Midnight conversation

 On a summer evening, at about eleven o'clock, I was in a hurry to get home to talk to an old friend. She was a strange but interesting girl from another city, with whom I sometimes spent the evening hours. I've never seen her photo, and today was the first time we were supposed to talk on Skype. It should be noted that I could not communicate with her like with the others: I seemed to lose control of myself and spoke to her sincerely, being a closed person.

When I returned home, my cat ran into me. She meowed loudly, froze for a moment, and immediately ran with a wild scream to the other corner of the room. My attempts to pick her up were unsuccessful: she struggled, bit... It wasn't like her. But, preoccupied with thoughts of the upcoming conversation, I did not attach any importance to this.

I sat down at my laptop, turned on Skype and started calling her, but the connection was cut off. I waited a few minutes and called again. She took the call. Her webcam was not connected. The first thing that made me worried was the sound problems. White noise, through it — her choppy voice, which changed timbre and broke. I tried to ask her something, but I couldn't hear anything because of the background noise.

Finally, she connected the webcam. I saw a background of wallpaper and wall paintings. And then her head appeared in the frame. It is dark gray, the eye sockets are black, and the mouth fluctuates in its position. I screamed automatically and hit the "Print Screen" key. Her voice became clearer, and I could hear her say it was just a communication problem. I calmed down a bit, but my hands were shaking and I was nervous. I decided to save the screenshot. "Paint" didn't open the first time, and I furiously clicked on the shortcut until a window opened, then a second, a third... This opened six copies of the program, in one of which I saved a screenshot.

During my time clicking on the image editor, Skype began to show a picture that was less frightening, but also unpleasant. Now her face was just black, but the background remained the same.

She talked to me in a pleasant voice for a while, and I relaxed, but then it started again: the background began to float, change color, and her face turned gray again, with black eye sockets, hair, and a slightly open mouth. I poked at the "Print Screen" again, scared. Her voice was distorted beyond recognition again, and the white noise increased. I copied a screenshot into one of the open "Paint" windows...

And it happened two more times. The fourth time, the image became unbearable to my eyes, and the sound hurt my ears. Her voice sounded like a scream, and her head was jumping from one place on the screen to another. Soon the connection disappeared completely.

The call lasted 38 minutes and ended at 00:01. I logged out of Skype. Her heart was pounding, her hands were shaking, and her strange head was in front of her eyes. Only later, when I calmed down, did I decide that the problems were caused by poor connectivity and faulty RAM.

But during the next conversation, my friend told me that that evening she had gone to another city for a relative's funeral, but she could not warn me in time. The house remained empty...