is now stored, into HTML coding."


"I was there, the day that he died."

"I was at his side, before he passed on."


"The day that he got hit by that car, I was in a store checking out some personal computer manuals when I saw him lying in the street, dying from the impact of the vehicle that hit him."

"I extracted his soul, using this." Marcus explained to me as he handed me a strange device with a USB connection, at the end of it.


"What is this?" I asked, holding the device, in my hand.


"It's called a Soul Extractor." He continued.


"It has the ability to extract a person's personality and everything that consists of them mentally, from their Medulla Oblongata, and then stores it, in file format."


"Unique, is it not?"


"I've been working on that, for two years now."


"My friend, Josh and I, were the ones that wrote the program for it."

"I worked on the project, in a computer lab in South Carolina the day that I was away for those two years, when I temporarily moved, to live with Janet, when she had asked me to leave with her."

"That, and I wanted to get away from West Virginia, for a little while."


"How does it work?" I asked.


"Here, I'll show you." Marcus said as he grabbed the device from my hand.

"You see this central center of energy?" He asked as he pointed to the blue sphere that seemed to be sticking its' way to the top of the device, like a groundhog, sticking its' head up from a hole in the ground.


"This sphere is called the Spheitricius Mergician."

"The central center of energy that can be seen within the sphere is its' core."


"It is the prime focus of energy that withdraws the soul from the mind and extracts the information in a life folder which can be found on its desktop, provided by the built in operating system that I had created myself, uploading it onto the hard drive, of the device."


"The Spheitricius Mergician is connected to two thin wires that reacts to the device like a main vein in a human arm. The energy that runs through the wires acts as an interface of activated life by processing a net series of two ventricles that contains a mass amount of protons and neutrons that react and coil around one another to keep the contents of the Spheitricius Mergician alive."

"When you insert the USB connection into a USB port, it withdraws the soul from the device and keeps it in a controlled source of central energy which can be found in the core of the Spheitricius Mergician which is surrounded by a series of fusion walls, consisted of those miniature micro chips, like the ones that you find on mother boards of desktop computers, which is attached to a miniature mother board of its own, placed at the bottom of the energy that is hidden within the fusion walls which runs through primed energy of protons and neutrons, contained in the net series of ventricles, stored below the Spheitricius Mergician."

"From the ventricles, it is then inserted into a series of inputted data when uploaded into a program that I have established called, Lif-off."

"Lif-off then reads the information of the life that it had received from the device and encrypts it as it unextracts it, then inserts the life into a numerical format, which is then embedded into HTML text, based on the codes that were inserted, using the original file format from which it was extracted from."

"The only problem is, is finding someone to watch over my work, when I'm gone with Janet."


"I figured, it'd be you, Matthew."


"Besides, it's not like I'm the only genius in the family, and you need something like this, especially with all the nerdy action that you have, displayed in your life."

"I'm sure Viron would appreciate it."


"I don't think that I want to protect the life of the person that hit on the girl that I wanted to be with and nearly punched me in the face." I admitted.

"But, it's not like he is with us, what harm can it do, right?"


"Well, actually, he is with us." Marcus continued.

"But, only in numerical form."


He told me that I didn't have to worry about anything and that I could go to our parent's house, where he was storing the box, to pick it up later, and had asked a favor from me.


"Matthew, protect the box."

"Guard it, with your life."

"Don't let mom know, that you have it."


His last words from this conversation formed on my lips as I had taken the last drag from my cigarette, then had applied pressure onto the butt as I had put out the burning fire from it, using the heel of my shoe as I had continued to flatten it onto the front porch, of my parent's house.


Talking about death wore me out so much that when I made it back to the campus, I fell directly to sleep.


"Ring, Ring!" the corded house phone started to ring in my dorm room.


"Coming!" I started to call out to myself, holding the towel up against my chest, as if the person on the other line, could hear me without picking up, the phone.

With an extended arm, I picked up the phone, losing half the towel with in my grip, and half of my butt, showing in the process.


"Hello?" I started to answer the person on the other end.

"Hello, Matthew?" The voice on the other end of the phone had asked.


It was Charissa.


"Yeah, its me."

"What's up Charissa?"


"Thank god, you answered!" Charissa exclaimed.

"Your brother is on the verge of dying."

"Come quickly!"


"The nurse at the front desk has a description of you, and will guide you where to go, when you come through, the glass entrance."

"5'10, mid length, dark brown hair, skin as white, as a Downy paper towel."

"Please Matt, hurry!"

The clicking sound of Charissa hanging up, followed by the sounds of a constant dial tone could be heard from the other end.


When I made it to the entrance of Fairview Hospital, the receptionist pointed the way out to me, just as Charissa said.


"Matthew!" Charissa exclaimed as she was standing near Marcus's hospital bed, as if finishing up a conversation with him.

She welcomed me with open arms, as I entered the room to see my brother lying down on his bed, with lit candles that seemed to of surrounded him from all corners of the room.


"Matty..." My brother managed to speak as he had lifted his hand to his mouth, trying to hold his breath as if he were about to hiccup, but instead, released a series, of coughing.

"Where were you?" he slowly managed to say, as he continued to cough.


"Hang in there buddy, I just got the message from Charissa today." I told him, trying my best to not discourage him, though he already was, because of his condition.


I tried to make it seem as though everything was fine, because I didn't want to worry him.

But, it was already too late for that, as he seemed to be passing on, to the other side.

In a febelish attempt, he explained that someone had hacked into the website that he had created and unextracted a demon onto the site, using similar coding to which head used when the site was published. He also explained that the demon had reached out from the screen and gave him a disease that brought him death.


"The force of the life that was unextracted, it seems as though it has its' own ways of surviving on my server. It is even capable of moving through the text and inserts new text without the use of a keyboard. It moves around on the screen, even takes control, of my mouse cursor."


"Every time I try to move the mouse, the mouse won't move on the screen."

"It reacts to my movements as if, I'm not there."

"And when, I tried to examine it, tried every code that I could think of to block it, to fight it off, using Notepad, I noticed that I had an effect on it."


"But, when I tried, it deleted my text."

"And it felt as though, it tried to grab for my soul, digitally."


"Matty." Marcus started to cry.


"I've never seen technology, this advanced before, in my life."

"It's as if, mankind has reached the era of technology fighting back on its' own!"


He started to cry, once more.


"Please man, don't cry." I tried to fight back my tears, as well, as I rushed my way over to hug him, to comfort him.


"No!" he cried out, placing a hand to stop me from coming over to his side of the bed.

"Please, don't!"


"You have no idea, the consequences that are rendered, if you get close to me."


"Charissa was near you." I stated.


"She wasn't near me enough, to touch me!" he cried out, in frustration.


"Okay man, whatever you say." I said.


Marcus sighed, and started to continue on, with his conversation, from before.


"I found out that the only way to defeat the demon and save 493 is by using the power of decimals."

"I protected 493 by surrounding him with decimals."

"It was then that the demon started to shift some of the coding in the HTML, trying to reach him."


"No way to stop them, the mouse and the keyboard became nothing more, than a mere pile of crap!" He started to scream and had become furious, while throwing a glass cup, that he found on the table that sat beside him, and threw it viciously, against the hospital window, in his room.

Surprisingly, it did no damage to the window, just to the cup, which had now lain in the room, as a pile, of broken glass.


"Sorry." he apologized as he tried to calm his nerves, and then had started to cough and sigh, once more.


"The demon grabbed ahold of me, it wouldn't let go, no matter how hard I fought."


"It even spoke to me, using the text that it used, on the screen."


"It told me that the life that I was protecting, was valuable to its' existence, and that if I continued to fight to protect it, it would harm me."


"I told it, that I wouldn't stop protecting the life, because my own life depended on it."


"It told me I wouldn't last in the Demon's Playground."

"I didn't know what it was talking about."

"Then, all of a sudden, it ripped through me, pierced through my skin, and it left these strange burn marks, which also seemed to be the reason why I felt this burning sensation as it touched me, using just its' fingertips."

"Before it left, it said that it gave me Plagmatic Leukemia."

"A little present from the Dark Lord, himself."


"And then, it vanished."


"It went back into the HTML, no doubt."


With Marcus's facial expression, grim, as one could imagine as he said this, I felt bad for my brother, knowing that he was going through the suffering of something that had been brought down upon him, by an unknown force of demonic energy, that had the capability of coming into our world, digitally.


As he withdrew a deep breath, he explained to Charissa and I, that he had received the candles from Janet, whom came to the hospital, moments prior to Charissa arriving, gazing down at the only man that she had brought herself to show passion for, for she had never wanted, to be with anyone else.

A wiccan at heart and soul, she was able to connect with the spiritual forces of Earth, a similar ability to felines that are capable of sensing auras that human eyes are incapable of witnessing.


"She loves me so much."

"She said that she couldn't bare to watch me die."

"That's why, she's not here now."


"She barely had the strength to talk to me on the phone, moments prior to Charissa arriving, at the hospital."

"I knew that I didn't have long."

"That's why I told Charissa to call you, so that I could see my little brother one last time, before I died."


He started to cry and sigh once more.

As he continued to cry, a strange coldness washed over both Charissa and I, blowing the candle light out.


In result to this, Marcus had now lain motionless, lifeless on the hospital bed, from which he was lying on.

The monitor near his bed to show results of his heartbeat, went from a constant leap of life, to a slow, steady, straight line, with a constant beeping sound, to show that the patient, was pronounced dead.


"No!" Charissa cried, as she slammed her fists, on the hospital bed.

"It can't be."

"He's dead."


She started to cry once more, a fountain of tears, falling from the corners of her whites, which was the reason why her mascara that she wore underneath her eyes, started to smear.

I rested her head on my shoulder, as I rested my head against her head.


"Please Matt." Charissa pleaded.

"Can we just go back, to the campus?"


As we made our way into the hallway, a nurse came by us and asked if everything was okay. I told her that my brother was dead and she apoligized for my loss as she went to warn Dr. Zotski to assign the patient to the morgue.


"So, what do you think is the cause of that cold gust of wind that brushed over us, in the room?" Charissa asked, as we stood outside near my car, in the parking lot.

"I don't know." I admitted as I inserted my main car key into the lock of the driver's door, and lifted up on the handle, to unlock it.

"It could have something to do with this voice that I heard, when I was at my parent's house, yesterday."


"A voice?" Charissa asked, as I reached over the front console, to unlock and pulled on the handle to the side, on the passenger door.


"What kind of voice?"


"I'm not sure." I admitted, once more.


"My mother heard it, too."

"She thought that I was the one, that said something."


"What did you say?" Charissa asked.


"Nothing." I responded back.


"I told her that I said, nothing."

"But obviously, it wasn't nothing."

"Because, I heard it too."


"Don't pressure yourself, too hard." Charissa said, as she sat next to me, in the passenger seat of the car, and closed the car door.

"We're going to figure this out, together."

After we had left the hospital, we went to go grab some food then went back to the campus.

"Well, here we are." I said as we made it to my dorm room.

"Now all that is left to do, is to examine this demon that Marcus was talking about."


"Imagine." Charissa said, as we stepped into my room.

"A demon, encrypted, inside of HTML text."


"Why all of a sudden do I feel as though I'm stuck inside of a B rated, horror movie?"


"Come on, Charissa." I said.


"Can't help it." Charissa said.

"I have the jitters right now, this is making me feel nervous."


"Well, don't be." I told her.

"Our survival depends on us, being successful."


"If we can't beat this thing at its' own game, how are we supposed to make it through this?"


"Your right." Charissa said, sitting on the chair, next to the computer.

"I'll just sit here and eat away at these sugar doughnuts."


As Charissa sat patiently eating, I looked through some of my brother's books that he had inside of the box.


The first book that had caught my attention was entitled, "A Thousand And One Codes For Creating Websites."

On the cover of the book, was a large pentagram that was drawn, using a sharpie marker, and underneath it, a page number from the textbook was written, page 241, and the words, "Visit this page, if you want to know the secret."

Underneath that, was a name.


Josh Rhelian.


"Josh Rhelian." I read aloud.


"Josh Rhelian?" Charissa asked.


"Isn't that Marcus's, friend's name?"


"Yes." I answered her.

"I didn't want to make this accusation, but I think Josh was responsible for that demon."


"It had to of been him."


"He was the only other person that knew about Marcus's website, besides me." I said.


"Why would he do that, to his own friend?" Charissa asked.


"Maybe, for revenge." I assumed.


As I had explained to Charissa about the situation about Josh's feelings for Brittany, and how Marcus was involved, I told her about the time that Josh started to felt jealous about Marcus associating with her as he had taken her to the movies, as friends.

Josh was upset about the event taking place, but didn't want Marcus to find out that he was mild tempered about the situation, as he kept his cool around his best friend's presence, keeping it low profile.

I also told her that Josh was talking about getting his revenge on Marcus for what had happened. When I found out what was going on, I explained to Marcus what Josh had said, when he was not in Marcus's presence.

Marcus and I waited for the day that Josh would pay back his respects, but it never occurred to us, that he would be willing to use Marcus's own pride and joy, against him.


"Still, to fight over a girl." Charissa said.

"There's no reason for this fusion."


"It doesn't matter." I explained to Charissa.

"Love makes you do, the most craziest things."


"Even if it meant, knocking your best friend, out of the picture."

"Take all the credit."


"Make yourself look like the hero."


When I explained to Charissa about the situation between Marcus and Josh, I had become anxious to learn Josh's secret, so, I grabbed the book, off of the floor, turning it to page 241.


When I flipped through the pages, to the marked page, I noticed that the page had been torn from the book, and what replaced it, was a sheet of printer paper.

On the sheet of paper, was the words, It will extract your soul, over and over again, and underneath it, in small print, it read:

To block from what was and all shall be, the wise one will divide the life, from the decimal one, as he or she will find, a prime one.


"Crapola!" I cried out, as I had finished reading, the small print.


"Apparently, not only do we use decimal numbers, we also have to fight the demon, using a prime number."


"All in a day's work, eh, Mr. Calculator?" Charissa giggled, as she continued to eat the sugar doughnuts.


"Hold on, I'm going to go grab some milk."

"Keep reading."


"I don't think there is anything else to read." I said to Charissa, as she was grabbing the half gallon of milk, that I had, in the refrigerator.

"Except for this strange gibberish, written on the back of this sheet of paper."


"What does it say?" Charissa asked.


"If you cannot face the one behind the screen, your image of life, will become alternated, by the online world." I told her, as I read the sentence, that was printed, on the back side, of the paper.


"Alternated?" Charissa asked.


"So what your telling me is, is that if we can't defeat this monstrosity, we're going to be in an online world, that comes to life?"


"Live emoticons, captured text, the whole nine yards." I replied back, as I had taken a seat, at the computer.


"Our only chances of making sure that doesn't happen is making sure that the demon can't come into contact, with Viron, or we're going to become another one of its' pawns."


"That's not going to happen!" Charissa hissed, as she sat beside me, and slammed her cup of milk down, on the computer desk, the milk swishing back and forth, as if to spill.


"If it's war that thing wants, it's war, it shall receive!"


"Alright then." I said back, double clicking on the Internet Explorer icon, on my desktop.


"Let's get to work."


As I typed the website's uniform resource locator, into the address bar, I felt the tension of determination, burning in Charissa's eyes, as she sat next to me.

Through tension, overwhelming, as it was, we were both determined, to make it through the night.


"Here we are." I said, as we watched the green loading bar make it to the end of the box, as the page loaded:


"The Website."


As the page loaded, the computer screen had turned from a bright white, to a dimmed grey, as if serving as a way to overwhelm us, thus, allow us to view the contents on the page.


"My name is Marcus Grahams, and welcome to my site! Here, you can find a large quantity of items that I am selling, as well as a doorway, to another dimension!" The opening of the site had greeted us, as Charissa and I visited the homepage.


The lights in my dorm room started to flicker, when I started to scroll down the site, as the scroll bar changed from its' standard blue, to a neon black, with silver lining.

It was when I had made it to the comment section of the site, when I noticed something, hiding behind a dialog box.


"What was that?" Charissa asked, frightened by the sight of the image.


"I don't know." I said, staring at the moving shade of black, making its' way across the screen.

"It must be the demon that Marcus was talking about."


I right clicked on the page, and moved the mouse cursor down to the View Source option, to open Notepad.


When the program Notepad was opened, it showed similar coding to that of Marus's HTML coding.


With the exception, of the additional row of coding, that was added into the HTML, with the numbers five, eight, three, and twelve, surrounding 493, like Marcus said, before he died.


"It's like you said, life encoded into HTML." Charissa said, motioning to the formulas, often used for neutrons and protons, hidden inside of the coding.


"Poor kid, trapped inside of coding, used to create websites."


"His numbers will run poor, if that demon gets near him." I said, creating a new wall of coding, using Marcus's HTML reference guide.

"If I'm doing this correctly, I should be able to merge my coding, with his."


"You think it will work?" Charissa asked.


"Only one way to find out." I replied back.


"There he is!" Charissa exclaimed, motioning to the strange coding, forming inside of the text document.


When the demon's coding had started to move from the blank spaces in the bottom half region, of the text document, making its' way up, towards mine, I made my final move.

I had merged his coding, with mine.


"There, I did it!" I exclaimed, relieved.

"I made my coding, meet, with its' HTML!"


As Charissa and I were excited by the success I had made, we watched as the coding, that the demon was consisted of, fight its way through the embedded text, confused at first, as it had made its' way through the new set of characters. But then, it seemed as though it had learned what I had accomplished, seeing that it was no longer in the original coding that was used to create the site, it started to delete the text that I had previously entered.


"It's deleting my coding!" I cried out, watching a string of codes that I had typed up, disappear, off of the screen.


In a frantic cry of help, I started to type in decimal numbers as fast as I could, surrounding the demon, to hold it, in its' place.


"That should hold him." I said, typing in the last row of decimal numbers that surrounded the demon.


The demon had become frustrated, as it tried to break through the numbers that had been inputted, on both sides, of its' coding. When the demon realized that it wasn't able to, it disappeared, and an empty gap, in between the numbers, is what replaced it.


"Wait, where did it go?" Charissa said, disappointed, as she examined the gap.


"There!" I cried out, noticing that the demon was now forging its' way through Marcus's coding, once again.


"I see what it's doing, it's trying to tamper with me."

"It's thinking, if I would somehow, accidentally, delete the numbers, surrounding 493, it'd make its' move."


"Well, that isn't going to fly with me."


"Charissa, hand me my calculator, it's on top, of my dresser."


"Okay." Charissa said, walking to my dresser, to grab the calculator, and handed it to me.

I had entered in a decimal number into Marcus's HTML as the demon had made an attempt to delete some of the text. During this attack, the demon had made it to where I was incapable of blocking it, as it forged its' way inside of the coding, deciphering codes that it had received, spiritually, from its' dark master, on the other side of the online world.

A world that the demons referred to as, The Demon's Playground, festering with demons from another dimension, trying desperately to make their way into our world.

"Looks like its' still trying to trick you." Charissa assumed, dipping a sugar doughnut, into her cup of milk.


"What are you thinking, Matt?"


I told her that I was trying to find a way to block the demon, as I was trying to find a series of numbers that I had received from the calculator display, while punching in a series of equations that I could use as a prime weapon, through the HTML, as the demon had fought its' way through the embedded text of the program.

I reached for a piece of paper that I had near my mouse, and started to write down, each of the answers that I received from the solved equations, on the calculator. Then I entered the numbers that I was given, into the embedded HTML.


The demon, however, managed to shift the numbers in a different numerical order, than I had previously entered them.


Then, the demon started to talk to us, through the text.

"It seems as though you are not going to give up, without a fight." the demon said, through the text.


"I have an idea."


"Why not play me, in a game of Numerical Arrangement?"


"If you win, I delete myself, from the site."

"If I win, you give me 493, as I turn your world, into deathly chaos."


"Do you agree to these terms?" it asked.


"What kind of terms is that?" Charissa stammered.


"Matty, your not actually going to take up his offer, are you?"


"What other choice do we have?" I responded back, as I had typed my answer into Notepad.


"Yes." I typed in.


"Then, let the game begin." it said.


"The first part of the game begins with a series of letters, with numbers hidden inside of the text." the demon stated as it typed random characters, in the text document.

"Your job begins with not only finding the numbers within the text in an alotted time, but you must seek out the arrangement of the numbers and complete the task, before I delete them."


"Begin."


"Two, five, two, eight, three, seven, and four." Charissa said, reading off the numbers, hidden inside of the text.


"This seems too easy, there is something else to it." I said.

"I think he wants us to not only find the arrangement of the numbers, but to find the numbers that can be considered as a prime number." I stated.

"Why else would he put two in, twice?"


"Two, four, eight." I typed in.


"Very good." the demon said.


"You learned my secret."


"But I'm afraid, I lied."


"Did you think it would be that easy?"


As it said this, all of the lights in the dorm, turned off.


The only thing that had power running through it was the computer.


We watched in horror as the black image, of the demon, had emerged from the screen, its' hands, reaching out of the monitor, as they were clutched to both sides of the screen, releasing HTML coding, from its' fingertips!


"It's happening." I said, staring at the text, coming out of the screen.


"The captured text!"


"GIVE ME 493, or suffer the same fate, as your brother." it said in Arial Black, bold text.


"Charissa, I think our only chance to survive now, is to run!" I called out to her.


"Good idea!" Charissa called back.


We made a run for it, as I unlocked the door to my dorm, making our way out of the dorm room.

When we made it into the hallway we noticed that some of the dorm room doors and floor was eatened through as we made our way into my friend Manny's dorm room, and found out that Manny was dead and live emoticons were eating their way through his computer desk.


"The demon must of been able to connect with the other servers in the other rooms, the same time I went onto the site, in my room."

When Charissa and I glanced down at the computer desk, there was black gaping holes, and amongst these holes, were miniature emoticons, eating away at the wood, leaving saw dust behind them, as their small mouths and sharp teeth, were enough to make their away, through the desk.

The live emoticons were described as digital termites that were sent from the dark world, that the dark forces of life were able to bring to life and send them, into our world. And one thing they enjoyed, more than anything, was serving their master, as they ate away at computer desks, laughing at the sight of people's computer accessories, fall to the floor.

And that's what they started to do, as they continued to eat away at the computer desk, till it was incapable of balancing the weight that was holding Manny's computer monitor, mouse, and keyboard.

His computer desk was not able to support his computer components, and they had fallen to the floor, as the emoticons continued to eat away at the desk.


"I swear man, I'll take care of this." I said, patting Manny's corpse on the back, as we made our way, into the hallway.


"Let me guess, attack of the pop up ads, and digital animations is next!" Charissa cried out in frustration by the situation, started to pull away at her long, black hair, making scratching noises, with the tips of her high heels, as they had rubbed across the rigid floor that remained.


When we got back inside of my room, the text on the walls were gone, and the keyboard, for my computer, had a red aura, surrounding the three dimensional object, as it was floating in mid air.

And, as I made my way to the keyboard, it drifted, in my hands, across the room, amongst the air.


"The keyboard is key." I said, holding the keyboard.


"Give up?" the demon asked.

"Running away from captured text, how pathetic."


"That's not the only thing we ran from." Charissa cried, while hiding behind me.


"The girl has a mouth on her, does she not?" the demon asked.


"Matty, do us a favor."

"Knock her out, using the keyboard."


"I will do no such thing." I said, angrily, gripping the keyboard in my hands.


"The only one getting knocked out, is you!"


"Wait, what are you doing?" the demon asked, as though it was frightened.


"Deleting you, completely." I said, as I right clicked on the Windows main accessory bar, at the bottom of the screen, to open Task Manager.


As I made my way down Task Manager, I noticed that the demon, was a program itself, as I noticed a similar name on the program, that matched with that of the coding it used on the site.

I left clicked on it, and clicked on, End Task.

And when Windows asked me if I was sure about ending the program, I moved my mouse cursor, to the "Yes" option.


"You'll regret this!" the demon said, as it disappeared.


Program terminated.

Charissa and I felt as though were terminated as well, falling into REM sleep.


When we woke up the next morning, we felt as though a storm had taken over our minds, as we were duct taped to a dining room table chair, with ropes, piercing through our skin, making it rash, as we struggled to break through the rope.

And standing before us, with a smile on his face, as he stared into our eyes, was Josh Rhelian.