Six o'clock in the morning and nine degrees centigrade, or so the Bureau of Meteorology told me. I did what anyone would do. I turned on my portable heater and sat by my computer with a nice cup of tea. I wasted a great deal of my time on community wikis, youtube and gmail. A while passed. I could waste an entire day on the computer and no sooner am I granted the opportunity, I seize it. I looked at the small clock in the corner of my desktop. It was most peculiar - 6:66 AM. I took my pewter pocket watch from my school blazer and pressed the top button. The front flipped open, revealing the clock face. I mumbled, "Uh. 6 minutes past 7. Looks like I should update my computer software, must be some glitch."
My screen suddenly took on a red tint. It was quite ugly, really, but I thought nothing of it. My computer was two years old and it's about the time when laptops start acting up. Then again, my stack of old laptops still works without any problems. I guess computers were better designed back then. I wondered where it was made so I turned it upside down and read the label at the bottom. "Made in Hades," it read. I knew a few things about Greek mythology. I knew that Hades referred not only to the deity, but also to the location, more specifically, the underworld. So this computer was made in hell by the un-dead. Either that, or it was made by some very lazy machines that would rather be dead than making a computer.
Well, what does it matter? A computer is a computer. I reckon it's just tired of following my approximate command and wants to do its own thing. Her own thing, I should say. Anyway, all of that is beside the point. I turned on my mobile, hoping to Google the solution. The familiar Nokia symbol greeted me on start up and then the four skewed rectangles of the Windows logo. "Eh," I groaned, "this will take too long." I placed my phone back on my desk and focused my attention on the computer screen. I like computers but they can be really annoying sometimes. My browser launched itself and opened to youtube. The video claimed to last six minutes and sixty-six seconds but was actually quite short. Before my eyes, a man sacrificed a goat and drew a pentagram with its entrails. I'm not into shock videos but years of playing Doom has de-sensitised me to this rubbish. The video suddenly stopped and the computer screen went blank. Now I was scared. What if my computer was ruined? I couldn't live on my mobile. I don't see how anyone can.
Fortunately, the screen flashed back on but was still red. The rather plain desktop wallpaper was replaced with a rather tasteless pentagram. An animated red goat screamed at me from the corner of my screen. Like Clippy from Word but less annoying. He screamed in tongues or maybe it was just foreign. He laughed at me. I took off my headphones and just placed them on the desk. I could hear a bit of his babbling but not much. I clicked on the 'e' shape in my browser tray. It displayed a message "Error 666: Access blocked by dark forces. Try praying and hitting refresh."
"Bah," I scoffed, "nice try." I opened the control panel and searched through my settings. With a heavy heart, I opened the 'Reinstall Windows' page.
"Wait!" The goat said, "What are you doing with that system restore?"
The prompt appeared, 'This will erase your hard drive and reinstall Windows. Are you sure you want to proceed?'
I hovered my mouse over 'yes' but chickened out. I examined an icon on my desk. "Hmmm... ... ... hold on, I don't remember this... "
I selected the icon.
"No, don't do it!" The goat shouted.
I grinned wickedly, or so I think. I pressed delete and a prompt appeared, yes or no.
"Give me control of your computer!"
Not wishing to wake anyone, I whispered into the microphone, "Come and get it!" I triumphantly mashed the enter key and a status bar told me of the progress.
The goat's screams became less and less noticeable as the bar progressed.
I knew who was to blame... Alex. That bugger loves messing with my computer. He's going to get it tomorrow. Nobody messes with my computer without eating wood, I mean, getting a smack. My phone started to buzz. I looked at it. I was getting a call from a mister A. Christ. Phone number 666.
"Hello!" The phone barked in a gruff, slightly American accent, "I hear you are having computer troubles. Go online to hades. and download the patch... it totally won't give me control of your computer."
"Meh, nah, it's fine," I dismissed him.
He shouted, "Foolish mortal! I will devour your silicon flesh and steal your computer's soul."
"Wrong number?" I hung up on him.
I'm starting to get really tired of these hackers. Hold on a minute... Hades? It must have been someone from the Ancient History department. I guess failing every exam may make you a bit grumpy. I decided to look up hades. on my Linux computer, you know, the one that can't get viruses.
Welcome to Hades, a non-prophet organisation. YOU SHALL SUFFER FOR YOUR SINS AND BURN FOR ETERNITY. YOU WILL BE A CONDEMNED SOUL... blah, blah and blahkow.
Long story short, I called some mates and we shut down their $1 a month servers. You get what you pay for.