My Family, Their Sinister Game

ye

place anymore, not since it shut down decades ago, but its name was a curse whisper

et an email. It was an acceptance letter to the defunct Blackwood Tech. A digital ghost. Everyone who got one vanished. The offic

hat file. She was the first, or at least the first one we knew about. Brilliant, unstoppable Sarah, who could code be

leting every award, every competition entry, every trace of the fact that I was almost as good as Sarah. We moved two states over, changed our last name from Miller to Martin for a few years, and I w

d, his eyes full of a fear I was too yo

r or so, a fresh wave of quiet panic in the tech world, but it never touched our new, painfully average life. I grew up, went to a state college for a

nt. I told myself the other kids were coincidences. The curse wasn' t real. And even if it was, it couldn't find me. I was Ashley Miller

was what k

l to

e desk. It was an email. The sender was an encrypted address, a string of nonsense characters. Normally,

Ashley Miller. Yo

a prank. It had to be a prank. My fingers felt clu

a digital letter, the header an elegant, gothic font that I reco

d Tech I

, a shimmering, shifting image that seemed to glitch and reform as I watched it. It was exactly like the on

obliterated by a single email. My carefully constructed safety was an ill