Hi there! My name is Eric Mohammed, and this person having a panic attack and hyperventilating next to me is my friend-date, but also not-quite-girlfriend: Fuchsia McAuliffe.

Let me explain how we landed in this situation, to begin with.

This is all because the power went out as soon as we rounded the corner, and even though the backups went online and the lights returned some scant seconds later, there was no signal from the public Wi-Fi network. This meant that the incident was—at least—city-wide. I knew this was the case because my phone gave a startled error tone as soon as it all started.

Fuchsia panicked and screamed as her connection to the internet—and to her stream, I assumed—was cut-off. Cut-off for what could be the first time in her entire life.

I thought the experience was probably quite traumatizing for her—in an age where internet access was like access to air, clean water, and uninterruptible power—but still, I kept a thin strand of hope it wasn’t as big of an issue as I suspected.

I certainly hoped things wouldn’t develop in the same vein as that kid they’d rescued earlier this year. He’d lost access to the internet because of a malfunction in his augs or something, which resulted in him having a panic attack in the middle of climbing some stairs. It really wasn’t pretty, but it made the news—and racked-in the views—at the time, and now he’s living happily, and quite lavishly.

Looks like I’m immune to that shit—especially the fame and money parts—I guess. I should be thankful, lucky me. I couldn’t help but ruminate.

I couldn’t keep from worrying about Fuchsia, though. Mainly because I am in no way trained to handle this shit. Calming down a frantic teenage girl turned streamer experiencing acute internet withdrawal was NOT something on my resume, that’s for sure. Is she about to experience a panic attack, too? How would I handle this? Please don’t let this be the case. I wished really hard.

I only heard a keening noise coming from her armpit as she turtled-up in what seemed like an instant, she started listing to the side and I quickly steadied her when she was about to tip over and fall on her face. I braced myself against the possible incoming episode, which happened quickly.

She had me lower her so that she sat on the floor, then she started hyperventilating. Her chest rose and fell quickly, like a bird out of breath. I wished I there was anything I could do to help her; but sadly, there wasn’t.

I sat down beside her and she took my hand in a tight grip. I knew that was the worst part of the experience, so I started rubbing her back in a circular motion in the same way my mother used to do to comfort me, hoping against all hope that this would be of any help.

She calmed down after a while and gave me a look of gratitude. I knew how it felt to be so vulnerable during an episode of this magnitude, so I helped her up quickly.

Sadly, her feelings of gratitude didn’t last that long.

“Are you feeling okay?” I asked.

“No. I’m NOT feeling okay. What the actual FUCK just happened?” She responded.

“Shh, ease up on the caps-lock. You don’t have to shout,” I whispered while looking around at the corridor, “and I have no clue what you’re—“

Her eyes squinted at me as she interrupted my last sentence, “why are you whispering and acting all shifty?” Her eyes widened in realization, “does this outage involve you somehow? Did you fucking cause this?” She accused.

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“Uhh, I don’t really know but…,” my eyes lit up with an idea, “you know what? You go back to the lobby, I’m betting they have a nanofiber connection and local WiFi there. I’ll get to Mrs. Dana’s office real quick, and then we can get the fuck out of here.”

“Not so fast! You’re not getting rid of me that easy. I’m going in there with you,” she jerked my arm back, clutching it tightly, “because now I have to find out why you dragged me out here in the first place,” she said with a sneer.

Fuck, she’s pissed, I thought, but I sighed, “fine, you can come. Just don’t come blaming me if something terrible happens,” I acquiesced, “just keep your voice down, will ya? It’s dangerous.”

“Dangerous? Why is that?” She whispered as we advanced. The emergency lights in the corridor looked foreboding as we moved towards the next intersection.

I sighed, but whispered back, “I couldn’t tell you while you were streaming, but someone stole my identity and now they’re probably going to attempt to murder me,” I told her the truth, “my only option was to stick to you since they probably wouldn’t dare come after me during your live stream.”

She let go of my arm, looking affronted as she asked a question that made my face burn with shame.

“So… this whole thing… You asking me out. Our date. It was all just a ploy?”

“I’m sorry.”

She slapped me on the cheek, then kicked me hard in the shin, and it hurt like a motherfucker.

“Ouch.” I cried out loudly, “Okay, fine. I think I deserved that,” I said guiltily as I rubbed my leg, “but what the actual fuck? You hit like a freaking truck.”

She flipped me off and ignored me as she went ahead. I stood rooted in place for a while.

“You coming or what?” She said testily.

I followed after her and started telling her the story in hushed tones as we walked, eyeing the various exits vigilantly for any sign of pursuit.

We quickly made our way around the last bend, before coming face to face with yet another corridor, but this one was run down and dirty, with visible pipes running along the ceiling, which I found to be quite at odds with the rest of the building.

We followed the corridor towards all the way to a beaten red door with the paint slightly fraying near the edges. Under the fraying paint was what appeared to be rusty iron. I knocked at the door just as I finished bringing Fuchsia up to speed on everything that had happened to me yesterday.

“Wow, you’re a real idiot, you know that? You could have told me your entire situation on stream, and nothing bad would have happened,” she whispered as we watched the beat-up door in front of us, “perhaps going public with this would have been better, even. At least we’d have had a public record exposing the reason we’re in possible danger right now.”

I facepalmed. Stupid, stupid! How irrational can I get?

“What’s done is done,” she said, “let’s worry about the present for now,” she said while rubbing at her eyes, I thought I caught a trace of a tear carving a trail down her cheek, or it might have been the low emergency lighting playing tricks on my eyes, I’m not sure. I tried to ask her how she was doing, but she gave me a dirty look and said she was fine, before knocking at the door again, more forcefully this time.

“Who’s out there? What do you want?” An ancient voice came through the door as it opened a crack and a wrinkly face with beady eyes peered through it.

“Hello, uhh… Mrs. Dana?” Fuchsia greeted.

“That’s Mrs. Stone to you. What do you want from me?”

Fuchsia turned to look at me, “what do we want, exactly?”

I scratched my head, “Hello ma’am. I was sent here by the Principal of our school, Mr. Arthur. He said I should give you this and you’d know what to do?” I brought up the headband and showed it to her.

She sighed—which sounded like the rattling of tin cans full of pebbles shaking in a strong wind—and opened the door wider, “come on in, but don’t touch anything.”

We stepped in, I went first and Fuchsia went after, shaking her head and muttering about something I didn’t quite catch.

What greeted my eyes was a… I’m not even sure how I can describe it.

You know the age-old adage that says: don’t shit where you eat?

Well, it appeared someone had shat, ate, bled, vomited, and fucked in this place, repeatedly, and quite regularly too by the looks of it.