His router began to whine, a high-pitched frequency that made his teeth ache. The status light on his modem, usually a steady blink, was now a solid, angry blur of green.

The monitor did not go dark. The router continued to whine. The flood of C's reached his feet, cold and buzzing with static electricity.

Liam opened his downloads folder. The file was there. It had no icon, just a blank white sheet. He right-clicked and checked the properties. The size on disk was now listed as "Unknown".

Liam ran to the wall and ripped the power cord for his desk setup out of the socket.