A website haunts an unsuspecting girl in this exclusive story by John Ajvide Lindqvist

There it was again.

After Tilda had shut down the multiple web pages that Chrome had randomly spat out, only one remained. A pitch-black rectangle with no address or “close” button. On the previous occasions when the rectangle had appeared, Tilda had been forced to restart the computer in order to get rid of it.

She sat there staring at the dark hole that had opened up on her screen. It was as if it was drawing her in, holding her gaze. Without considering the pros and cons of her action, she did what she had never done before: she moved the cursor over the hole and double-clicked.

The blackness expanded and took possession of the entire screen, so that it looked as if the computer was switched off. Even the cursor had disappeared, so Tilda ran her fingers over the touchpad, double-clicking here and there. Nothing. She pressed “Esc.” Nothing.

She was about to shut down the computer manually, when a thought occurred to her: maybe it was an audio file. She usually kept the sound off when she was doing her homework so that she wouldn’t be disturbed by the pinging and siren calls of social media. She switched it on. Nothing. Not even the hum of static emerged from the speaker.

Tilda shook her head and leaned forward to reach the “off” button. Then she heard it. She turned the volume up to maximum and placed her ear against the computer. Yes, there was no doubt about it. Faintly, as if from far, far away, she could hear the sound of someone breathing inside the speaker.

She jerked her head back and glared at the black screen. Twice in the past she had been caught out when chatting with contacts who purported to be the same age as her, but had turned out to be pervy guys (probably), wanting pictures of this and that. Maybe someone had taken control of her webcam, and was sitting there getting excited while secretly watching her! Tilda slammed the laptop shut.

She looked out of the window and saw her mum raking up leaves in the garden. Since the divorce her movements had to become heavy and mechanical, as if she were simply doing her duty by dragging herself from one day to the next. Dad was totally preoccupied with his new family, and rarely got in touch. Add to this the fact that Tilda had started self-harming, and she was a prime candidate for being groomed by some dirty old man. She was well aware of this, which was why she was extra cautious.

When her pulse had slowed down, she thought about the breathing again. It hadn’t sounded… old. It was too high and kind of… small. If she had to make a guess, she would say it was a person of her own age, probably a girl. She opened up the computer again and put her ear to the speaker.

Yes. Definitely a younger person. But why had someone taken the trouble to create a web page that contained nothing more than a teenager’s breathing? Cold fingers trailed across the nape of Tilda’s neck as she thought it might be a ghost she was hearing, someone in the eternal darkness of death, concentrated into a black rectangle. It was a crazy idea, of course, but there really was something ghostly about the soft, rhythmic sound coming from her computer.

She pressed one ear right up to the speaker and used her forefinger to close her other ear. The breathing became clearer. It was calm and regular, as if the person was sleeping. Tilda was about to raise her head when she heard a new sound. A word. Had it… had it really said…? She sat up straight and looked at the black screen, her heart racing once more. Whoever was in there, on the other side, had said her name. The breathing had stopped for a couple of seconds, then a girl had clearly and audibly whispered: “Tilda…”

To be on the safe side, Tilda went and fetched a small piece of surgical tape and stuck it over the place where she knew the camera was. Then she sat there with her fingers tightly interlaced, her gaze fixed on the pattern of dots on the speaker as if she were staring down into an abyss with the same dark pull as she had felt from the rectangle a few moments ago. There was someone in there. Someone who knew who she was, and was calling to her.

Tilda rubbed her eyes, then leaned forward and placed her ear against the speaker again. The breathing had come closer. Tilda shut her eyes and tried to picture the room where the person was, but all she saw was darkness.

“Tilda…”

The voice was nearer now. What should she do? Answer? It seemed ridiculous, but Tilda opened her mouth – her lips felt as if they were stuck together – and said: “Yes?”

“Touch me…”

Tilda sat back and frowned suspiciously at the speaker. You could see where this was going, as her mum often said. The number of disgusting creeps crawling around on the internet, slipping through the holes in its security, was just unbelievable. But this was a young girl, wasn’t it? The voice had made that even clearer. If Tilda was communicating with a contemporary, then this was no dirty perv. Or could the voice be disguised?

Touch me.

What did she mean? Tilda narrowed her eyes, contemplated the speaker. Her expression was sceptical as she ran her forefinger over its surface. The voice that emerged now was so close that Tilda no longer needed to lean forward.

“Touch me...”

Tilda looked up at the screen and saw that it had changed. It was still black, but the nature of that blackness had altered. Before it had been cold and dead, but now it seemed somehow soft, velvety, and it was moving hypnotically in and out, in and out, matching the rhythm of the breathing.

“Tilda, touch me...”

Eyes wide open, breathing hard through her nostrils, Tilda reached out and placed the palm of her hand on the screen. She closed her eyes. She suddenly felt dizzy, something shifted and she fell with a suddenness that made her stomach flip.

When she opened her eyes she found herself in almost pitch darkness. The only light was coming from a rectangular screen a few metres away. Tilda walked over to it and discovered that it was a window, with her room on the other side. She was looking out through her own computer screen, and she herself was sitting in front of that screen – or rather a version of herself.

The other Tilda, the one she had changed places with, had soulless eyes and stiff lips. She gave Tilda a joyless smile.

“What have you done?” Tilda yelled. “Let me out of here!”

The other Tilda looked up from the screen and as she glanced out of the window, a hungry expression came into those dead eyes. An unpleasantly narrow, pink tongue shot out and licked the lips.

“No! ” Tilda screamed. “You can’t!”

The other Tilda gave Tilda one final, cold look. Then she closed down the screen. Everything went dark.