He pressed the power button. The tower whirred, a small fan grinding under the case. The monitor flickered to life. A Windows 98 screen filled slowly, the logo spinning briefly before settling. He clicked the dial-up icon. The modem lifted the line and began. At first a low whine, then a rising screech. High tones shredded the quiet, layered over deep, throaty static that rattled. It pitched up, pitched down, pitched up again, a jarring crescendo of lows and highs. His teeth itched from the noise. Then into a long, low whoosh... It lasted longer than he expected, steady, oppressive. And then it stopped, abruptly, a silence so sharp it felt like the world had snapped in two. He opened Netscape Navigator. The window unfolded, grey and dark green, the toolbar a blocky row of buttons. The cursor blinked over the URL bar. He typed the address for the IRC web gateway and pressed enter. The screen froze for a heartbeat. Then a black-and-white chat screen appeared. Messages scrolled from the top, a continuous line of letters, numbers, and symbols. Each channel was a room, a tiny rectangular area of text. He typed /join #teen-void and the room loaded. The space filled with names in a narrow column, scrolling fast at first, then abating. The messages appeared line by line. PixelPunk: hey loner LonelyBoy98: hi SkullToast: you here again? LonelyBoy98: yeah NeonWitch: sup LonelyBoy98: not much SkullToast: same PixelPunk: you still coding stuff? LonelyBoy98: yeah NeonWitch: always CodeCat: dude you need sleep LonelyBoy98: i sleep at school PixelPunk: lol SkullToast: lol LonelyBoy98: … Commands appeared in between the words. /me stretches made PixelPunk’s name flicker, showing the action next to it. /nick GhostWalker changed SkullToast’s display for a moment, then he switched back. /away lunch was NeonWitch’s message when she stepped away. Private messages opened as small pop-ups. CodeCat whispers: did you see that new thread? LonelyBoy98: yeah, not sure I get it CodeCat whispers: you always get it later They knew him. Not much, but enough to recognize his patterns, his long silences, the way he spoke without speaking. Every so often someone typed /who and he could see the list of everyone connected, idle times, and nicknames that blinked like stars. The chatting continued, a pulse, rythmic, comforting, and small. Then someone typed a new word. gloryhole. It appeared stark and sudden. He read it again, then copied it into his mind for later. He minimized Netscape and clicked the black icon labeled MS-DOS Prompt. The screen went dark, a rectangle of black stretching across his monitor. A white cursor blinked at the top left. He typed C: and pressed enter. The prompt returned, waiting: C:\> He typed dir and pressed enter. The screen filled line by line: folders and files, some familiar, some forgotten. AUTOEXEC.BAT, CONFIG.SYS, a folder called GAMES, one called SCHOOL. Each name sat rigid on the dark background. He moved between directories with cd GAMES and cd.. to go back. He opened old text files with edit, careful not to overwrite them. Lines of code, letters, numbers, symbols, a small universe of commands waiting to be executed. He logged back into #teen-void. The usual idle chit chat scrolled by, pixelated and swift, until a new nickname caught his eye. BeatnikBill: a/s/l? NeonWitch’s warning appeared almost immediately. NeonWitch: watch out He froze. The line remained still. Then a private message window blinked open. BeatnikBill whispers: you got a webcam? wanna let someone watch you jerk off? The words made his stomach turn. Heat and cold swirled inside him. He felt queasy and exposed, like the letters had somehow reached inside him. His fingers hovered, useless. He leaned forward and pressed the power button. The screen went off instantly. The brightness vanished. The letters disappeared. He slid out of his chair and onto his bed, curling under the covers. The blanket smelled faintly of his own hair, familiar and grounding. He shut his eyes, trying to escape the memory of the words, the panic pressing behind his closed eyelids. The room was silent. He stayed still, holding himself, waiting for the unease to fade. __________ Morning came slow, hazy light leaking through the blinds. He woke to the dull ache around his eyes, the kind that came from not sleeping properly. The sheets were tangled around his legs, cold in patches, damp with sweat. He sat up, blinked, listened. The house was quiet. Somewhere, a pipe ticked. He dressed without thought, pulling on yesterday’s clothes, each movement automatic. The bathroom light was intense, a white that showed everything. He turned the tap, let the water run, then brushed his teeth. The foam spread in the basin, dissolving before it reached the drain. The mirror was mottled with age, the glass slightly warped. He kept his eyes low, rinsed his mouth, wiped his face on the sleeve of his jumper, and left the light on behind him. The bus came late, coughing smoke into the street. The air smelled of rain and fuel. Its paint was sun-faded, the yellow turned dull and uneven, streaked with grime along the wheel arches. He climbed the steps, one hand on the chipped rail, the rubber mat soft and cracked beneath his shoes. The driver wore sunglasses though the sky was colourless. No one spoke. The seats were torn at the seams, stuffing pale against the crimson vinyl. He sat near the back, his shoulder to the window, watching the town drift past in bleached shapes. The glass rattled in its frame, showing his reflection for a heartbeat before it slipped away. The corridor was crowded. Backpacks brushed his arm as he moved, the air heavy with detergent and damp clothes. Voices tangled together, quipped and restless. He kept close to the wall, eyes down, waiting for a break in the flow of bodies. His locker stood near the end, the surface scratched from years of use. He turned the dial, the wheel stiff beneath his fingers. The latch gave, and he pulled the door open just enough to reach inside. It slammed shut before he could move his hand. Metal caught skin. Pain shot through his fingers, clean and quick. Charlotte stood beside him. Her posture was easy, shoulders straight, chin lifted just enough to show she expected to be seen. The scent of her perfume was sweet and heavy, like fruit on the edge of turning. “Morning, Sam.” Her voice was smooth, every word measured. He said nothing. She pressed the door again, slower this time, watching him instead of the locker. “Does that hurt?” The question came out soft, almost thoughtful. Then she stepped back. He pulled his hand free, the skin flushed and stinging. Charlotte turned and walked down the corridor, her stride steady and light. Her hair was straight, honey-blonde, resting against the collar of her blazer. Her skin was clear, her features exact. Thin brows, glossed lips, faint shimmer over her eyelids. She looked like the kind of girl who belonged on a poster in someone else’s room. Beautiful, symmetrical, impossible to reach. There was nothing new about this sort of interaction. For the last twelve months, Charlotte had seen fit to be cold, calculated, and cruel. For what reason, he could only discern, that he was a grade A loser. A month earlier, it had been worse. The cafeteria was crowded, the air stank with heat and cheap food. He sat alone at the end of a long table, tray untouched. Charlotte stopped beside him. Her friends lingered a few steps back, already watching. She placed a hand on his shoulder, nails pressing lightly through the fabric. He looked up. She pushed. His face hit the plate. The hot food stung. Cheese clung to his skin, noodles slipping down his jaw. The tray slid from the table and hit the floor with a dull smack. He stayed where he was, breath shallow, the sting spreading across his cheek. The noise that followed wasn’t laughter, just a rising sound that seemed to come from everywhere. When he sat up, the food had cooled against his face. No one spoke to him. No one ever did. Or the time in art class, near the end of the period when everyone was tired. On his table, under a sheet of newsprint, lay the tile he had spent three lessons on, the one the teacher had said might be good enough for the display cabinet if the glaze took properly. The tile showed a pattern of thin carved lines spiralling out from the centre, intersecting and doubling back on themselves. He had meant it to look like circuitry at first, then veins, then something between the two. The surface was a dull, chalky blue-green where the glaze had dried, darker in the grooves. Her fingers hovered over it, not quite touching, her nails still clean from having done the minimum for her own piece. “This is yours?” she asked. His name was pencilled on the underside. She already knew. He nodded anyway. "It looks fragile...” she remarked rhetorically. He reached out, meaning to steady it. She smiled at that, a curve of her mouth that never reached her eyes, and let the tile fall to the table from just high enough. The sound was not a sharp shatter. It arrived as a dull muted crack, like a knuckle popping in a joint. A line ran straight through the centre of the spiral, clean as a cut. The two halves separated by a fraction, enough for the carved pattern to lose its sense. The circuitry no longer connected. Whatever it was meant to be, it had been split into something that only resembled itself. When he tried to push the halves gently back together, a small ridge of clay caught his palm and opened a thin line in the flesh below his thumb. The sting arrived a second later, bright and precise. He pressed harder, as if enough pressure might erase the crack, his blood seeping into the ceramic. It sank in, leaving a faint reddish tint along the break. Charlotte had already turned away, talking to someone else about weekend plans, as if she had merely adjusted something on the table instead of breaking it. He sat there with the two halves held together, fingers tightening until they shook, the tile now heavier in his hands than it had any right to be. __________ It was late. The computer fan clicked once, then whirled. Sam sat forward, elbows on the desk, eyes fixed on the screen. He typed "gloryhole" into the search bar and pressed enter. The page loaded gradually, a list of adult ads appearing line by line. Craigslist links. Names of sites he didn’t recognise. He looked until the words stopped meaning anything. He switched windows to IRC. He joined #teen-void and waited. The cursor blinked, patient. He typed, deleted, then typed again, unsure how to start. LonelyBoy98: hi PixelPunk: u on late? LonelyBoy98: yeah. can’t sleep PixelPunk: same here LonelyBoy98: i feel fucked up PixelPunk: how so? LonelyBoy98: everyone else already… figured stuff out. sex. friends. i’m still stuck PixelPunk: you 15 right? LonelyBoy98: yup PixelPunk: chill, u got time LonelyBoy98: i googled something weird PixelPunk: what? LonelyBoy98: gloryhole PixelPunk: oh man LonelyBoy98: was just thinking… maybe something like that could change stuff PixelPunk: nope. anonymous = risk. big one. LonelyBoy98: yeah. guess so PixelPunk: log off for a while. get air. __________ Sam stood beside the truck stop address he found on Craigslist. The building rose in muted tones beside the fuel pumps, shipping containers stacked to one side, the drag of trucks in the lot leaving faint marks in a thin film of dust. He locked his bike to a steel post and unfolded the directions in hand. Back lot door, left of vending machine. Knock twice. Go in. The printout had wrinkles from his grip. He read it again. His stomach coiled. You need to go in. He told himself that, repeating it until the words felt hollow. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It just means you did it. He glanced down at his clothes. Plain jeans. Shirt. Sweater. Neat enough. He had shaved his mound for the first time earlier, not rushed, careful. Ridiculous, if he thought about it. But he had dressed like someone meeting someone else. Someone real. He reached for the handle and pushed the door open. Inside was a warehouse room, the kind used for storage or repairs. Concrete floor, single overhead light, the sound of air moving somewhere through a vent. A steel wall divided the room. In the middle of it, a circular hole sat at waist height. The edges were covered with duct tape (obviously to protect the user). His heart felt like it was trying to leave his chest. You came here for this. Just breathe. Don’t think too much. He stepped closer until the wall filled his vision. His hands shook as he unzipped his jeans. Tears ran before he could stop them. They slid down, no sobs, just the body releasing something it couldn’t hold. Then movement. From the other side, a pale hand slipped through the hole. The fingers were narrow, skin almost translucent, the nails short and clean. It reached until it touched him. He froze. He raised his own hand, touched the wrist gently, and stayed there, caught between fear and wanting. The hand from the other side shifted, curling his fingers into their own. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. The longer he held it, the further he drifted from himself. His vision thinned at the edges. The contact no longer felt like touch but like absorption, his skin loosening from meaning, his body suspended between impulse and surrender. The thought to pull away came sluggishly, as though rising through mud. He turned toward the door, unsure whether he had the strength to open it. As he pulled it, the hinge let out a slow creak, and behind it came a sound, low and guttural, drawn from somewhere deeper than the walls. It resembled laughter, though it carried no trace of amusement, only the rough vibration of something that had learned mirth by studying suffering. He did not look back. The sound followed him halfway across the lot, fading only when he reached his bike. He rode without direction, the road slipping past in long ribbons of concrete, the streetlights smearing into white halos. The sound of the tires against the gravel was the only thing keeping him anchored. Sam felt a peculiar presence at the corners of his sight but paid it no mind. __________ He felt different, though he couldn’t name how. The days slid by with their usual blur until Thursday afternoon, when Amira stopped him outside English. She was tall, her dark hair jutting out in many curled directions. Her clothes looked lived-in, the sleeves of her button-up rolled once, a choker visible against her throat. She had a habit of smiling with only one side of her mouth, like she was in on a joke no one else had heard. She was such a contrast to Charlotte. “Hey, you’re Sam, right? We’ve got that still-life thing next week,” she said. “You actually finish yours on time, unlike half the class.” He nodded. She shifted her bag higher. “Anyway, I’m having people over tomorrow night. Just a small thing, our year mostly, no teachers’ pets or Charlotte-types, I swear. You should come. There’ll be food, maybe a movie if the speakers behave, maybe not. I don’t know, I kind of like when things get a bit messy.” He didn’t answer right away. Amira laughed softly. “That’s not a no. Come on, you might even have fun.” “Maybe,” he said. “Maybe means yes,” she replied, already halfway down the hall, the smell of her fruity shampoo fading behind her. That evening he went straight to his room and sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped between his knees. He stood again and opened the closet. The mirror inside was streaked with faint marks from where his fingers had once tried to clean it. He looked at himself. Short, wavy black hair, dark blue eyes that didn’t look so tired, a face that seemed older but more handsome than he remembered. Not bad. Maybe she meant it. Maybe people saw more than he gave them credit for. Friday came swiftly. Sam dressed in jeans and a striped jumper, trying to emulate Kurt Cobain. The mirror offered a version of himself he didn’t quite believe, the jumper sitting loose at the wrists, hair slightly unkempt, not enough to look intentional. He walked instead of taking the bike. Amira’s house was only twenty minutes away, the kind of distance that felt easier on foot. The air was cool and close, a shallow fog trailing over the footpath. He liked it. The world felt slower when the streetlights blurred at the edges. He practised talking as he walked. His name, a few casual greetings, simple things to make him sound like someone who belonged. The bottle of vodka weighed against his back, the glass knocking softly with every step. He had taken it from the cellar, careful not to disturb the dust on the shelf where it had sat for years. When he reached Amira’s street, the sound of music rolled out before him. Her driveway was lined with parked cars and the faint smell of beer. Through the open door he could see movement, laughter, the flicker of coloured bulbs hanging from a string. There were twice as many people as he had imagined. Some from his year, others older, already drunk. Amira appeared near the stairs, a flash of silver rings and dark hair. She smiled, half surprised. “You actually came,” she said, taking his arm. “Come on, the good crowd’s downstairs.” She led him down into the basement. The ceiling was low, the paint cracked in the corners, the carpet worn thin. A smaller group had gathered there, sprawled across mismatched furniture, the thrum of the party above reduced to a steady pulse beneath their voices. Sam slid the vodka bottle out of his bag and set it on the low table. Amira’s eyes lit up. “Fancy,” she said. She found a stack of plastic cups, poured a thin line into each, then topped up a few more for anyone who reached. He wanted to look like he belonged, so when she handed him one, he swallowed it in a single go. The vodka burned down his throat and settled in his chest. Someone laughed, impressed. Another cup appeared in his hand. He knocked that back too, then a third before he could think better of it. The room loosened around the edges, his limbs turning light and uncertain. Alice, from art, lounged on the arm of a chair, her eyes half-lidded. Everyone knew she smoked behind the gym. “Let’s play seven minutes in heaven,” she said. “You know, old school. Closet, timer, no questions.” Sam knew the game. Two people picked by chance, sent into a dark space for seven minutes to do whatever they wanted. Kissing, touching, or nothing at all, as long as no one else knew. Alice spun an empty bottle on the carpet. It turned in a lazy circle before pointing toward Daniel from English, the tall boy with broad shoulders and a face that looked like it belonged in a magazine. Alice grinned and stood, tugging him toward the basement closet. Sam sat on the couch beside Amira, eyes drawn to the door as it shut behind them. The click of the latch was quiet, swallowed by the noise of the room. Amira set a kitchen timer, the numbers starting to count down. Everyone laughed, shouting guesses about what might be happening in the dark. Sam did not laugh. The vodka sat in his stomach like a stone. “It is just a game,” Amira said, nudging his shoulder. “Nothing serious. They will probably just awkwardly kiss and Daniel might cop a feel.” He tried to smile, but all he could feel was dread. When Alice and Daniel returned, the basement erupted in noise. Someone whistled, others clapped. Alice’s face was damp, her hair stuck to her temple. Daniel’s collar was creased, and he kept his hands buried in his pockets. It seemed like he was trying to subtly adjust the large bulge in the front. Amira seized the moment. She crouched, set the bottle spinning. Its rim scraped against the carpet, looping in uneven circles. To Sam it didn’t move right, as though time had slipped around it, stretching and collapsing in turns. When the bottle stopped, its mouth faced him. His stomach lurched. Amira’s eyes caught his. “Guess it’s us,” she said, voice steady. She pulled him up before he could answer. Inside, the closet was smaller than he expected. The walls were rough plaster, marked where boxes had once leaned. A candle sat on an overturned crate, its wick bent and sweating wax. Amira stood close enough that he could feel her breathing. Without a word she pressed her mouth to the side of his throat, once, then again, each touch slow and deliberate. One gentle kiss, then another. Quickly turning into more labourous ones involving tongue and mild sucking on his throat. This was fine, he liked this. Her hands found his shirt, lifted the fabric slightly, palms cool against his skin. He liked the feeling, the quiet pressure of it, the way it seemed to dissolve thought. Just like Amira had said, some kissing and some touching under the shirt. He felt like this was a normative experience. Then her fingers drifted lower, tracing the seam of his jeans, the motion patient but sure. A ripple of unease cut through the warmth. He wanted to speak, to move, yet his body stayed where it was. He was hard, painfully so. No one had ever touched him there before, only himself. Amira slid her body down his, palming him inside his jeans as she went. Sam braced his arms on a beam at head height. He couldnt discern why she had gotten on her knees until... It emerged from the dark as though birthed by it, a figure drawn from the residue of shadow itself. The skin was pitch black, not the absence of light but the consumption of it, the surface devouring illumination until nothing returned. Across that darkness ran faint seams, like cracks in cooled volcanic glass, pulsing with brief veins of ember-red before fading to void. Sam was too stunned to speak. He tried to garner Amiras attention but only stammered non-sensical noises. Was she seeing this?! As her mouth worked his shaft, his heart seemed to fill with warmth. The eyes struck first. There was no white, no mercy in them, only that bright, glacial blue, twin fires that did not flicker but glared, alive with an intelligence both ancient and desirous. They searched with hunger, not for flesh but for recognition, the way a predator might look upon its reflection and mistake it for prey. The mouth opened and the world seemed to flinch. The upper teeth were flawless, aligned like instruments of judgment, each one honed to a razored point. When it smiled, the expression carried a perverse satisfaction, as if the act of baring those blades was the purest form of worship it knew. The lower jaw gaped without return, a hollow that drew in air and sound alike, producing a low, rhythmic intake that resembled quiet moaning. The body moved with a fragmented grace, its limbs testing the air in small, deliberate gestures. Every shift released a scent that mingled salt and ash with something unmistakably human, the smell of desire and want. Sam shook his head once and it was gone. He looked down to see Amira wiping the edge her mouth with her sleeve. The timer rang, a harsh little trill that snapped the air. Amira opened the door. Before anyone could speak, Sam stepped past her. Someone called his name. He did not answer. He grabbed his backpack from beside the couch, the strap nearly slipping from his hand, and sprinted for the stairs. The walk home blurred. Tears gathered at the edges of his vision. He cut across the small park near his street and sank down beside a tree, his back pressed against the rough bark. The realisation arrived in pieces. He had not wanted it to go that far. A few kisses, maybe, something simple and harmless. Instead everything had surged ahead faster than he could think, his body agreeing while his mind lagged behind. In the back of his thoughts, another image surfaced, something he thought he had seen in the closet, just beyond the candle. Had that been real?