A jogger plugs in her headphones to listen to her jogging playlist, but something else comes through her headphones

Okay. Jogging. Yes. Jogging. Supposedly good for me. A good way to get outside every day. A way to see the neighborhood. Time to listen to my music. A way to meet people.

I had to repeat these things in my head each morning so that I could manage to convince myself to go jogging. However, generally it was the idea that I would feel bad for not jogging that got me to go jogging. The reasons were becoming a way for me to wake my brain up every morning. Not sure repeating the same list is actually that good for it, but it did beat me just thinking about how much I wanted to go back to bed.

But now I was dressed in my jogging clothes that I had bought specifically so that I would feel more obligated to work out. I had my playlist ready to go and it was at least sunny outside. I stepped outside, hit play, and began to jog.

But my playlist didn't come on. I should have been listening to "Shut Up and Dance with Me," because it gets me pumped and that is actually not an easy thing for a song to do, but instead I got static. Maybe I somehow put the radio station on by mistake. I wouldn't be surprised, I did stuff like that all the time. Besides, my phone sometimes seemed to enjoy doing exactly what I didn't want it to do. I thought about stopping my jogging to investigate, but I knew that I wouldn't start up again so, instead, I kept jogging and tried to figure out what was going on with my bouncing phone.

My playlist still claimed to be playing, but it was still static. Great, maybe my headphones were broken. This not only boded badly for my jog, but also for the rest of my day. My job was 90% spreadsheets and only my audiobooks and podcasts kept me going through it. I twisted my headphones in their jack so see if that stopped the static and, suddenly, the static cleared. Thank God, I thought, my day was saved.

But then, it wasn't my playlist that I heard.

Hear us, came through my headphones in what sounded like a long, languid hiss.

I wanted to stop jogging, but the voice had ramped up some sort of flight response in me and my body kept going even though my mind was telling me to get back to my apartment.

We are coming.

It had to be some sort of prank, right? There was that one time someone took over a radio station and said something like "we control the horizontal and the vertical," and I'm pretty sure they never caught the guy. Any second now, there would be a news alert about how some prankster decided to do his own, modern-day "War of the Worlds," broadcast.

We have been watching.

Any second now...it had to, right?

Watch for us. 

Okay that was it, my flight response got under control enough to let me turn my route to back home. Besides, the sun was starting to go away, I should end my jog anyways even though this prank hadn't ended. The darkening made me more anxious and I turned my jog into a full out run back to my apartment. I had that feeling that I did when I was kid and heading up the stairs to my room. I had to turn off the second floor light or my parents would be mad, but then I had to make a mad dash up the stairs to my room before the darkness could catch me. I was always convinced that something was chasing me through the dark.

I looked up as I ran, to see if I was going to beat the rain.

But there weren't clouds.

No. No clouds.

Just a horde of dark, metal, creatures.

(Prompt by me)

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