Tusharika Tyagi / Infinitum Editor

It was a gift from my older brother back when he was still with us. It’s an OK machine.

It does everything that a printer should do. Lately, it’s just been acting a little weird. Sometimes it’d just print for no reason at all. It always printed the same thing — rows and rows of jumbled text that appeared to lay over each other in a chaos of letters. I have no idea what they said. But one day, the messages started getting clearer.

The text was gradually becoming less jumbled and something readable was starting to form. Eventually, I could make out a few words. I stood looking at the text in horror. My whole body felt numb. I lost the ability to breathe. I will not tell you what it said.

This story was originally published in print Volume 23, Issue 7 on Thursday, March 7.