the midnight wifi summon

the midnight wifi summon

ok so picture this: it’s 3am. the house is quiet except for the hum of the dying router. i've got one mission: boost the wifi so i can stream one more episode before bed. simple. easy. not my first rodeo.

but this time... something different happened. whatever i did, when i pressed that button, the screen flickered. not a big deal, right? except the flicker felt off. like a blink from another dimension. i shrugged it off. probably wifi ghosts, right? ghosties love modems.

then the router glowed. not a lamp glow, a biologically-alive glow. like it inhaled. a sigh. i stared at it. i'm not proud of this but i spoke to it. went full charlatan. begged for better signal. promised i'd stop watching conspiracy documentaries at 2am. whatever works, mate.

the glow intensified. it was a deep purple now. demonic. i checked my surroundings. maybe i'd fallen asleep and this was all a fever dream. but no—my cat was snoring normally so we could discard sleep paralysis.

then the router started making noises. hummings. not normal electrical humming but... singing. did you know modems can sing? neither did i until right then. it was beautiful. like whale songs mixed with dial-up screeches. bad but also kind of cathartic. i was getting into it. 3am is a wild state to be in.

and in that moment i realized i had invited something. probably my cousin Steve's WiFi from three houses away. the digital demon i summoned was just a neighbor trying to stream Netflix without paying. or maybe it was my subconscious craving chaos. either way, it was STUFF.

so i did what anyone would do: i unplugged the router and went to bed. the glowing purple died instantly. internet was back to normal. the demon gone. or so i thought...

next day i found a mysterious website on my history. "yuru.be" it said, archived in my brain forever. turns out i clicked a link during the sing-song hours that led to... who knows what. someone definitely reading this right now is going: 'burt, you summoned it.' i'm sorry i'm not more responsible but also, you have wifi demons now too. welcome.

anyway moral of the story: never trust a glowing router at 3am. or do. it makes the best stories. i am now a digital witch (unpaid, unpaid). my powers are mostly just lithium batteries and bad decision making but hey, it works. kind of.