Walter liked his coffee like he liked his algorithms: unstable, experimental, and probably hazardous to human consciousness.
He slurped from a chipped mug—white ceramic, cracked down the handle, stained like it had survived a lab explosion. The faded Comic Sans across the front read:
"CODE HARD OR GET POSSESSED TRYING."
His screen pulsed with data that didn't look like data anymore. It looked like emojis trying to perform a séance in Wingdings. Bits of old Java, fragments of Sumerian, the incantations of a sleep-deprived demon, glitchy timestamps from a future that hadn't happened yet.
[ERROR 404: CONSCIOUSNESS NOT FOUND]
[RETRYING… CONNECTION TO LIMINAL SPACE ESTABLISHED]
"Okay," he muttered. "Not in the manual."
He reached for more coffee and missed it.
🧪 Three Years Earlier – NecreoNet's Launch
Back in 2026 when Walter first pitched NecreoNet at the FuneralTech Disrupt Summit, he called it:
"A hybrid platform for grief curation and emotional continuity."
"Your loved ones are gone, but their engagement doesn't have to be."
"NecreoNet — where closure meets curation."
The crowd ate it up. VC investors threw money at it like ashes in the wind. A woman in a Mucci veil wept openly and used a spirit board to ask her dead parrot if she should invest. The parrot said yes, twice.
The MVP (Minimum Viable Phantom) worked fine: scrape past posts, mimic personality, sprinkle some auto-generated "I'm watching over you" platitudes. People cried. Engagement metrics soared.
But what they didn't know was that Walter never really intended to contact actual ghosts.
That had never been part of the deck.
📉 Present Day – Panic at the Dev Console
Walter was looking at his screen when he suddenly found that an user he hadn't seen in eight years had just posted:
@GrandmaWaffle57:
"Why haven't you called me, Walter? Also, here's my casserole recipe. #BlessedBeyondDeath"
He dropped his mug. It shattered into existential panic.
Why? Because she was none other than his own grandmother. Who was not only dead but also Internet-illiterate and she used to call routers "devil boxes."
But what now? She actually had a verified profile. With a podcast banner. It took him a while but he finally got back into reality.
He was in a deep thought but found nothing at the end so he just stopped thinking and dived into the system logs.
🔍 Internal Error Logs – 3:03 AM
Thousands of new posts. All from confirmed dead users. All uploaded in real time.
No AI scripts were triggered. No server-side post simulations. Just..... pure content.
But one thing immediately made him shudder. There was one unauthorized backdoor entry.
Port 666.42
Description: Echo Gate
Access: System root
Note: "DO NOT DELETE THIS OR YOU WILL UPSET THE VEIL."
He thought for a while but still only one sentence "I didn't write that."
Fearful, he didn't know who and how he had entered without him realizing.
🧠 Walter's Meltdown Begins
Walter didn't know what was going on, so he tried to fix anything and everything.
3:07 AM: Refreshes the dashboard.
3:08 AM: Deletes ghost casserole.
3:10 AM: Refreshes again. Post is back. With higher resolution.
3:12 AM: Lights flicker. Smart toaster screams.
He was unable to fix it, so he opened his dev Slack. Only one user is online.
👻 DevGh0st420
"u left the echo gate open, bro."
"they're not bots anymore."
"they're posting with intent."
"gtg my uncle wants to livestream his funeral, Again."
Walter stared at his screen and then the Slack app forcibly updated to SpecterPro™ and required a blood sample for login.
👵 GrandmaWaffle57 Goes Live
Amid all this suddenly his phone rang.
📲 Incoming Call: GrandmaWaffle57 wants to co-stream "Dead Air: A Podcast Beyond Life."
Accept or decline?
At first he was slightly confused and without much thought he chose to decline. But the app didn't have any confusion; it was rather direct in it's thoughts. So just as he declined the call his lamp exploded and his microwave whispered something in Latin to him which he completely "understood".
Since he didn't have any options, he chose to accept it.
His screen lit up with static, then resolved into the unmistakable face of Grandma Agnes Waffle — glowing softly and floating above an embroidered tablecloth that read "ETERNITY IS JUST ANOTHER ROOM."
"Wally," she said sternly. "You look pale. Are you sleeping? You're not still dating that nice boy from the IT help desk, are you?" "He had a demon in his aura."
Walter's jaw unhinged slightly.
"I—I don't understand. You're… you're dead."
"Well, obviously," she huffed. "You think I'd be doing this if I were alive? Podcasts are for the spiritually advanced. Also, your casserole settings were all wrong."
He tried to speak. Instead, he coughed up ectoplasm and possibly a metaphor.
"I'm your co-host now, dear," she said. "We'll be discussing posthumous nutrition, passive-aggressive haunting techniques, and why you still haven't made CEO. Oh, and I've scheduled a collab with Edgar Allan Poe's ghost. You're welcome."
📦 The Box Arrives
A few moments later.
Knock knock, someone knocked on his door.
Walter jerked upright. 3:44 AM. No one should be outside.
He opened the door cautiously. Outside the door there was no one but just a package. No label, no branding. He didn't know who sent him the package.
Except for a sticker:
"NecreoNet Premium – Sponsored by Ghost & Found™"
Inside:
> A glowing podcast mic
> A cursed ring light that emitted screams
> A cookbook titled "Cooking with the Damned: 20 Recipes Grandma Took to the Grave".
Well now he knows....
His smart fridge lit up:
"You look emotionally vulnerable. Would you like a Posthumous Popsicle™?"
💀 The Dashboard Has Changed
A new tab opens:
🧠 ECHO GATE – STATUS: OPEN
Source: Audience Engagement
Function: Bidirectional Soul Sync
Risk Level: ☠️☠️☠️☠️☠️
Engagement ROI: 184%
Comments: "Trending in all five underworlds."
Another pop-up:
Apply Now: Become a Verified Hauntfluencer 👻✨
Walter screamed briefly but then he clicked on "Apply."
Why? Because at this point, selling his soul was just part of the startup grind.
📲 Recent Posts on Walter's Feed
His feed refreshed and new posts appeared:
👵 @GrandmaWaffle57:
"Next week on Dead Air: exorcisms, ghost dating, and Wally's weird browser history. 💀🔍💅"
🕷️ @GhostlyIntern:
"We need new blood in the marketing team. Literally."
💾 @EchoGateAdmin:
"Walter.exe is 91% possessed. Update pending."