It wasn’t an animated GIF. It was a standard JPEG file he had downloaded hours ago.
The image reloaded, but something was different. The snake’s head, which had been turned slightly to the left, was now facing perfectly centered. Its pupils were fixed directly on his pointer icon. 1366x768 Snake Wallpaper">
A soft, digital hiss filled the room, coming not from the speakers, but seemingly from the monitor itself. It wasn’t an animated GIF
Suddenly, the hum of the computer tower grew louder, shifting from a gentle whir to a low, aggressive thrum. The pixels on the screen began to shift and swim. The branch the snake was resting on began to pixelate and dissolve, but the snake itself grew sharper, more defined, as if it were rendering in impossible, ultra-high definition that the old monitor shouldn’t be capable of displaying. Arthur backed his chair away. "What the hell..." The snake’s head, which had been turned slightly