"What?"

Max stared at the words on the screen in disbelief.

He wasn't actually expecting anything when he clicked on the 'How To' button.

In fact, he sort of regretted it after he pressed it.

He forgot that he had no idea what this mysterious browser window was.

What if it was the police or the government spying on what their citizens were up to?

What if this was all a set-up?

What if it was one of those 'What would you do?' videos he saw on YouTube?

He shook his head after thinking about it for a few minutes longer.

'There's no way anyone would go to such lengths just to prank someone.'

'Plus, it's not as if I committed a crime.'

Max felt significantly better after reading through the texts several times.

His anger had been replaced by amusement.

'Damage is already done, might as well keep going.'

Max thought upon reading what he wrote in the search bar.

'So, if it's anything like Final Destination, then a chain of events should lead to her death?'

'No... death is a luxury. That b*tch deserves to suffer for the rest of her life.'

He thought and started changing the words in the search bar.

[How to cripple Sarah Davies without leaving evidence]

[ > 3835 results returned]

Max chuckled as he read through several of them.

Some were for specific days and required hundreds of steps to be completed, while others required only a few lines of text.

"Whoever made this has far too much spare time."

He sifted through the results until he came across one that piqued his interest.

[ > On August 27, 2023, at exactly 11:35:23 AM, place a tennis ball that weighs 56.0-59.4 grams and has a diameter of 2.57–2.70 inches on the park bench at the entrance of King Edward Park, Carlton Road. This will set off a chain of events that will result in Sarah Davies' being paralysed from the waist down.]

'Huh? This is identical to the la—'

"...The time is different?"

'It's only a second difference, but is that second really significant enough to distinguish death from fatal injury?'

Max pondered as he returned his gaze to the lines of text.

The dimensions mentioned appeared to be the standard size for a professional tennis ball.

"August 27th... that's tomorrow."

'But do I really want to waste money on a tennis ball?'

'It's not like it'll work, but picking up a sport doesn't sound bad.'

"...I'll leave that up to the future me."

"Anyway how do I close this..."

Max grumbled as he discovered that even holding down the power button did not close the browser.

After several minutes of attempting various methods to shut down his laptop, he noticed faint flashes coming from the USB drive.

It was hard to spot if not paying attention, but on closer inspection he could see small flashes of light, similar to stars in the night sky.

He removed the USB drive from the port to investigate further.

In order to avoid corrupting a drive, he would normally eject it before removing it from its port.

His entire screen, however, was filled with a search engine similar to Google Chrome, and he had no access to other features, including the task bar.

When he removed the USB drive from the port, his screen returned to the state it was in when he opened file explorer.

He couldn't see the flashing lights on the USB drive any longer. Instead, it reverted to its original state of transparency.

Looking back and forth between the drive and the laptop, he deduced that the problem had to be related.

He plugged in the USB drive again because it didn't appear that his laptop had been damaged.

When he opened file explorer again, he saw the drive with the image of a transparent world.

This time, however, he focused his attention on the drive's name and capacity.

He couldn't make out the name as it was in strange symbols. He had no idea if it was a language at all.

As for the capacity, nothing was displayed.

Not feeling discouraged, he moved the cursor over the drive icon and right-clicked to select Properties.

He could see from the general tab that the drive's capacity was listed as 0 GB.

Max spent the next few minutes attempting to access the drive's contents.

Alas, no method seemed to be working for him.

He couldn't even enter the directory from disk management or the command prompt because he couldn't copy the drive's name.

"What the actual f*ck."

Max said grumpily as he stared at the USB drive which was once again exhibiting flashes of light like stars in the night sky.

He gave up temporarily and double-clicked on the drive icon.

He was once again presented with a search engine that resembled Google Chrome.

Max stared at the USB drive as he slowly unplugged it from his laptop to put his theory to the test.

And as if to prove there was a clear correlation between the search engine and the USB drive, the laptop returned to its normal state, and the flashing lights on the drive vanished.

'I guess I'm not going to get any answers for this anytime soon.'

'Maybe I should get one of the lab technicians to look into it...'

Max thought as he stared at the transparent USB drive wedged between his thumb and index finger.

"As for the search results..."

'Does it track my location? Or is it entirely random?'

'King Edward Park... that's not very far from where I usually jog I think?'

Max looked up the distance between the two locations and discovered that they were only 10 minutes apart by foot.

"Coincidence?"

Recalling several of the search results he had read, the descriptions were very informative.

Some search results even listed the number of steps required to reach a destination.

"...This is ridiculous."

"To think that I entertained the idea that this could be real for even a second."

"Am I that gullible?"

Max questioned himself as he reflected on everything that had happened since obtaining the USB drive.

He decided to put down the USB drive and focus on his work.

After all, Max did not believe in superstitions.

"...But"

"...What in the off chance that what it says is real?"