The whole situation started in the most uneventful way possible. I had stopped by my usual grocery store and grabbed a standard, mid-priced sausage — nothing fancy, nothing imported, just something quick and simple for sandwiches. When I got home, I sliced off a few pieces, ate them, wrapped up the rest, and put it all in the fridge. Nothing unusual. Just a completely routine part of getting dinner together.
But the next morning, that routine shattered.
While preparing breakfast, I pulled the sausage from the refrigerator, knife in hand. The moment I started cutting, something felt wrong. The blade dragged through the meat as though it was hitting something stiff inside. My first thought was mundane — maybe the sausage had frozen unevenly overnight, or maybe the casing was thicker than usual.
I pressed down again to make another slice. This time, the knife didn’t just drag — it stopped completely, stuck on something buried deep inside. Mild irritation gave way to confusion. I leaned closer to see what was blocking the blade.
That’s when I saw it.
A spark of light — something metallic gleaming from the center of the sausage.
A chill crept up my spine.
My thoughts scrambled for explanations: a stray metal shard from factory machinery? A fragment of a tool someone dropped during processing? My stomach twisted at the memory that I had already eaten pieces of this same sausage the night before.
I slowly dug around the obstruction with my fingers, peeling away the surrounding meat.
What came out was not metal debris.
It was a USB flash drive.
Just a small, perfectly ordinary thumb drive — the kind you could buy anywhere — but finding it sealed inside a commercially packaged sausage was bizarre beyond belief. The revulsion hit me first. Then confusion. Then a creeping sense of dread. How could electronics end up in food? And why inside a product that wasn’t cheap, nor from some shady manufacturer?
Yet despite my disgust, curiosity quickly took over.
I couldn’t throw it away without knowing what was on it.
My hands trembled as I brought the drive to my computer and plugged it in.
I waited for the device to load, heart pounding harder with every passing second.
When the file window finally opened, I froze.
There were almost no files on the drive — just a single folder, its name written in stark capital letters:
“OPEN ME”
A command.
A dare.
A threat.
I couldn’t tell which.
I hesitated, then double-clicked the folder.
Inside was one file.
Just one.
A single, high-resolution photograph.
I clicked it open.
A man’s face filled the screen — maybe mid-to-late thirties, neatly groomed, expression disturbingly composed. He stared directly into the camera, smiling in a way that wasn’t exactly friendly. His smile looked knowing. Mocking. Too calm.
It wasn’t a mugshot. It wasn’t overtly threatening.
But something about it was deeply wrong.
Deeply intentional.
The knowledge that this image had been placed — hidden — inside a sausage added a layer of horror I can hardly explain.
I recoiled from the desk, letting the mouse clatter to the floor.
My thoughts spun:
Was this an elaborate prank?
Some twisted social experiment?
A warning?
A message meant for someone else?
And how — how — had the drive ended up inside a sealed, professionally packaged piece of food?
This wasn’t an accident.
The placement was too deliberate.
Someone had tampered with a product meant for public consumption and inserted their message into it — knowing it would be found only by someone who had already begun eating the food.
The realization chilled me more than the photograph itself.
Someone had done this intentionally.
Someone had chosen this method — this disturbing, invasive method — to send a message.
Whether random or targeted didn’t matter.
The intent was unmistakable: they wanted attention. They wanted disturbance. They wanted someone to open that drive.
Now I am stuck in a terrifying crossroads.
On one hand, I know exactly what I should do.
Contact law enforcement.
Report product tampering.
Turn over the sausage and the USB drive as evidence.
Let professionals investigate what might be part of something far bigger and darker.
On the other hand, the thought of pulling myself into an investigation terrifies me.
Police involvement.
Questions.
Paperwork.
Possibly being dragged into something criminal and dangerous.
A creeping instinct whispers:
“Throw it all away. Pretend it never happened.”
But the man’s smile — that eerie, quiet smile staring out from my computer screen — feels like a message directed at me.
As if he expects silence.
As if he counts on fear.
And I am caught between two equally horrifying possibilities:
Speak up and risk becoming entangled in something sinister.
Or stay silent and risk letting something sinister continue.
I don’t know which is worse.
But I do know this:
What I found inside that sausage was not an accident.
And whatever story that photograph belongs to —
I am now unwillingly, inevitably part of it.