It was a dark and stormy night, and the noder ran wildly through the undergrowth. Breath came in spasms as he hurried closer towards his home node. Branches, dripping with node gel whipped about his face, biting through skin, drawing the XP that was his very life blood.

The sound of his nodes being nuked was coming closer, the clacking of keyboards filling in editor logs ringing in his ears. The manicial laughter of Lord Brawl sounded over the site. Dannye raised up his hunting horn and blew, and Yossarian let nine9 and edb off the leash...

The noder slowed, the nodegel dripping down his face, splattering onto the ground. He tripped over a random node, face down. With a shudder, he rolled over, to see red eyes glowing in the darkness ...

"Told you, don't create getting to know you nodes. Hard link. Research. Earn your bullshit. And now you must pay the price." the eldritch voice whispered.

A bright light. A loud explosion. Then the nodegel was still. The user checked his pockets. A little XP was lost. Nothing more, except perhaps some pride. He lived to node another day ...

This is living proof, some nodeshells should die alone ...

Scene: Cletus the Foetus contentedly nodes away when he should be writing a termpaper. All of a sudden, on a refresh, a little /msg pops up.

everyone says You will die.

Cletus the Foetus says What kind of freak would say something like that? I'm going to have to tell dem bones or nate or somebody.

A few minutes pass.

Webster 1913 says You will die.

Cletus the Foetus says Why? Is something up? If you've got a problem with one of my w/u's or something, at least send me an /msg with your name on it and a reference of some sort. Jeez, some people.

Our protagonist returns to his browsing pleasure. But a few minutes later....

EDB says You will die.

Cletus the Foetus says Cute guys, real cute. I've been noding with /chatteroff, and yet you still found a way to bug me. Well, may you live in interesting times, motherfucker.

All seems well. Almost routine, if not exactly normal. But then:

Cool Man Eddie says You will die.

Cletus the Foetus says Hey nate, somebody's been sending me weird threats via some inactive and bot accounts: -- first everyone, so I thought it was a disgruntled user; then Webster 1913, so I realised it might be an editor; and then EDB, at which point I tried to tell the weirdo off. But then I got one from Cool Man Eddie. All the messages say simply "You will die." What's going down, yo?

Our hero waits for his reply from his valiant leader, and continues browsing. But then, on a refresh, he has his anagnorisis: he sees something that makes his blood run cold....

root says You will die.

Cletus the Foetus says Oh sweet mother of God! It's not a user, it's not even a God!

Everything itself wants me dead!