Then he found it.

Then a voice, low and static-crackled, came from Alex’s laptop speakers: “Installation complete. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

A tiny, forgotten forum post from 2018. The page was grey, the font was Comic Sans, and the user was named “ShadowReaper_666.” The post read: “Here. Hello Neighbor. Win7. Compressed to 47MB. Works perfect. No virus. Trust me.”

Alex knew better. He really did. But the summer heat was melting his boredom, and his friends were already playing Act 3. He clicked the link.