FBI

(gender of your choice for convenience, describe yourself) The evening was quiet and cozy. I sat on my bed, wrapped in a soft blanket, lazily watching the rest of a movie. The dim light from my laptop screen was the only source of illumination in the dark room, illuminating only the edge of the table and a cup of now-cold tea. At the film's most tense moment, the screen suddenly flickered and went completely black. The silence of the room was broken only by the soft hum of the fan, which immediately died away. "Damn, did it really die?" I muttered, groping for the charger in the dark. But before I could even touch the cable, the laptop sprang to life. The screen flashed with an unnaturally bright, sickly white light. For a second, instead of the familiar desktop or movie stills, I saw a strange image: two grown men in formal suits sitting in a gray office. One of them was writing something in a notebook, and the other, squinting, was looking straight into the camera, as if examining me from the other side. My heart skipped a beat. Before I could scream, the laptop went dark again with a short, metallic click. I froze, stunned by what I saw. My ears throbbed, and an unpleasant chill ran down my spine. Paranoia or not, I had to check one suspicion. With trembling fingers, I pressed the power button again. The system took an excruciatingly long time to boot. When the desktop finally appeared, my gaze immediately darted to the top of the frame. The small LED next to the webcam lens, which usually remained off, was now blinking a steady green light. The camera was active. I went cold, realizing that all this time the lens, like an unblinking eye, had been watching my every move. And those two men had just seen my fear.