The antique phone on her mahogany desk trilled, shattering the sterile silence of her London flat. Dr. Bethany Black, once a skeptical barrister with a penchant for power suits, now cultivated an air of ethereal mystery. Her flowing silk robes shimmered under the soft glow of Himalayan salt lamps. She answered with a practiced calmness, "Bethany Black."
A voice, raspy and urgent, crackled through the receiver. "Bethany, it's Luke. Thank God I reached you. Something's gone terribly wrong with Project Seraph."
Bethany's heart lurched. Luke Andrews, a brilliant but ruthless CEO she'd consulted for, had been one of her most lucrative clients. He'd tasked her with "intuitively auditing" a new social media platform designed to predict user behavior. "Tell me," she said, her voice betraying no alarm.
"The test group… they're… different, Bethany. Aggressive. Obsessed. They're talking about things… things they shouldn't know." A tremor ran through Luke' voice. "It's like they can see… into us."
Bethany gripped the phone tighter, the smooth jade pendant around her neck suddenly cold against her skin. Years of honing her gift had given her a premonition, a chilling certainty. "Show me," she whispered, closing her eyes. A wave of nausea washed over her. Images flooded her mind – distorted faces contorted in a grotesque glee, eyes glowing with an unnatural light, a digital abyss pulsing with malevolent energy.
She gasped, eyes snapping open. "They're not users, Luke. It's… something else entirely." The sterile scent of her flat gave way to a metallic tang, the air thick with a static hum. A low, digital whine grew from the corner of her vision. Her prized Tibetan singing bowl, a symbol of her spiritual awakening, began to vibrate violently, emitting a discordant, otherworldly screech.
"Bethany? Bethany, are you there?" Luke's panicked voice cut through the cacophony.
"Get it off the network, Luke!" she shrieked, scrambling away from the bowl as it imploded in a shower of ceramic shrapnel. "Shut it down! It's feeding on them, on you!"
The line went dead. The screeching stopped. Silence, thick and heavy, filled the room. Bethany stood alone, bathed in the dim glow of the salt lamps, the room reeking of ozone and burnt electronics. In the wreckage of her carefully curated sanctuary, a single thought pounded in her head: the line between intuition and possession had just blurred irrevocably.
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