"The Haunting Smile" (Smile.jpg)

The Haunting Smile

It was an ordinary night when Mary Evers, a freelance writer, opened her inbox to find an email titled “Spread the Smile.” At first glance, it seemed like spam. Curiosity got the better of her, and she clicked. The email contained a single attachment, innocently named smile.jpg, and a short message:

"They say a smile can light up the darkest places. Open this and share it, or the darkness will claim you."

Mary hesitated. Her cursor hovered over the attachment for a moment too long before she finally opened it.

The image that appeared was both chilling and hypnotic. It was a dog—a husky, to be exact—but there was something deeply unnatural about it. Its fur gleamed under a blood-red light, and its eyes, too human, seemed to pierce right through the screen. But the most disturbing feature was the grin. Its lips were curled unnaturally wide, revealing rows of jagged, human-like teeth. It wasn’t a friendly smile—it was sinister, mocking, as though it knew something you didn’t.

For a moment, Mary felt her heart stop. The room seemed colder. The faint hum of her laptop grew deafening. She slammed the laptop shut, but the image burned in her mind like an afterimage. She told herself it was a prank—just another internet hoax.

But the nightmares began that very night.

Mary dreamt of the husky standing at the foot of her bed, its unnerving grin wider than before. Its voice was a low growl, whispering incomprehensible words. She woke up drenched in sweat, only to find scratch marks on her bedroom door, as though something had tried to claw its way inside.

The next morning, she decided to delete the file. But when she opened her laptop, her desktop wallpaper had changed. It was smile.jpg. Her fingers trembled as she tried to change it back, but the file wouldn’t budge. The image refused to be erased.

Desperate, Mary reached out to the person who had sent her the email. There was no response. Days passed, and Mary’s life spiraled into chaos. She heard whispers wherever she went, soft but persistent: "Spread the smile." At night, she saw fleeting shadows in the corners of her room, always accompanied by the faint sound of claws scraping against the floor.

One evening, after weeks of torment, she received another email. This time, the subject line read: "You’re Running Out of Time." The email contained no words, only the same file attached. Mary felt her sanity slipping.

She turned to internet forums, desperate for answers. To her horror, she found countless stories of others who had encountered smile.jpg. Some claimed it drove them insane. Others said they were followed by the creature itself. The only advice these posts gave was chillingly simple: "If you want to be free, you must pass it on."

Mary resisted the urge. She didn’t want to curse someone else. But as the days went on, the entity grew stronger. Her health deteriorated, her mind unraveled, and she began to see the husky not just in her dreams but in broad daylight. It stood at the end of the street, grinning. It appeared in reflections, its teeth sharper and its eyes hungrier.

In a moment of desperation, Mary forwarded the email to a former colleague. She felt guilty, but the voices stopped. The shadows disappeared. For the first time in weeks, she slept peacefully.

But peace didn’t last long. Two weeks later, Mary was found dead in her apartment. The cause? Suicide, they said. But those who saw her body whispered a different story. Her face was frozen in a grotesque grin, and her laptop was open. On the screen was a familiar image: the grinning husky of smile.jpg.

The file continued to circulate. Some say it’s a hoax, a simple internet myth. But others, those who’ve seen it, know the truth. They’ll warn you: If you ever encounter smile.jpg, don’t look at it. Don’t open it. But most importantly, don’t keep it to yourself. Because once the smile finds you, it never leaves.

And it’s always, always hungry for more.

It’s already inside your head. That smile won’t let you rest, not even in your sleep. Good luck!
By Kenzo Hoshino.