And in the sudden, absolute silence of the kitchen, I finally felt fine. No more morning blues. No more errors. Just a clean, empty slate where my mind used to be. The diagnostic hadn't fixed the computer. It had fixed me .

58% complete… Unallocated space. Event “august_3_2019” – location not found. 89% complete… Rootkit detected. Signature: “grief_cycle_v2.” Attempting quarantine.

I tried to scream, but my mouth wouldn’t move. I couldn’t blink. I was no longer looking at the screen; the screen was looking through me. The final percentage ticked up.

My mouse was frozen. The keyboard was dark. I only had one computer. I lived alone.

The green cursor blinked one last time. Then the laptop’s screen went black for real. The fans spun down. The power light died.