The file was called NORAH_OBSESSION_FINAL_CUT.mp4.

I found it on a drive that I bought at an auction. It was hidden away in a part of the drive that people usually forget about this file was not stored on any server.

It was like a ghost that would not go away even when I tried to delete it.

When I played the file the video player started to malfunction. The picture on the screen became distorted and stretched out.

The scene showed the Miller house. It did not look right. The warm and cozy colors were gone, replaced by an harsh blue light. It made the living room look like a hospital operating room. Norah was sitting on the couch staring at the space where her friend Ginny usually sat.

She was not just looking at the space she was watching something that was not there and the sound coming from the video was a humming noise.

It was so low that it made a glass of water on my desk start to shake and eventually crack, on the screen, Norah started talking to the air. She said, “You think our friendship is real Ginny? It is not. It is an arrangement.

I have seen the way you breathe. I have counted how times you blink when Georgia tells a lie. You are not a person anymore. You are a part of my collection Norah said.

As Norah spoke the camera zoomed in on her eyes. The video quality became poor. Pixelated, but her eyes remained very clear. They were not brown like they should be. They were like the eyes of a dragonfly showing small images of the room.

In each of these images a different version of Ginny was being taken apart. Some were tied to chairs and others were just fading away into dust as their bodies were replaced by lines of code.

Then Norah’s obsession became real. She reached into the couch cushions. Pulled out a lock of hair. It was not her hair but Ginny’s hair and It was braided.

Norah started to weave the hair into her hair. Her fingers were moving fast in a way that did not seem human. Her joints were making a sound, like the sound of dry wood snapping.

The scene changed to a series of images like a dream and there was a picture of Norah standing outside Ginny’s bedroom window at 3:00 AM. Her face was pressed against the glass and her skin was turning red as a tomato.

There was a picture of a notebook filled with thousands of lines of the sentence: “I am the reflection that replaced her” Norah wrote and there was a picture of Norah eating but she wasn’t eating at all.

She was eating photos of Ginny and her jaw was opening wide and her throat was expanding like a snake or a wild animal.

The sound of a heartbeat came back irregular and it was like the sound of a heart that was failing weakly.

Norah walked towards the camera, as she was walking to the walls of the Miller house started to peel away like skin that is burned by the sun.

Under the walls there were layers of muscle and veins, the house was alive and it was feeding Norah’s obsession.

The audio said, “I do not want to be your friend, Ginny. I want to wear your skin and I want to have thoughts as you have when you’re alone Norah said.

Norah reached out to touch the camera lens. The screen went to black for 1 minute.

1995 commercial

Then the 1995 Japanese McDonald’s commercial played but it was silence, then the image was of Norah sitting still in a room showed on screen.

The time in the corner of the screen started to count up into the thousands. On her forehead a small slit opened, it looked like an eye staring at me through the screen.

I tried to turn off the monitor however, my reflection on the dark screen was not me. It was Norah.

She was sitting in my chair with her hand on my shoulder. Her fingers were cold. She was whispering in my ear “Do not look away. You are the one in my collection Norah said.

I am writing this with the lights on. A blanket covering the screen.

I can still hear the sound of Norah’s teeth chattering against the back of my neck, which scared me.

What do you think is the disturbing thing, about an obsession that goes beyond the digital world?