George sent me an illness, the bastard! I'd only sent him a mild heroin overdose as a joke but, I mean ... a whole bloody illness!

Well, that certainly upped the stakes in our little game.

The symptoms started to manifest quite quickly and as each one appeared I cursed George's name. First came the coughing, followed seconds later by the dizziness and the aches. Then the fever kicked in and itchy, painful pustules began growing on my stiffening joints. After a minute or so the pustules turned black and erupted with a foul stink.

After fifteen minutes I was a complete wreck.

"George, you wily sod," I cursed, in between the coughing. "Just you wait."

So, before my senses were totally fogged up, I sought information over the Internet.

"Hah, Black Death," I cackled through the pain a few minutes later. "Well, that was pretty easy."

I sought a cure and administered it as soon as it downloaded.

"Right, George, you bastard," I sneered as my skin healed and my senses returned to normal. "Let's find something obscure, something that will take you at least a couple of hours to fix."

It took me three days to locate, download and prepare but, yep, what I'd got would definitely give George a run for his money.

I sent it off immediately shouting, "Hah, get out of that one!" as I clicked the 'Send' button.

There was no immediate reply - maybe he was out and couldn't read his mail. I checked back a few hours later but still nothing.

After a few days I felt a tad mortified that George hadn't responded at all. After a week I checked his online persona and could no longer locate it. Odd, I thought. Had he changed his address? I delved a little deeper and found out what had happened.

George had died from the Ebola I'd sent him.