[color=39b54a]"What the fuck is that."[/color] Violet stared at the email she received the night prior and repeated her question at the time. [color=39b54a][i]This isn't even real binary. Geez, it's practically impossible to clear up, too.[/i][/color] She ran another program to try to turn the text on her screen into something legible. [i][color=39b54a]Hell, give me ancient Mesopotamian or something, just [i]anything[/i] I can read. How did they even make it THIS distorted?[/color][/i] She scratched the back of her head and stretched, enjoying the lack of restriction from clothing. There was absolutely no way a virus was going to get through to her, and cryptology was fun enough to play around with, so the email made an interesting distraction for her. 

Thinking on it, she decided to try a new approach and took a screenshot of the email, porting it to an image editor. Maybe it was a puzzle instead? After what seemed like hours her stomach finally complained enough to get her out of her seat and downstairs to the kitchen. It was Thursday so she didn't need to worry about her parents being home to see her topless. As she sat down to eat half a box of cereal she didn't notice that the blinds on the window behind her were open, not that she'd particularly care if she knew. 

[i][color=39b54a]Looks like the clock broke too. I-[/color][/i] Her train of thought was cut short as she realized that the clock stopped at exactly ten. By ten o'clock her vpets should have gone off to tell her they needed to be taken care of. All other thought left her as she stood up and ran back upstairs, knocking over her box of cereal and glass of milk in the process. [i]Jumping[/i] onto her bed she slid over it to fall on the other side, bolting back up as she opened the drawer containing her neatly arranged toys. She pulled out the most recent and started to wake it up, but no matter what she tried she couldn't get it to respond. Panicking, she checked each of the others only to find that none of them would turn on. Even replacing the batteries in two of them didn't work. 

[color=39b54a][i]This isn't happening! It's just another nightmare, it's just another nightmare. It's not real, calm down, it's not real. You know what happens next, and this time you'll...[/i][/color] Her train of thought trailed off as she slowly realized that she was fully awake. But what could cause all of them to stop working, especially at the same time? An EMP? Maybe, but that would have stopped her computer as well, surely. Maybe it only hit the one side of the house? She ran back downstairs to check all the electronics she could find. After several minutes she returned to her room, her analytical mind in full force. 

[color=39b54a][i]Everything but the fridge and my comps are down... Why only mine, though? It can't be a virus, that wouldn't hit everything like this.[/i][/color] She looked out the window of her attic bedroom in thought. Slowly, as her mind started processing what it was seeing and not just confusion, it dawned on her that something was very wrong with the view. There appeared to be a high-rise outside. Violet quickly put on a shirt and pants, filled a carrying bag with her laptop, phone, and some food and drink, and went outside to investigate.