"Look to your left. That object now carries your soul and you must protect it at all costs."

The words glowed on the otherwise blank screen.

Previously - about a few minutes ago - you were a regular just-graduated-from-university adult. You had just finished another chapter of the webcomic you've been working on, uploaded them, and have been waiting for the comments to stack up. While you were waiting, you decided to surf the net. You accidentally clicked on some random pop-up and took you to some Wicca site.

Letting your curiosity get the better of you, you had let yourself explore the web page. Who knows? You've been itching to try out the Fantasy genre for another story, this could make great research!

You scrolled over the quizzes - What element are you, are you Light or Dark, what's your dominant chakra - then stopped at the bottom. The last and most recent one was titled 'What adventure will you get?'

Clicking on the page of your webcomic site and seeing no new comments, you try out the quiz. There were some typical questions, such as 'what's your favourite colour', to ones you've never read before, like 'what is your belief on Sanity?'. After a few minutes of answering the hundred and ten questions, you click the final button and wait for the page with your result to show up.

Instead, you get small text of words on a digital scroll. You look around the screen for the 'Get Results' button, but it's nowhere to be seen. Over the scroll the words 'Read to get results' flashes.

Well... Okay...

You read the words outloud. Not too hard, since it's in your native language instead of Latin, but it sounded more like a riddle or a poem then a result.

Then things got weird:

You read the result out loud, about your soul now being sealed inside an object to your left. You glance to your left to see your tablet and pen. The words repeated in your mind, leaving a chill down your spine, your body temperature dropping for a second before returning to normal.

What a weird result. Though, should you have expected anything else from a magic site?

But the question the left you staring at your table and pen, not moving an inch was 'Was it real?'

You picked up you tablet and pen, instantly having a sensation pass through you. It was hard to describe, almost like ghost hands were resting over you. You put them both down and the feeling disappears.

No. No, no, no no no no. This... It can't be real. This was done on the INTERNET for crying out loud! Shouldn't these things only work face to face?

...

No. Not real. Just... Paranoia from the quiz. Yeah, that's totally it! In fact, you could just break your tablet right here and now... Except that it's a good working tablet, and you really don't want to throw out an expensive and necessary piece of equipment.

... What if you just... Like, tapped it? Not enough to cause any damage, but to see what you'll feel. You picked up the pen - feeling those ghost hands hovering over you once again - and tapped it on the table. Nothing. You dropped it on the apartment's hardwood floor.

The minute the pen hit the wood... SOMETHING zapped through you. Jeez, it was like... Touching static electricity or something close to that. This electricity bounced all over your body, not hurting but still causing you to flinch.

Oh dear...

You move your chair and bend down to retrieve the pen, biting your lip as you look it over. You hold it over the tablet and watched as the mouse moved around the screen. Good, it wasn't broken. Still... What did this mean, exactly? Could this be good or bad? Did it make you immortal in some way, so long as you keep your tablet and pen safe? What happens if the tablet breaks down? Will you die then?

Suddenly, you're feeling a bit light-headed. Maybe some sleep would get you feeling better. Help you think better in the morning. Maybe. Before you exit out of the site, you save the page. This quiz is real suspicious and you want to look a little more closely into what you have just gotten yourself into.

~~~

This one I based off of a sentence prompt, that sentence being the first one in this story. I actually chose the tablet because that really was the first object to my left and just went on from there. It didn't make my 1000 word goal, sadly, but I love this type of idea.

Critiques are appreciated - Monos DOA