I genuinely believe I am a calm and rational person. I don’t scream at horror movies. I don’t jump when the ghost appears from behind the door. Horror movies don’t bother me. I know that the ghost isn’t real, the demon is CGI, and the creepy music is just playing for dramatic effect. Simple. Predictable. Controlled.
Life, unfortunately, is not.
The real horror begins on a normal day. A day where the sun is warm and soft, the birds outside seem like they actually enjoy being alive, and I am scrolling through Instagram, mindlessly laughing at memes that I am definitely spamming my friend with. Everything is okay, everything is light, and life is calm.
And then—Ding.
A notification.
At first, I don’t react. I’m brave; I have seen worse. I casually swipe down to check it, fully expecting something harmless. But no. “Exam Schedule Released.”
Suddenly, everything goes silent, the air turns cold, the music shifts, and my vision blurs. My heartbeat becomes the dramatic background percussion. Somewhere in the distance, I hear a whisper: “You are not prepared.” The room is suddenly too small, and I try to take deep breaths. “Okay. It’s fine. Exams happen. We are adults. We are capable. We are—”
Ding.
Another notification. From Gmail. I open it, and the mail, highlighted and bold, reads “Re: Following up again on the paper discussion.” That’s when the ghost appears. Not a literal ghost —worse — a meeting I forgot existed. The email is polite. Painfully polite. The kind that says, “I am not mad, I am deeply and spiritually disappointed.” It’s the kind that haunts you. The kind that forces you to reevaluate all your life choices since birth. My soul starts packing its bags, and I want to scream, but I don’t have time to panic because suddenly I notice something in the corner of my screen. A small red dot. Innocent and tiny while glowing with the energy of doom.
A Canvas notification: “Assignment due tonight.” Tonight. Not this week. Not tomorrow. Tonight. And that — right there—is the real jump scare. My laptop screen flickers like lights in a haunted house right before the demon appears. I steady myself and open the assignment. The instructions are thirteen paragraphs long, and the rubric scrolls on forever, like a corridor that goes deeper and deeper into darkness.
I type one sentence. Delete it. Type another. Delete that too. Suddenly, English is not my first language. I don’t think I even have a first language anymore. The clock starts ticking louder; my laptop fan begins making plane-engine noises; my water bottle is empty; and my sanity starts evaporating. Eventually, I become with the Word Document, and I finally hit submit at 11:59 PM.
The nightmare isn’t a haunted house; it’s a notification bubble. It’s the slow, quiet horror of responsibility appearing exactly when you think you’ve escaped it. So yes, put me in a dark room with a demon, a possessed doll, or even the girl from The Conjuring. I’ll manage. I’ll offer her tea, and we’ll discuss skincare. It’s fine. But the second a Gmail notification pops up, I am already spiritually deceased. And if you hear someone screaming at 1 AM, don’t worry, it’s probably just me trying to submit a PDF while my laptop fan attempts to launch itself into orbit.