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The screen glowed, unchanging, the cursor a silent sentinel. ‘This will only take a few seconds,’ it promised, a seemingly benign assurance that instead amplified the creeping unease. What *kind* of seconds were these? Not the fleeting moments of a webpage loading, but the drawn-out, excruciating passage of time where every millisecond felt like an hour, pregnant with unspoken possibilities. Was it scrutinizing cookies, delving into browsing history, or plumbing the depths of cached data that users long thought forgotten? The silence from the server was deafening, a digital void that allowed fears to fester and theories to bloom in the dark corners of the mind. People worldwide began to share their experiences, a collective anxiety ripple spreading through forums and social media, each person wondering if their own ‘few seconds’ were different, unique, perhaps even targeted. The wait became a shared vigil, a global pause before an unknown verdict. What could possibly necessitate such an ominous, drawn-out moment of digital scrutiny?
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