Try again later.

Try again later.

Try again later.

Try again later.

Try again later.

Lorene was getting tired of this. Her fingers clicked on her mousepad repetitively, annoyed at the 6 words that showed up on the screen.

No Internet Connection. Try again later.

“OK then, how do you get the connection to DISPLAY THE WORDS ON THE SCREEN????” she said, disgruntled at the situation that she had found herself in.

Currently, she was missing out on a really important online meeting with her professor, one which could affect her score. It was 6:12 p.m. Her meeting was supposed to start 12 minutes ago.

Her professor, Professor Marckom, wasn’t any kind either. He was the ‘no excuses’ type of teacher, who seemed more fit to be in the barracks.

Suddenly, a new message popped up.

No Internet Connection. Would you like to enter the meeting anyway?

Lorene had never seen a message like that before. Was it a glitch or was she just imagining it in all of her desperation? Her cursor hovered over the last sentence, and she realised it was a clickable link. 

“What would be the harm in trying?” she thought, and within a second after she clicked, she was let into the meeting. “Bin-go!” she exclaimed. Lorene unmuted herself and started to explain to her professor why she was late and all he said was “Okay.”

Weird, that was not his usual response. Something just doesn’t feel right. 

The professor’s camera was on, but it’s so awfully dark, you couldn’t see anything except for the lower half of his body. Lorene squinted and made his screen bigger, to figure out why this occurrence felt so unsettling to her.

That was when she saw the photo.

The photo that was pinned behind him, on the corkboard.

It was the professor’s head in a hideous state, like someone murdered him out of a rage.

Lorene was holding her breath, but she had to know.

“Professor, are you okay?” she asked.

“Yes,” the lips in front of her moved and asked, “Are you okay, Lorene?”

The person in front of the camera came closer so that she could see their body’s upper half too.

There it was, the professor with his head smashed in with pieces of his brain hanging off the right side of his head. His eyes were now white, and he had a skewered jaw hanging loose, but you could tell that he was indeed smiling.

His smile slowly curled at its ends, twisting into a scowl.

“Why did you do it? WHY? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO YOU?” he started screaming, screaming so acutely, that Lorene’s ears started ringing.

Lorene quickly hung up the call in a reflex.

She was heaving, she didn’t understand what she had just seen. It was one of those things that can never be explained or forgotten. It could only die with you.

That night, Lorene couldn’t close her eyes. She only saw her professor’s broken and twisted face. What did he mean when he asked her those questions? What did she do? She cried silently, wrecked with guilt and terror that she could be the reason. She could be the reason the professor was dead. Was he dead? She was too exhausted to think any further and slowly drifted to sleep.

The next day, Lorene left for her university with fresh new hope that everything she saw yesterday was just her imagination driving her crazy. All is well. Until, it wasn’t.

Police surrounded the campus, yellow tape cordoning off the science department and students around her whispering. Lorene could luckily spot her friend in the midst of the crowd. 

“Oh god, did you hear what happened?” her friend asked, her eyebrows furrowing and terror written all over her face. Lorene swallowed her saliva, trying to dislodge her tightening throat, “What?”

“Professor Marckom is dead! Apparently, a few kids in our department smashed his head in, like they really messed up his face. They took pictures of his dead body and- and- “

“Pinned them on the corkboard.” Lorene finished her sentence.

“Yeah, so you do know! Those people said they did that because they hated how strict the Professor was. I mean that’s just insane. We both shit-talked the professor, sure but Jesus, killing him? He was just doing his job!” Lorene’s friend was going off in a rant and all Lorene did was nod to her every word. Lorene didn’t listen to what she was saying, no she couldn’t.

All she could hear was her professor screaming, “What have I done to you?”