Killswitch

Opening

It was just moments ago when he had laid his head to rest against his soft, white, coverless pillow. He had had a nose bleed the previous night, yet somehow the blood didn’t bleed through. He was thankful, to say the least. Every case of a bloodied pillow he had in his life had always turned out to be permanent and irreplaceable damage. Then, on occasion, he’d find himself in his family’s pearl white Toyota on their way to their local Costco in hopes of snagging another cheap deal on newly shelved pillows from some god-awful new unheard-of brand.

There was always some quirk to the pillows they advertised. It was either memory foam, a cooling pad, or some environmental factor. "Save the pandas," they’d say. Yet, he never understood where the bamboo came in.

His parents would nod their heads in agreement as they lectured on about its benefits before his parents would throw it into their cart and head off to the checkout line. There they would run through membership like they always did, and they’d buy food on the way out.

Pizza. It’d always be pizza. Despite all the possible choices and options, the hotdogs, the churros, it’d always be pizza.

He lay in bed staring at the dark and starry ceiling above him. Stickers that resembled everything from the stars to planets to what appeared to be poorly drawn crosses filled his walls and ceilings. They were glow-in-the-dark stickers that "absorbed light." Like that was possible.

His mom bought those for him as a surprise gift from Target one afternoon after school when he first started middle school. A long time had passed since. Despite how old it made him feel, he had been too lazy to remove them. So on the wall, they stuck, and on the wall, they stayed. As a high schooler, he considered himself busy, so he left them the way they were.

They didn’t bother him anyway.

His alarm clock rang out, even though it was probably only midnight. He was unsure of the time, but he was sure that once he actually got himself out of bed, he’d come to realize that it was a lot later than he had imagined. Then he’d find himself a bit more stressed than he’d like to be, and he’d find himself rushing through his unfinished high school homework once more.

He called it "flying." He would "fly" through his homework, as they’d say. He loved his birds, yet somehow he never seemed to make the connection.

In all honesty, he knew nothing about birds, as he did many things, but having watched Sesame Street growing up, he considered Big Bird a bird, and that was enough for him.

Pushing aside his sheets, he grabbed his jacket that hung at the foot of his bed and headed out his bedroom door into the dark hallway that lay before him.

The bathroom lay right across the hall, diagonally from his room. He walked in, turned on the lights, and locked the door behind him. Turning on the cold water, he dunked his face into the pool that lay below as a shiver ran down his spine. He felt much more awake. The cold water against his skin never failed to strike his senses.

He was ready to start his day. With the time he assumed it was, he was sure to be asleep by the time he actually found himself in class.

Parting the restroom and down the hall, he made his way into the kitchen as he filled the kettle that lay on the stove with water as he dove through the drawer for a proper early morning tea.

Within a moment's notice, the water began to boil, and he was truly ready to begin his day. Pulling a Jasmine tea tea bag from the drawer and setting it on the granite countertop, he was more than ready to make tea.

"What a beautiful morning it is," he said. "Cheers, and may this day be filled with wonders."

1.

The heat of the cup brushed warmly against his fingertips as he poured boiled water from the kettle. He was making early morning tea. Really early morning tea. It was three in the morning, and there was no better time than this to do homework. His family was asleep: his mom, his dad, and his younger sister of twelve. All was well, and all was silent. A gentle breeze blew through the windowpane.

The living room lights dimmed, there would be no distractions for the next few hours, or so he hoped. He would be productive and get what he needed to get done finished. Right?

He still had the responsibilities of a student, hence why he was now awake. A student at the local high school, Milford, he was known to be a sleeper. But, he got what he needed to get done, done, and that was all that mattered.

Carrying his newly made Jasmine tea, cup, and saucer, he transitioned slowly towards the carpeted living room floor. A couch lay on one end, back against the wall, and a TV sat across on the other end. A cheap wall clock, probably found on some website linked to ads, hung on the wall above the TV in reasonable view. The time read three thirty-four. A good thirty minutes had passed since then. He set his teacup beside his laptop, which sat on a worn-out computer stand. Charger plugged into a tangled extension cord that ran across the wooly floor, he turned on his laptop, a MacBook, opened a fresh Google doc, and began to type.

Twelve-point Times New Roman. "Good heavens, I love English," he thought. It was truly just another typical morning. Fuck.

Before long, he had pulled his typical scheme of splitting his screen into two, with YouTube open on the left side. His document still lay empty on the right. There he watched replays of past F1 races, including the golden days of Hamilton after he left McLaren. He still liked McLaren, though. There was no shame in that.

He had probably written half a line by then. Another thirty minutes had passed since. He would probably have to pull off the same old lie when he got to class. "I got bored. I was hungry. My dad ate my homework." Oh, how he wished he had a dog. His lies never got him anywhere, as per usual, but he recited them anyway.

The time read four fifteen. There was still time. Time for the wonders of the world, as they’d say. His parents would probably want to be out of the house by seven. To him, that still seemed miles away. He’d write up a full page worth of "English" in the next fifteen to twenty minutes as a way to show off his capabilities, and he’d be done. "Done with English," he’d say, "Finally." He’d head back into the kitchen moments later to fetch himself some more tea. His grandma would always tell him that a good teabag could provide three cups worth of tea. Even if he disagreed, he followed suit.

It became a habit.

Upon making it back to where he once sat–on his wonderful black couch made of fake leather–he proceeded to check his email. Other than promotions from Rightstuff, he knew that there’d probably be nothing new. Today was almost the same.

Almost.

As the page finally loaded, there lay two new unread emails. One was from Rightstuff, as usual, but the other was something else. It was titled "Untitled."

It was almost five, meaning it had been sent only a few minutes ago. Without a moment to spare, he proceeded to click and open the mail.

There wasn’t much to see. In all honesty, it was more than underwhelming. A few lines of text ran across the nearly empty box, with three to five words in each line spanning left to right. He’d attempt to read what the hidden message was but would soon find himself unable to with how pixelated it appeared. Double spaced and centered, it was as if it were poetry. He took no particular interest in poetry, considering himself a comic book kid. However, not being able to read what was written bothered him. Giving it his best with the time ticking away, he soon decided it’d be best to move on.

As he hovered his mouse over the "X" to close out his email, it’d soon become clear that something was far beyond wrong. As the lights in the living room seemingly grew dimmer, a chill began to grow.

At first, it seemed as if it was only the tab that refused to cooperate but pecking at the button restlessly, his mouse soon followed suit. It would soon become apparent that his whole computer was going off-rail.

Overworked from the gaining tabs, it was not too long after that his precious MacBook from two summers ago began to overheat. The clock read five-ten. Ten minutes wasted on considerable bullshit.

Calling for his dad, who always acted like he knew all about the world of technology, all he could hear was a light snore. Asleep in a room halfway down the hall, he’d probably find himself getting the typical response from a sleepy-eyed father figure that sounded something like, "Just shut the computer down, you stupid idiot!" so he decided to give up.

He put all the faith he had in his father onto himself and his instincts. No matter how productive or dangerous it was, he’d give it a shot. In a world of absolute nothingness, it was worth a try.

The brightness began to go haywire as his laptop shone brighter than ever, the heat ever increasing. It appeared as if it had broken the maximum brightness by a whole tenfold. Unplugging and picking up his once functional computer, he decided there’d be no other way. At least a broken laptop couldn’t end his life.

Throwing the laptop against the floor with all the might he could muster, he came to discover two valuable lessons. Throwing a laptop against a carpeted floor wasn’t the best way to go about destroying something, and something far more sinister began to emerge.

The once controlled air suddenly began to blow harder.

His laptop sat on the floor, upright and intact. He could feel the heat produced by the massive battery against his bare feet. The extreme and blinding light didn’t fade away.

Nothing about the surrounding environment seemed to change one bit. The dim lights that came from the ceiling down still shone as they previously had. His parents still slept as they previously had. However, it was as if there was something he missed when he read the email for the first time. Below the pixelated poem, there lay an orange, striped box. And in that box, clearer than daylight, was a boy singing karaoke.

It would have been best if he had not recognized the boy, but there was an unsettling certainty about the boy that stood smiling in that cartoonish box. In a square that resembled a wonky television screen, mic in hand, that boy was him.

2.

It had only been a week since he had received a phone call from some unknown caller, having missed it with his phone shut down during school hours. It was required of them. His best friend, Billy Joe, had his phone taken away while using it in the bathroom one passing period. He thought having his face against the wall was a smart move. The trend of wearing a backpack against your stomach instead of against your back had passed long ago. It was out of season, as they’d say. Regardless, he had missed the call. And for him, it was for good reason.

The call appeared to have been from somewhere off in Nevada. They always seemed to have come from Nevada. If it wasn’t Nevada, it’d either be Maryland or Texas. Typical.

The boy lived with his family in the wondrous state of California, where Silicon Valley never seemed to fade away. It was nice, to say the least. The windy breezes blew. His family wasn’t the richest of sorts, but they were well off. Content, to say the least.

He hadn’t thought much about it then and hadn’t thought much about it later, but now it became more than unsettling. It was as if the world around him had come to a halt. The clock appeared to be frozen still. Another ten minutes had passed since, but it was now when all things seemed to spiral out of control.

The clock read five-thirty. Seconds later, the handle seemed to stop.

That same week, he received an iMessage on that very same device: his phone. The formatting of iMessages was simple and easy to understand, but it was also unrevealing. The icon that was personalizable remained blank. The name that sat below the icon was left in numbers, but not of a phone number. The numbers were practically gibberish. Had it been binary, he would have plugged it into his computer–the series of ones and zeros–to then again figure out nothing, but he’d try.

Out of all the questions he couldn’t answer, there was one thing he could understand. It was the fact that a message awaited him. It was short, and it was not so sweet.

The message read in one line of text, "What do you want; who are you?" All the punctuation was there. To him, they seemed just as correct as anything else he had seen before, but that wasn’t the point.

No one gave much of a damn about punctuation when it came to texts. They were practically never there to begin with. Just get the point across and move on.

Data is only so limited.

Thinking back to that time, he didn’t care much about that message either. He did as he was told when he first got his phone from his loving parents: that the world outside was filled with "bad people" and to never pick up a call from a stranger. Alongside, he would eventually receive a random message or two and to ignore them, to not respond, and to delete them with a swipe.

"Swipe and delete," they’d say. "Swipe and delete," he’d repeat.

Repeating that phrase to his onlooking parents was almost a chore. Like many things, he hated it. However, only in this rare case did he find their words helpful. He did as told. He swiped the message to the left where a red square with a trash bin sign appeared in white and he deleted the conversation.

Night came and life went on as usual once more, attending Milford High every morning as he had done days previously. As the weekend neared, he looked onto it with delight. After a missed phone call from Nevada and an unexpected message, he was more than ready to be done with his week. Seeing him in class, he was sure his teachers were too.

Just as computer games have their glitches, he thought of these events as a slight glitch in his life, a speedbump perhaps. As the days passed, and the weekend closed, he thought he had forgotten all about them. A new week began and they seemed to dissipate in memory.

All was well, and life continued on. Sadly, it didn’t last for long.

3.

Nothing happened. Something was beyond wrong, but he didn’t know what.

He stood staring at his unsettling photo, practically speechless. His heart raced from the amount of pent-up energy from trying to destroy his laptop computer against the carpeted floor. As he huffed a little, he expelled heat from his clothed body. Soon enough, the photo that lay in that telescreen box would begin to change.

From a once still photo, a flipping motion began to occur as videos began to replace where the photo once lay. In a similar fashion, they too were of the grand karaoke experience from some summers ago. The wondrous life that played out before homework and due dates became his main concern. However, there was a part of him that never seemed to really care. He knew that was obvious.

Panning from photos to videos and back, the motion lay consistent with different time intervals between each new item. None of the photos nor videos were repeated, and each "page" (as it appeared) flipped as if one were reading a physical video book. He would await the day videos could be played on physical paperback. It’d make reading more interesting and potentially bring a slighter passion to his English experience. How one came to obtain such photos remained in question.

He saw himself beside his family: his dad smiling and drinking tea; his sister on her phone, half pissed; and his mother, who loved to sing, oh so much. Then various other locations began to appear like the parks he’d visited plenty in his youth: the slides he never grew out of, and the swings he could barely get two inches off the ground on when he tried. He saw himself chasing geese as the birds tried to fly away. Off they flew into the sky. He only got so far before he was out of breath. He’d never forget.

He almost smiled. No matter how frightening it all was, it all felt like a memory, a memory engrained in the past.

No matter how the locations and ages of the individuals that lie within the photos shifted, the location of the karaoke place never did. Out of all the various places they’d travel to in search of an all-time favorite, Carry-Okay Karaoke remained the same.

Within all the photos and videos that played, there was an undeniable similarity. No matter who else was in the photo, no matter where the photo was taken, he was in it. There he stood, center stage, as always.

Unable to bear the undeniable threat that his life was in danger any longer, laptop against the floor, he reached over to the table beside him where he once worked and picked up his teacup, his cup without the saucer. His saucer lay still against the wooden tabletop. Within the cup, slight droplets of Jasmine tea still lay. That too, was unimportant. Raising his cup into the air, he positioned himself and threw his cup against the screen. He could bear it no more.

He watched as the ceramic shattered against the glass screen, extending the angle of his computer even further back. His MacBook computer sustained damage, but it was less than he had hoped for. He watched as the excess tea dripped down the face of the glowing screen, his computer radiating hotter than ever. He could buy another computer despite its cost, but the price of saving his face was a price he could never pay back.

Despite the damage, his computer still functioned. Frozen still since he first opened the email, the photos continued to play.

The lively, joyful photographic memories of youth continued as the small box scrolled now uncontrollably. Faster and faster it went until it all became a blur. New photos began to spill through that were no longer related to his family or anyone he knew. They were outright internet images.

Celebrities, superstars, outdated internet gifs, blurry low-quality photographs that were practically pixelated, and a fat Fuck you.

"Necessary," he thought.

On and on it went, a merry-go-round of absolute horror alternating between photo qualities, messages, and more. Faster and faster it’d go. It was as if all the filters a parent could impose on a child were broken.

He could see the world.

Suddenly, it all came to a stop. Now overtaking his entire screen were two squares side-by-side in a similar fashion. The background that lay behind these two squares resembled a light peach color. Yet, unlike the surface of a peach, the color was flat, absolutely flat.

Within the two squares, what appeared to be from the camera built into the computer, was none other than him staring down at what lay on the floor. As the screen began to expand, the two squares becoming a rectangle, he saw himself and his surroundings: the table from a bottom-up view and the towering giant that stood before it. He was only what was considered 5’8 and three-quarters, but gazing up at him, he appeared massive.

Picking up his tea-drenched laptop from the floor that was covered with a teacup’s worth of shattered ceramic, he hoped to make an attempt to destroy his computer one final time. "Goodbye. You’ve brought my life a lot of pain."

He almost felt sad, but soon those feelings began to fade.

As he peered up from picking up his laptop from the floor, preparing to throw it across the hall where his parents slept, never to see it again, he noticed a new light beginning to flicker. Then another. Then another, until the room caught full flame. Raising his head to see the TV that lay before him, he saw himself once more, dripping laptop in hand, and a pair of eyes filled with fear. Every possible device in the house faced the same threat, yet no camera lie on the television’s surface.

Where was it even coming from?

Chucking his laptop against the TV, he began to make for a run. The handle on the clock remained frozen still.

The time no longer mattered, for it too glowed with radiant light.

"Turn the wifi off!. . . Flick the button!. . .Turning the fucking wifi off!" he screamed. It was so hard to reach, so hard to do. The button that seemed only a swipe or a click away just didn’t seem accessible. The device just refused to respond.

He felt a warmth begin to grow from his pants' side pocket. As he began to withdraw his phone from where it once lay, the device that seemed to start it all, glowed with radiant light. Once again, he was able to see his own reflection. As he began to lose his senses, he realized that there was just no end to this nightmare, and no end lie in sight.

4.

There was nothing in the world like a cool early morning wake-up shower. The first touch of cold running water as it parted the showerhead brought goosebumps to the skin. It did the same for anyone. According to the internet, it was good for one’s health, hence her partaking in the trend. Or maybe she just liked the way it felt.

His sister had woken up somewhere along the early hours to take an early morning shower, as it was her way of starting the day. She had been completely ignorant of the fact that something was sparking in the living room. Her room held no clock, and she slept with her loving mother down the hall. Straight down the hall, her room lay on the right. Just outside her room, a turn left on the exit, lay the bathroom. This decent-sized house held two bathrooms, the other in her bedroom, but due to the rising water bill, they had been more strict on the use of the bathtub.

Having clothed and dried herself, she grabbed the hairdryer from the wooden bathroom shelf that lay not too far from the lone toilet and made her way down the hall. She was heading down to the living room to dry her now moist but toweled hair where a plug lay on the wall beside a cushioned chair on four legs, a family typical. Despite how unnecessary and pointless it seemed, it too became a habit.

But that didn’t exactly happen, you see. As she saw her brother fly across the living room in panic, she saw the massive radiating light that came from the living room that shone from each and every lone device. From the TV to the digitized wall clock with handles, to the charging cellphones, they all glowed, facing the same fate. For it wasn’t the physical body of her brother that she had seen. It was a mirror reflection of the living room that shone from a cracked television screen.

Glitch marks streaked along the points of contact where an object had struck. Something had been thrown against its surface. That she knew.

Standing on the edge of the wooden floor that ran down the hallway before reaching carpet flooring, she dropped the hairdryer, almost crushing her own feet. There was no point in blow-drying her hair anymore; there was no time. For all she cared, it might only be a few short minutes before her life came to an end.

Her brother’s physical body came closer and closer into view as he ran toward her; her mind slowed. She watched as if her brother was running in slow motion, majestic waves of color filling her view. Despite the screams and panic, the world almost appeared silent. Her ears and mind had somehow blocked off the sound.

She almost seemed to be at peace, yet in her heart, she felt a thirsting fear.

Then, at a moment’s notice, all the sounds stormed in, filling her. She could hardly breathe.

Flipping all wifi signals off, an undeniable failure, they were forced to move on.

New plan, for time was fleeting, and fast.

Still unable to fully understand the situation–for a cameraless TV still shone–his new plan was to flip all devices with a visible camera over so the camera didn’t show through. In his hopeful heart, he hoped that in doing so, the screen would show a black and blank screen and they’d be out of sight.

He wasn’t wrong, to say the least, but as devices that were previously off began to turn on, facing the same threat, he’d begin to realize that there was more to this game than he had imagined.

In pursuit of ending this undying nightmare, he made his way towards the family’s standup piano where the piano stood propped against the wall. It was a purchase made when the family had first purchased the house so long ago that even he began to wonder if his sister had even been born yet. His father had bought it as a gift to his mother who claimed to have been one of the greatest pianists in her school orchestra when she was in high school. After years apart from her passion, she was reunited with it once more.

On the piano lay a phone and an iPad. Not only did the two devices appear to overdo it, as one device seemed sufficient for displaying sheet music, but it was also a clear indicator of the times' shift and growth. He had grown up with Forscore, a digital storage compartment for sheet music, and it had been helpful throughout his continuing journey in music. Yet, being forced to stare at his panicked self once more on a glowing screen bothered him.

"Just flip it over and get it over with," he began to tell himself repeatedly. He could hear his sister pacing back and forth doing the same. She didn’t bother him, nor did he bother her. They had work to do, and they knew that work had to be done.

However, upon flipping over the devices this time, a new discovery had been uncovered, one he wished would stay forever buried and never come. In addition to the rising heat waves that exhausted from the phone, another knot had been uncovered.

The surrounding danger had evolved once more.

In flipping the devices over against the black reflective surface of the piano, the rectangular screen began to appear on the backside where no visible screen lay, and he saw himself once more.

"Fuck modern phones. Dammit. Fuck," he thought to himself as the danger that lurked began to transcend human understanding.

Turning his head with no way out, he gazed at the horrific scope of the TV once more.

Staring at what appeared on the TV screen, he couldn’t believe his life.

5.

He had tried to hide his face from the camera’s view the entire time, but the TV seemed to always bear it all. Assuming that he had already had his identity exposed, if not more, he planned to take the blow for his sister each and every time as a way to keep her out of it. However, with the TV’s presence, he could see her reflection in full focus as a yellow square surrounded her head. It was as if the camera was trying to focus on something. Despite the many times he was seen in the camera’s view, it never did the same for him. This was a first.

As unsettling as it was, he knew that there had to be a way out somehow.

"What do I do? What do I do," he began to mumble to himself. There was no time to act and no time to think. Actions, actions always came first.

"Is something wrong?" he heard his sister call from the other end of the living room. He stood beside the piano as she stood on the opposite end of the couch that lay close to the four-legged seat beside the shutters. The shutters were closed, blocking out the darkness outside as the light from the bulbs above reflected in.

In his mind, thoughts began filling his senses as he knew how he’d respond. But he didn’t. He held it back. Of course something was wrong. Everything was wrong, in fact. The world seemed to be on the edge of collapse for all he cared. And as if he cared for nothing more, his very life was in danger. It was a matter of fight or flight, but he had nowhere to run. The sky outside was still relatively dark, and there was no way to check the time.

He could feel his heart beating out of his chest. He couldn’t stand still any longer. He had to act.

"Unplug everything! Unplug everything right now!" he screamed as he felt his voice begin to go hoarse dashing towards the outlet where the TV lay plugged in. For all he cared, losing his voice was a small price to pay. He was going to end this threat once and for all.

Sitting on the floor beside the TV, he thought back to what his mom had said. Countless plugs were all plugged into the same outlet, each and every one of them leading somewhere different. It almost seemed like a miracle. How could such luck exist? If he could get rid of the motherboard, everything else should go with it.

They all lie on a black rounded block extension chord. A plastic surface, the texture was grainy and the plastic felt thin. Despite its rounded edges, it had a plethora of plugs plugged into its flat surface. What attracted him most of all was the flaming red switch that lay on its surface towards the end, furthest from where he sat. With a flip of the switch, he could shut off the entire block, disabling all the wires that were connected to it until someone came to flip it on once more.

With him on watch, that would never happen because he wouldn’t allow such an incident to occur. As mentioned, this was a miracle, a once-in-a-lifetime chance, and discovery, and he wasn’t going to let it slip away.

He flipped it quickly. When the block was on, a red flaming light would glow from the switch as an indication that it was on. The light would disappear, turning the switch into a dull, lifeless switch when switched off. But as he switched it this way and that, he began to notice that the switch refused to turn off. The red light refused to fade, like a flame that refused to die down no matter how hard he blew. He watched from the side as the TV continued to glow. Could it be broken?

Growing more and more desperate as he flipped full and complete flicks back and forth faster and faster each time, like many times previously, this too resulted in failure.

It simply refused to turn off.

Deciding that there was no other way, he hurried as he pulled all the individual plugs one by one as he tossed them behind him. There was still a house worths to pull.

What he didn’t know was that regardless of what he did, the devices lay in a synchronized neverending spiral. It was as if electronics could be hypnotized. Hacked as they were, he had to find the source. No matter where it was hidden, there had to be a source. He was sure of it. And soon enough, the source would arrive.

Even if this outside danger sought extermination, despite his neverending fear, he was still one body, alive and well. A plan was executed, but they had not succeeded, yet.

Dashing around the house as he flipped light switches on and off around the living room where they stayed, he pulled plugs from walls, beside doors, and onto floors. The printer, the pencil sharpener, and many more.

The tile floors were cold against his bare feet. He felt a shiver shoot up his spine. He had left the slippers he had once worn somewhere behind. Now lost, the cold growing ever more unbearable, he only hoped that they could be found, for the house was only so big and they could only be so far away.

Making his way around the house, crossing his sister many times over, he began to notice that the TV was still on. "Haven’t I already unplugged it?" he thought.

As he ventured hesitantly towards the extension chord once more to see what went wrong, or if he had forgotten to unplug it completely, he found himself standing over an empty extension cord with plugs scattered throughout.

The plug lay bare. He hadn’t been wrong.

6.

He looked through the glass sliding door that led to the backyard from where he stood. Heading into the backyard, a turn right behind countless shrubbery, trees, and bushes, lay what appeared to be the ultimate outing. In the midst of all the growing shrubbery, for which his family nearly neglected its existence, was the power box, and in that power box, a switch. A switch that once flipped could shut off all the electricity that entered the house.

Even if the results weren’t sudden, he believed that eventually, all would have to die out. All this warmth that rose as the living room grew ever hotter too. With all the physical exercise he engaged himself with, alongside the growing temperatures, he could feel himself beginning to break a sweat. He huffed a little.

Was going out there in the freezing cold necessary? He had never seen a power box opened in his life. Simply getting it open appeared to be a difficult task in and of itself. He had only seen the outside, and that he had seen countless times. Never becoming truly interested in the painted grey powerbox that lay mounted on the brick wall, he prioritized the basketball hoop as well as a sandbox that he had played with in his youth.

His family had put off throwing the sandbox away for the longest time. It had been a gift from a family friend, but in reality, it was something they had wanted to throw out too.

Filling the sandbox with new sand, it all felt so new and he had loved it. For now, it housed all the dump uninvited animals and critters left behind as a way to leave their mark. With the growing stench, it wouldn’t be long before they cleared it out. Thrown and gone for the last time. He didn’t know how he’d feel. But either way, he was thankful for what he had, the days he had joyfully played in its sand.

He began to look up into the sky through the glass window. He could see fingerprints scattered across the glass, some of them his own. He could see a faint reflection of himself across its open, flat surface. The sky was still black as night, the moon still strainingly bright. It was almost hard to believe.

On a typical day, the moon would have risen in full glory by now, but it didn’t. Despite the faint pitter-patter of stars, which appeared to be mere dots from such a great distance away, the moon remained the one true source of light that held ever so true.

He loved the moon. Oh how it shone, so lovely.

Then suddenly, the silence was broken once more, and his mental peace came to an end once more. For not his sister, a spark flared near the wooden fence of their backyard, the one barrier that separated their home from their neighbors that lived on the other side. It appeared as if someone had fired a gun.

"RUN!" he screamed as he turned to see his sister not far behind him. He stood in the dining room where the glass door lay as his fingers came into contact with the icy cold surface of the morning day. Somehow, he had made his way to the window without his own notice.

The dining room lights went out as the lights from the living room glowed behind him. His bare feet against the marble white tile floor, his sister was not too far behind as she kneeled on the wooly carpet floor trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on outside from behind him.

Now standing beside him as she also stared out into the dark, she knew and he knew. They knew. It was some sort of flaring spark that they had seen. With the blurring darkness, the source was unknown, but it had to come from somewhere. With the decent size of their open backyard, that somewhere could have been anywhere. It could have been a hit and run for all he cared.

With the relatively thick glass door slid shut and a final check on the lock that secured the door closed—preventing anyone from opening it from the outside—they turned and ran down the hall to their rooms. As the patter of bare feet against the wooden floor could be heard echoing through the hall, he could only pray to God that at the very least the lock could prevent an initial blow, that at the very least the door could grant them enough time to get away. It was the least it could do. He knew it would not last for long, but it was the least he could do: pray.

Having successfully made it down the hall, he took a turn left as he reached the wall that lay on the other side as he entered the once safe proximity of his room.

He was scared. As a matter of fact, he was terrified, as he knew his sister was too. He could feel her shivers from not too far away. She was cold. Her hair still relatively damp, he'd find a towel or a random T-shirt of some sort in his room for her to dry off some more. Despite having an outlet in his room, the hairdryer lie somewhere down the hall. He didn’t want to spark any more business with plugs. He had had enough of that.

Sure enough, noises begin to emerge from the backyard. He didn’t know where to run for he was out of options. His last outing would be to dive through his window onto the driveway where a planter box of his mother’s favorite plants and flowers grew. His mother was not known for having a green thumb, but she tried despite her countless failures, which led him to learn that sometimes trying was enough. Whether he’d successfully make it out the window or not, he’d try.

Facing the window that would hopefully lead him to safety and out of his neverending misery, he turned to see his sister searching for a comfortable place on his bed. Sitting cross-legged, she stared back. He had her approval, and that was enough.

As he began to step on his black, cushioned swivel chair and onto his wooden desk, as he placed his knees forward, he began to pull in a leftward direction at the window that for all escape measures like these would slide open.

He pulled with all his might, yet somehow it refused to budge.

He tried again, but nothing happened once more. It was as if the window had been glued shut.

The noises were growing louder and louder, down the hall, through the glass door, and from somewhere off in the backyard. Someone or something was at work. A heavy pounding, like that from the butt of a gun, he knew the glass door wouldn’t hold up much longer.

He began to talk to himself. As his mind began to wander, he no longer cared about who or what it was. That was no longer his main concern. No matter what it was, whether human or devil, it was here, and it was coming after him. It wouldn’t be long before he’d meet his fate.

Repeating it over and over as he collapsed from his seat and onto the floor, he tried to convince himself that it wasn’t real. That it was all a dream, that he was foolish, and that it’d all be over in the morning.

"You’re alive you’re alive you’re alive you’re going to be okay you’re going to be okay you’re going to. . ." he proceeded to chant as he paused to catch his breath. His sister watched in shock unable as he found himself in a full-blown panic. Gut wrenching, stomach aching, he felt sick.

His heartbeat racing, he could hardly breathe.

"In and out, innnnnnnn and outttt. . ." He could take in breaths, an endless amount of air, but as he tried to exhale, it would come out in jagged waves. His head began to fill with color. It was as if his life was about to flash before his eyes. His sister, unable to watch any longer, leaped off the bed as she began to scream for her parents as the pounding progressed, louder and louder as if begging to come in.

Somewhere out in the darkness, something lurked.

A moment of silence passed as the loudest pound of all struck the window.

Screaming for their parents, screaming for them to wake up, they didn’t dare leave the room.

Something was awfully wrong. They could feel it. Were their parents okay? Were they dead? Despite all their screams, all their desperate, dying cries for help, they received no response. Not one.

7.

Their father’s snores could still be heard as he slept a room down. The awkward exhale of their mother’s out-breath through her mouth as she slept remained present too. The sound of their peaceful, deep, and dreamful sleep mixed into the surroundings. He began to wonder if he had never woken up. What would happen then? He just wished it would all fade away. Yet in his heart, he knew that it was here to stay.

It was hard to convince himself otherwise.

After one final pound, he heard the door come crashing down as the sound of shattered glass spread across the tile floor. Down came the door that once stood, a protector. It had put up a worthwhile fight, and he thanked it for that. But despite its long and hard-fought battle and the extended time it granted them, he had gotten nowhere. Other than progressively getting worse, nothing seemed to change.

Planning to run down the hall and head out the front door as a final and last attempt at an escape, they parted the room and entered the hall. They hoped that with their youth and energy, they would be able to beat the unwelcome visitor to the door.

The outside world was its playground, but upsettingly, they had no choice. Peering into the hallway that once lay empty, a man stood at the hall's end waiting.

"Fuck," he thought. They had been caught.

8.

The man stood silently staring as a shadow was cast over the floor towards where they stood. A white wall lay behind their backs, a reassuring sign that there was no other way out.

The thought of turning and returning to where they once sheltered came into mind. However, the man standing where he stood, even if they ran as hard as they could, there’d be nowhere to hide.

A few distinct features came to characterize the man. For one, he had a head full of finely combed hair, oily and slick. Two enormous eyes, resembling those of a dead fish, rested on his face, never straying from their focus. His eyes were fixed on the two individuals who were now left utterly speechless as his appearance was simply unreal.

Beneath his fish-like eyes, he bore no eyebags, which was a clear indicator that, as an unknown threat to society, he was able to receive proper and satisfactory amounts of sleep.

Subtle amounts of facial hair dressed his face, seeming as if it had been a good month since he last shaved. Encapsulating his arms and legs from head to toe was a finely dressed suit, slightly wet due to the moisture from the outside morning air. It bore a solid, slick black as if to attend a funeral. A jacket lay slinked against his left arm, with a loaded gun slinked against his shoulder. Despite the necessity of carrying such a large and loaded gun, a large gun it was indeed.

He carried something beyond bizarre in his opposite, right hand. In his right hand lay a bushel of bright orange flowers, as if to make a statement about the sun. A deep orange ran throughout its petals, an orange that sustained throughout. Despite the possibility that it may have been freshly-picked from their front yard, the brother was unable to identify the flower as it lay well wrapped as if freshly purchased not too long ago. It brought an unshakable chill down his spine.

But the most distinctive feature of all was the undeniable fact that he was smiling, a deep, wide smile in all its glory. His teeth showed, glowing in the dark. He was smiling so hard and had probably held up his smile for so long that it seemed as if his cheeks were on the verge of tearing with how dry the cusps around his lips appeared. As he set the briefcase that lay in his opposite hand onto the hallway floor, he proceeded to smile unwavering.

Whatever was in there, they refused to care.

He never spoke, as his smile never faded away. Yet there he stood. As the briefcase was laid against the floor, he set the bushel of flowers atop its surface, gently. He even bent down. It was as if the flowers meant something beyond valuable to him.

It was as if he sought to protect them.

In the midst of all these actions and inactions, he never failed to break eye contact and never failed to stop smiling. The way his neck cranked upward as his body leaned forward towards the floor brought a sense of eerieness. His neck appeared oblong.

The pair of siblings were horrified with no place to go. He began to approach them, the heel of his leather shoes making firm contact with the wooden floor below. A clack of the heel could be heard with each step. His figure towered as their backs were forced against the wall that lay behind them.

They were really out of options this time.

Flowers in hand, he began to offer them to the siblings that stood before him, waving the flowers before them as an offering, telling them to take them. After a few shakes, he held his arm out still. He didn’t blink. He didn’t speak as his eyes and teeth glowed, never breaking eye contact. In closer view, his eyes represented those of a cat.

"We don’t want them!" the brother began to repeat in fear as tears began to roll out from underneath his eyes. He was done for, and he knew it. "I’m done for, aren’t I? This, this life of mine?"

Letting out his final breath, seconds later, all held still. All was silent.

9.

Television news and the print newspaper left on doorsteps would report the news the following morning. Mornings were mornings, but something would pronounce itself as different as the sun rose into the new day.

Birds sat on perched poles, fences, and electric wires as they lay tiny and frail, tired and too weak to sing their early morning songs. The chips that brought in new life. The chirps that welcomed the new day. Today they were gone.

Their songs were just not the same as an eeriness lingered in the background. However, the day seemed to go off without a hitch in that regard. Life seemed to proceed as usual.

Later that day, something would pronounce itself as different. For the common eye, civilians watched as the sky began to fill with black balloons, rising higher and higher into the blowing breeze.

No matter how broken the world wanted itself to be, it was all still interconnected. There was nowhere to hide.

Television screens buzzed away as ordinary folk prepared for the day of work ahead. Breakfast before them at the dining table, they’d raised their heads as they watched the news report on the new phenomenon.

Higher and higher the balloons rose into the sky. Its point of origin couldn’t be located. Police began their search as the color black represented death. Just as families and individuals would send lanterns for the lost, this too was the same.

Seemingly unpoppable, they’d rise into the vast open sky. They'd soon shield the sun, bringing endless darkness back to the world.

Despite the sun’s disappearance, the moon would not shine in its place.

It’d soon become apparent that someone had died, perhaps murdered, but as cops set out to chase the unnamed killer, the killer remained unknown.

Epilogue

Kevin Schuster was considered nothing more than an average kid who lived on the block. Day in and day out, days, if not weeks, would just pass by. He considered himself a gamer. He’d play his fair share of League of Legends on his desktop Alienware computer after coming home from school each day.

He prioritized gaming over homework a whole tenfold. However, as his grade somehow managed to prove results, his parents couldn’t care any less. He’d go on to be a professional. Right?

Monday afternoon, April 25th was no different. He went to school, his parents picked him up, and he went home. Waiting for his mom to toss him the keys to unlock the front door as she pulled groceries from out the back of the car, he’d enter the house just to never return. If anything, that was his parents' biggest complaint: he never helped out with anything that didn’t directly concern him. But for someone his age, a middle schooler, family friends, and relatives had told his parents that he’d come around one day. That he’d come to learn.

They had started preaching such words years ago, but that day never seemed to come. They could only hope, and they did.

Entering into his very room that lay behind a typical painted white door, he turned the knob to reveal a relatively plain and clean room. Surprising to say the least. The walls were painted a creamy white, and he had a few figurines of his favorite video game characters scattered about.

Against a wall facing the window sat his computer. Dropping his backpack against the floor and scooting it beside his bedside, he progressed to withdraw his seat to begin another day’s work. As the screen began to light up, it wouldn’t be long before he’d immerse himself in his games.

As he entered the home screen, revealing all his applications, an email notification appeared at the top of his computer. It had been sent some hours ago while he was off at school. He never really cared for emails as they were the least of his concerns, but with the title it held, he proceeded with curiosity.

Straying from his initial plans, he felt he could give a minute or two to his newfound discovery. He was sure it wouldn’t take long.

As his email booted up, he proceeded to click on the email once more, displaying the contents of the email in full view. He was surprised to see nothing more than a few blurred, pixelated lines of text that spanned left to right. Was this all?

He’d find himself scrolling up and down to see if there was something he missed, but there was simply nothing more. Because of how underwhelming it all was, it genuinely upset him.

Closing out his email, the short and simple title read, "Untitled." Exiting his room for a quick bathroom break, it wouldn't be long before his life would begin to change.