CHAPTER ONE
A Beginning
FROM THE POV OF: MATTHEW
There is a faint knock on the door. I answer.
Just the package I had ordered! I open the smooth brown cardboard box, go to my room, and open the ugly cube. There are multicolor notebooks inside! A crisp, clean, loose leaf paper new page. Uhmm... I don't know what to say inside this notebook. I put the vibrant multicolor books up. Then, there's nothing. I feel nothing, because there is nothing to feel. It's pitch black, like if the light had vanished right before my eyes, and my sight had whisked away into nothingness. I think I'm in headspace. I walk over to a new face I haven't seen before. "Hello!" I exclaim loudly so that they would hear me because I was about 20-something feet away. "What's your name?" I stepped forward. They wave, "My name is ⍰⍰⍰⍰⍰⍰⍰⍰⍰!" I couldn’t quite catch their name. "Can you repeat that?" And then, there was a bright light, like the sun grew 5 times bigger. Suddenly, I see the darkness cutting and the melting-pennies smell of the Las Vegas humid and hot air returning. I was now near Vegas Dr. and Rainbow. How am I here? Where am I? Were these my other alters that put me here? How do I get back? The scooter groans and squeaks as I ride it back home towards safety. On the way back as my scooter rattles, I see a man throwing a right hook at another man. I've read books and stuff from other countries. They call our country a dystopia. I don't know what that word means. They say that they beat people up in the streets and have shootings. I've never seen a shooting, personally. I don't get it.
I got home, I put the scooter in the backyard where the spa is. I go inside, grab a glass of milk, and put cereal in a bowl. I don’t add milk, I like my milk separate. I hear a knock again. I go to the door, and open it. Just my dad, getting home from work. Still working at 30. That seems old to me. I talk with him about my weird experience, “I just wake up on the street.. And then.. I stole a scooter. I’m sorry. It’s in the backyard.”. He is a forgiving person, knows my regrets, knows my sorrows. I tell him everything. The humid air is hard to breathe. It’s 6:30 now, so me and my mom drive to school. She had been sleeping until she gets up to bring me to school. The road is uneven under our car. It’s terribly rumbly. I arrive at school, go through the front door into the quad. I go to the cafeteria for breakfast. I find my friends there, I sit at our table, 23. I don’t leave until 6:56, when the bell rings for earlybird. I go to my earlybird. Nothing really happened in school. I arrive home and fall asleep on the couch.
I wake up in headspace with a dark awakening. I have been front-banned. I go up to the alter I see earlier. “What are you doing?” The verse frantically comes out of my mouth. Then, It happens. The sky turns into a POV. My POV.
I don’t think twice. I don’t stop for a moment. I don’t think. I had beat up the suspicious new alter. “You are not in control.” The last breath from their mouth came out. I had not realized what I had just done. It had been war. I am heartbroken. Why would they do something like this? I need to get back to fronting. I usually talk with a gatekeeper of some sort, another alter. They let me front, and I go through this gate type thing. I don’t know. So, I need to get into that gate. I go up to the gatekeeper alter. “Can I front? It will be better for the entire system!” I argue. They blankly stared at me, no response. They walk away. I could do nothing but watch as my control flickered, almost reaching to it but it barely get away. It was sisyphean, almost. I don’t know what to do. I look up at the sky, they are on the city streets. Then I see a creature of some sort. It was leaking grey goo. What is this thing? Where did it come from?
FROM THE POV OF: SERVO
The taste of the copper air glazes my tongue.
I haven’t the slightest idea of what’s going on with Adrian, but I won’t go to his room to check. I go outside for my afternoon walk. I walk through the streets of Vegas Dr, walking past the Smith’s. As I am about to turn Jones, I realize I had left my phone at home. That’s okay though. Useless anyway, just a piece of junk tracker my parents want me to have. I don’t use it much, as I have a computer. Anyways, I ponder about what I would do when I get back home. I start to head back.
I wonder who stole my brother’s scooter earlier. But then—I see it– a druggie in the middle of the road. Wait no, that’s not a druggie. That’s something else. I try to squint to examine them further. That’s not human. That’s a monster. Nothing human could have that long a spine, so long that a machine couldn’t stretch a spine to match it. So many teeth everywhere, and bones sticking out. The legs covered in grey goo, an oily glowing substance. Black light emitting from it. The arms turning into a cockroach-type hybrid of some sort. Creepy, It’s slim tall build, the spine arching like a bridge, is almost alien-like. I run as fast as I can, about a block per 17 seconds. Fast as lightning. My lungs expand and contract again and again, burning and decaying with every step. My watch ticking every second, slower than my heartbeat. I had gone a block in 17 seconds. A personal record. The humid copper smell of the air, almost piercing my nose. This could be an action apocalypse movie where aliens show up. But that isn’t it. It’s worse. It’s not real. I must be dreaming. But yet, it all seems real. I couldn’t go to work today, because I am sick. What is this day? I arrive back home, my heart still hammering against my ribs. Grabbing my phone off the counter, I see a hazard notification glaring on the screen— and suddenly, I know exactly what's going on. I head straight for Adrian's room. “Did you receive the warning on your phone?” I inquire, “Or was it just me?” He raises his head from doomscrolling and says “Yeah, do you know what it is?”. I didn’t want to tell him. “Oh I haven’t seen anything about it yet. But make sure to stay inside!” I close the door. I go back to my room to ponder what to do about this situation. I go to my computer, and start to code something. A virus on a USB stick. I had thought viruses were cool when I was like 10. So sometimes I just create them for fun. I start putting it on a black flash drive with the label sticker “VIRUS”. I just put the flash drive in my drawer. Whatever that thing was– mechanical or biological, it’s going down.
FROM THE POV OF: SEBASTIAN
The music stops.
I hate it when my music cuts out. I sometimes don’t notice it, but I noticed this time. I check my phone, wired to my headphones, to see what’s wrong. An alert pops up on my screen. “HAZARD: DO NOT EXIT YOUR HOME.” It’s weird to me that there is a hazard, I step outside to see it myself. It’s oddly quiet. Too quiet. I walk down Jones to take a short walk to clear my head. I see something. A creature creaking and disfigured, with precise mechanical movements. It is leaking with grey goo, almost like oil. I stand there frozen, unable to breathe. It’s not human. It’s anything but human. What is that? I start walking back home. There are crashed cars, people’s houses wrecked on my street. What is happening? I get back home. My brother greets me. “Hey there little falla. What's get you runnin sad? Is it your poorness? Aww don’t be sad.” I wish I could beat his skull in, but he’s my brother. I go to my bedroom and scroll on TikTok like anybody would. And then— BANG!— A big loud noise bombs our ears. What is it? I check my window from my apartment. I call Matthew. No answer. I guess I’m on my own. Weird. I guess I’m not going to my friend Matthew’s today. I text Matthew, “Did you get that alert too?”. There is no response. I lay down on my bed and fall asleep. I wake up at 7:00 PM. It is night. I get up and get a glass of water and go back to my room.
FROM THE POV OF: HECTOR
I feel the gash’s blood run down my head.
My car crashes. Something slices my head open. Am I dead? No. Am I alive then? I don’t know yet. I crawl out of the car door, glass spikes poking in my every move. It burns. Why must this happen to me? A bystander runs towards me. Then it’s black. I wake up in the hospital. The air humid with a scent of sweat, copper, and something else I don’t recognize. People in stretchers being wheeled past me. A lot of them. The hospital looks overflown. I call the nurse. I ask what happened. They tell me I bled out and had an emergency blood transfusion. I don’t know what that word means. I ask why the hospital is overbooked. They tell me that there's a hazard outside. I don’t know what that is either. As soon as they leave, I go back to sleep. My parents come to pick me up. They take me home and I wake up on my couch. It is 4:30 now. I don’t believe any of this is real. Goodnight 5/27/26.
