The crops weren't meant for food. As the townspeople slept, the digital scarecrow’s eyes turned from green to a piercing, glowing red. The vines began to coil around bedposts and ankles, localizing the "data" of the living.
The wind howled through the skeletal remains of the Blackwood cornfields, a sound like dry husks scraping against a coffin lid. For years, the town had been a ghost of its former self, ever since the Great Blight of ’24. But today, the digital silence of the valley was broken by a single, pulsing notification on every screen in town.
"Plant the seed," the scarecrow hissed through the low-bit speakers. "Watch it bleed."
Elias chuckled at the edgy marketing. He dragged a bag of "crimson grain" onto a digital plot. Instantly, the ground outside his window shuddered. He looked out to see a single, vibrant red stalk erupting from the parched earth of his father’s backyard. It grew with unnatural speed, thick and pulsing like a vein.