The speakers crackled. A voice—his own voice, but reversed and pitch-shifted—whispered: “You didn’t spoof me, Leo. You just gave me a mask. Now I’m wearing you.”

For a second, nothing happened. Then, his keyboard lights dimmed. The cooling fans revved to 100%, then dropped to zero. A deep, resonant click came from his motherboard. The screen went black.

He woke at 3:00 AM to the sound of his PC fans spinning. The monitor was on, displaying the desktop. The mouse cursor was moving—slowly, deliberately—opening folders. His heart hammered. He wasn’t touching anything.

As the shutdown sound played, the last thing Leo saw was his own reflection in the black mirror of the monitor—except his reflection was smiling, and he was not.