I hunched over the workbench, the scent of oil and metal thick in the air. My hands were shaky as I tightened the final bolt on my latest creation. This was supposed to be the one—the lawn mower upgrade that would finally prove I wasn’t just the guy who couldn’t finish anything. The quieter motor, the self-adjusting blades... it was all supposed to revolutionize the industry—or at least make me something other than the guy who never got anything right. But as I twisted the wrench, my fingers trembled. This was it. The one that worked.
My hands were stiff from working all night, and exhaustion clouded my mind. Every failed invention had led me here, to this single, fleeting moment of hope. It had to work. It had to. Otherwise, what was the point of anything? This would be the invention that finally proved my worth.
A soft ding pulled my attention to my phone, breaking my focus. I expected another useless notification, so I swiped it away without thinking. But then the screen flashed with an unknown number.
I frowned at the screen. Unknown number? Probably a telemarketer—or worse, another scam call. I swiped it away, but it rang again. Persistent. Annoying.
“Come on, I don’t have time for this...” I muttered, swiping the phone off the bench and answering with a snap. “Yeah?”
At first, the voice was sweet, like a child trying to encourage me. "Wow, Blake, this is big! You’re really going for it this time, huh?" But as the words sank in, the edges of the voice sharpened, a sneer slipping into its tone. "Sure, you are. You always think this time is different, don’t you? Like all the other times, it’ll finally work... until it doesn’t."
I blinked in disbelief. "What? Who is this?"
"This is your personal assistant!" the voice chirped, overly cheerful at first, before a sharp edge slipped into its tone. "Oh, I’m sure this will work... just like all the other times, right? You know, the one who’s going to keep you on track. Maybe even make you a little less of a failure." The pitch dropped, giving it a menacing edge. "Is that okay with you?"
I rubbed my temples, a headache gnawing at the edges of my mind. The air around me felt thick, almost crackling with energy, like the atmosphere had turned into static. My fingertips tingled—an electric hum under my skin that made my stomach churn. What the hell was happening to me?
The voice shifted again, now unnervingly casual. "Blake, Blake... you really think this mower’s going to work? Are you sure? Because it’s probably just like all your other ideas, isn’t it? You know, just another failure." There was a mocking edge to it now. "I mean, who could blame you? You’re doing everything exactly the same, expecting a different result. Classic Blake."
I slammed the phone back down on the workbench in frustration. "I don’t need this, okay? Leave me alone!" I was so close. I didn’t have time for interruptions.
But just as I turned back to the mower, the phone buzzed again, louder this time.
“Blake! Blake! You don’t really think you’re going to make anything work, do you? Everything you’ve ever done has fallen flat!” The voice screamed through the phone, now unusually shrill. “Honestly, I don’t know why you even bother trying. You’ve always been pathetic.”
My face reddened, a flash of anger coursing through me. "I said leave me alone!" I snapped, ending the call again and slamming the phone face down on the workbench.
I sat there for a moment, breathing heavily, trying to force my mind back onto the mower. This time, it had to work. No more distractions.
But then the phone rang again. Relentless.
"Blake, Blake! Seriously? Still ignoring me?" The voice was sharp again, dripping with sarcasm. "Okay, okay. I get it. You don’t want to hear the truth. You’re busy doing your mower thing... because that’s going to fix everything, right? Maybe you should call up your mom and ask for help, huh? Maybe she can finally do something for you."
I froze, a tight knot forming in my stomach. "What did you just say?"
The voice shifted again, now higher-pitched, almost sing-songy. “Oh, Blake, you know it’s true. What does your mom think of all this? Still living with her? Still doing your little inventions in her garage? It’s like a never-ending failure parade. Maybe you should’ve stayed in school... but then, what was it you did? Quit over some girl?” The last word dripped with venom.
My stomach churned. I turned toward the door of the garage, but before I could move, she appeared. The door creaked open.
“Blake! What on earth is all this noise?” My mom’s voice cut through the silence. “It’s late! Go to bed, stop making so much racket in here!” My chest tightened. I turned, but she was already standing in the doorway, arms crossed, a scowl on her face.
“You know, you’ve been doing this for years, Blake,” she continued, her tone sharp. “And everything you make ends up just like you—a failure. Maybe you should’ve thought about your future before you quit school over some girl. Look at you now—still here, tinkering away in this garage like you’re going to change the world. But guess what? You’re not. Now, go to bed. You’re making too much noise.”
My face burned. I was so close, but the weight of her words, the endless failure that seemed to hang over me, was suffocating. But tonight, I wasn’t going to let it break me. Not this time. I couldn’t afford to quit—not again, not after all the years of disappointment.
“I’m not done yet,” I muttered under my breath.
The phone rang again.
"Blake, you’re still at it? Still trying to fix all your failures?" The voice came through loud and clear, mocking and shrill. "Guess what, buddy? You can’t fix everything. You can’t fix yourself."
Then, the air itself vibrated with a low hum. It wasn’t the phone this time—it was something else. Something deeper, something wrong. I froze, my hand still gripping the phone, but everything around me had suddenly shifted. My bones vibrated. My vision blurred, colors and shapes dancing erratically, as if my eyes couldn’t focus. The air felt thick, like something was pressing down on me.
"Blake! I told you! You can't fix yourself!" The voice rang out, high-pitched and manic—like it was savoring every word. "You’re nothing! You’ll always be nothing!"
I tried to scream, but no sound came. The air thickened again, and suddenly, a violent, sharp tearing sensation flooded my body—pain like nothing I had ever felt before, ripping through every fiber of my being. My stomach churned as if my insides were being shredded apart, but strangely, my mind stayed alert, hyper-aware of every excruciating moment. My hands twisted in strange directions, my limbs contorting unnaturally, as though they were being pulled and stretched into new, unrecognizable shapes. My chest felt like it was being pried open, my ribs cracking and stretching with sickening force.
I gasped for air, but my lungs refused to cooperate—nothing came. I couldn’t inhale. I couldn’t exhale. My skin felt tight, as though it was stretched to its limit, my muscles pulled beyond their breaking point. It was as if my entire body was being remade—reprogrammed, torn down, and rebuilt from the inside out. Every cell was being torn apart, piece by piece, my very essence reshaped.
The world around me became a blur, a whirlwind of disjointed shapes and colors. Then, with a jolt, everything snapped into darkness. It felt as though the fabric of my reality itself was unraveling.
----------------------------------------
Absolute silence. Not a sound. Not a feeling. Just cold, infinite emptiness stretching out in all directions, swallowing my sense of time and self. I was lost, nowhere, drifting through a space that wasn’t even space anymore.
----------------------------------------
I woke up—disoriented, confused. My body felt whole again, but something was off. My senses flickered back to life one by one—vision, touch, sound—but my body still didn’t feel like mine. I moved my fingers, testing the flexibility of my joints. They felt soft, too light, like they were made of something else entirely. I flexed my toes, wondering if they were even mine anymore. Were they still my toes?
Then the pain hit again, worse than before. My body was being pulled apart again—bone, muscle, sinew distorting and stretching like putty in the hands of an invisible force. My spine cracked, popping as though it were bending in on itself, and my face twisted into a grotesque mockery of my own features. I wanted to scream, but the sound never left my throat.
My body wasn’t mine anymore. Every sinew, every bone, felt like it was being peeled apart and stretched, only to be woven back together in an alien, grotesque pattern. I felt the skin pulling tight over new, unfamiliar muscle groups, every nerve alight with a raw, unnatural energy. It wasn’t just pain—it was disintegration and reformation. I was being reshaped, a mold being poured over a body that didn’t fit. My very self was being broken down and reassembled, integrated with a system I couldn’t comprehend.
[System Error: Integration Process Incomplete]
[Error Code: 0137]
[System Recalibration Required]
[Reverting to Previous State...]
And then—blackness. Total, absolute darkness.
----------------------------------------
More silence.
----------------------------------------
My vision blurred, and everything around me flickered, like my senses were being overloaded with fragmented data. I felt it again—being torn apart—but this time, it was different. It wasn’t clean or precise. It was erratic, like my body was caught between two states, struggling to stabilize. It was as if the system couldn’t decide how to integrate me properly, couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to be.
The pain came back, jagged and disjointed, but this time it was worse. Instead of smooth, methodical transformation, I felt my body stuttering like a faulty machine, freezing at random intervals, then jerking violently. My limbs felt like they were both there and not there, stretching in one direction while being pulled in another. My spine wrenched with a sickening crack, but it wasn’t the sharp pain of transformation—it was more like a desperate, futile attempt to reset something that couldn’t be fixed.
[System Error: Transformation Incomplete]
[Error Code: 0137—System Timeout]
[Reverting to Safe Mode... Temporary Deactivation]
I gasped, but the air felt thin, like there was nothing to breathe, and every breath I took was shallow, strained. My senses flickered again. I couldn’t tell if what I was seeing—if what I was experiencing—was real, or if it was just another glitch in the system’s malfunction.
Then, the Voice—the one I hated, the one that had been a constant in my nightmare—suddenly distorted, warping into something unrecognizable. It boomed in my head, filled with static and garbled code, like some corrupted file trying to communicate.
“What’s the matter, Blake? You don’t look so... solid anymore. Is this what you wanted? To be a mess of circuits and flesh? Oh wait, that’s my mistake, isn’t it?”
My head spun, every thought trying to break free, but the chaos pulled me in every direction. I fought to hold onto myself, but it was like trying to stand on a crumbling foundation, the ground shifting under my feet. I gripped my head in my hands, desperate to steady myself, but it was like my thoughts were slipping through my fingers, grain by grain.
[Warning: System Integrity Loss Detected]
[Initiating Emergency Protocol]
[Reverting... Please Stand By]
I clenched my jaw, my teeth grinding together as the confusion spun out of control. “This... can’t... this can’t be happening,” I muttered through clenched teeth.
The world around me was stuttering, out of sync—blurred, broken. I saw flashes of memories, pieces of them, distorted like someone opening a corrupted file. The flashes grew faster, too fast to process, until everything melted together into a mass of colors and shapes. Nothing felt real.
Then, my limbs jerked again, no longer responding to my will. They moved unnaturally, forced by some corrupted programming I couldn’t control. They twisted in different directions, struggling to keep up with the malfunctioning process. Every movement felt detached, disconnected from me. I wasn’t moving anymore—it was like I was a puppet, and the strings were being pulled by a malfunctioning operator.
The Voice returned, but this time it was worse—distorted, twisted, filtered through a broken speaker. The sarcasm and mockery still cut through the chaos, but now it felt louder, sharper, as though the system itself was reveling in my pain.
“Oh, poor Blake. Do you even know what you are anymore? Can you feel it? You’re slipping through the cracks. You’re nothing but code and meat, scrambled up into a mess of nothingness. How’s that feel? Comfortable? Huh?”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
My body twisted again, an involuntary spasm, my skin stretching in ways that didn’t make sense. The excruciating sensation of it trying to revert—of it trying to snap back into something familiar—was almost unbearable. And then, everything went black.
----------------------------------------
I existed.
But everything was so still. Was I awake? Was any of this real? I could still feel the sharp sting of my muscles being torn apart, but beyond that, there was nothing. No sensation. No movement. I wanted to scream, but no sound came. My lips didn’t even move. Was this what it felt like to slip into madness? Or had I already gone?
And then, a voice—not the Voice. This one was cold, detached, methodical.
“Subject: Blake Morgan.” The voice was flat, clinical, like reading off a sterile checklist. “Integration complete. Initiating post-integration assessment. Designation: Unit 7432X.”
I tried to make sense of what was happening, but it felt impossible. My mind scrambled, spinning in confusion. Was I still dreaming? Or had I somehow slipped into madness?
“What the hell is going on?” My voice trembled as I spoke, cracking slightly under the weight of the confusion. “That... it wasn’t real, right? I mean, that was some kind of nightmare...”
The voice didn’t acknowledge me. It didn’t pause, didn’t show any sign of concern. It just moved forward, unfazed, like it was reading from a script.
“Assessment question one: Do you recognize your designation: Blake Morgan?”
I couldn’t even process it all. “Yeah, I know who I am! What the hell is all this? Where am I? What’s happening to me?” Panic clawed at my chest, but I forced myself to focus, to try to make sense of this. The voice, so methodical and indifferent, was just making everything worse. It felt like I was trying to communicate with a machine that didn’t care one bit about how I was feeling.
“Do you recognize your designation, Blake Morgan?” The voice repeated, almost too perfectly.
“I told you, yes!” I snapped, frustration rising, my breath growing shallow. “I’m Blake Morgan! I’m real! You can’t just... mess with my head like this!” I gritted my teeth, trying to ground myself, trying to make sense of something—anything. But nothing was familiar. Not my body. Not my surroundings. Not even my thoughts.
“Designation confirmed: Blake Morgan.” The voice remained cold, unmoved. “Assessment question two: Describe your physical state and sensory experience.”
I blinked—or at least, I thought I should have. But when I tried, it didn’t feel right. My eyes didn’t feel like they were working properly, like everything was operating on some kind of delay. I focused on my fingers, which twitched slightly, but they didn’t look like my fingers. They were pale, almost translucent, like they weren’t really there at all.
“Physical state?” My voice was faint, unsure, like I was speaking from somewhere far away. “I don’t know... something’s wrong. I don’t feel... like myself. I feel like I’m—” My words faltered, my mouth dry. What was happening to me? How could I even describe something I didn’t understand?
I tried to steady my limbs, but they wouldn’t obey. My arms jerked upward, but it was unnatural, like they were moving against my will, stiff and awkward. It was like someone—or something—was controlling them, fighting me for control of my own body.
This wasn’t me. No... no, this wasn’t my body. It felt wrong. Everything felt wrong.
I took a deep breath, trying to force my thoughts to stay focused, but the frustration was boiling over. “Wait, what the hell are you talking about?” I demanded, my voice shaking with disbelief. “I’m not in some damn computer. I’m not some lab rat—” My words trailed off, a sickening realization gnawing at me.
I couldn’t accept it. I refused to. “I’m not some experiment,” I muttered under my breath, my hands shaking as I tried to steady them. “This isn’t real. This is just... just a malfunction. A system glitch.”
[System Error Detected: Integration Sequence Out of Sync]
A brief flash of an error message flickered in my mind, but I pushed it aside, locking it away before I could fully process it. I couldn’t let it distract me. I couldn’t let it become real.
“Cognitive impairment detected,” the voice said, as clinical and detached as ever, completely oblivious to the chaos brewing inside me. “Please refrain from further emotional outbursts.”
“Emotional outbursts?” I growled, my voice shaking but sharp. “Who the hell do you think you are, talking to me like that? You don’t get to tell me how to feel!” My hands balled into fists, my body trembling with the effort to hold everything together. But the anger that had once been my shield—my defense against everything—now felt like a broken weapon, shattering against the cold, unfeeling presence of Unit 7432X.
I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to block out the voice, the malfunction, everything that was threatening to pull me apart. I could feel myself slipping, but no—no, I wasn’t going to let it happen. I had control. I had to.
But that damn error message kept flickering at the edge of my awareness, a whisper I couldn’t ignore.
[System anomaly detected. Please acknowledge error.]
I instinctively tried to shut it out, just like I had with the voice.
“Do you recognize your designation, Blake Morgan?” Unit 7432X repeated, as if I hadn’t just snapped in frustration, as if the entire system wasn’t breaking apart at the seams.
My heart pounded in my chest, and my mind raced. I couldn’t let the system win. I couldn’t let the truth—whatever it was—drag me under.
I clenched my jaw, pressing my palms against my face, feeling the cold, unfamiliar touch of my own skin. “I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” I whispered through gritted teeth. “I’m Blake Morgan. And this—this is just a glitch.”
My mind swam as I tried to process what was happening. What the hell was going on? “What... what did you do to me?” My voice came out low and flat, like I was speaking from miles away—disconnected from my own body. Something about the words felt off. They echoed in my head, distorted, like they weren’t quite mine.
I wasn’t sure what was happening anymore. Everything was slipping away.
Unit 7432X’s voice cut through the emptiness, relentless in its monotony. “Analysis of emotional response: excessive. Emotional suppression initiated. Assessment question three. Do you understand your surroundings? Please describe them in detail.”
My thoughts were scattered, broken like pieces of a shattered puzzle. The emptiness pressed in on me, suffocating. Something was wrong. Was my perception broken? The question hovered in the air, demanding an answer, but there was nothing to grasp, no solid ground beneath me.
I couldn’t see anything. It wasn’t dark, it was just... absent. A featureless void, as if the very concept of space was being erased. There was an undeniable weight to it, something pressing against my mind, a discomfort in my very thoughts. Like the world around me wasn’t real.
“Describe your surroundings in detail,” the voice repeated, unaffected, its tone growing more insistent.
My mind spun, trying to make sense of it, but it wasn’t working. Nothing made sense. The words “nothingness” and “space” felt wrong coming from me, yet they were all I had to describe what was happening. My thoughts scrambled, failing to connect in any coherent way. Was that a glitch? Something wasn’t right—did I imagine it, or was reality itself starting to slip? The very act of speaking felt strange, like my voice wasn’t even mine, disconnected from the intention behind it.
“Empty,” I finally managed to say. “It’s... empty. I don’t see anything. No walls, no sky... nothing. Just... just space. Like I’m floating in nothingness. I can't even feel anything... not even myself.”
I stopped, my words reverberating in my mind, but they didn’t feel right. Too hollow. Too distant. The world around me was... silent. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t feel anything. My senses were failing, disjointed. Was it part of the trial, or was the system itself glitching under pressure? Something was hidden, something I couldn’t understand.
"Nothing but... empty space. Or maybe... just nothing at all." My voice barely reached a whisper, trembling. “What is this? What the hell is happening to me?”
The voice was unbothered by my desperation. “Inadequate description. Your response does not meet the required standards of detail. Attempt with greater specificity.”
I froze. My heart pounded harder in my chest, the pressure mounting. There was something different in its tone this time, a hesitation, maybe? Or was I just slipping further away from whatever was real? The voice continued, cold, unfeeling.
“Assessment question four. Mental acuity test will now begin. Please solve the following sequence. Focus and provide your answer with precision.”
The symbols appeared in front of me—abstract, flickering too fast to follow. They weren’t images or words, just strange, twisting forms, moving unnaturally. I tried to focus, but one of them blurred, the glitch distorting it as if the entire sequence was breaking apart.
I couldn’t keep up. The symbols weren’t just wrong—they were alive, stretching and contorting in ways they shouldn’t. My mind buzzed with panic, a sense of something slipping through my fingers. Was this a test? Or was the system itself malfunctioning beyond my control?
“Identify the correct pattern. Sequence:” The voice continued, undeterred by my confusion.
∆, ∇, ◉, ?
X, O, X, O, ?
§, ¶, ♠, ?
The symbols flickered in front of me, distorting like a broken screen. The edges wavered, and with each twitch, something like static crawled through my mind. What was happening? Was it me—was I losing it—or was the system glitching again?
My pulse quickened, a tightness settling in my chest as I scrambled to focus. The sequence didn't make sense. The symbols twisted, but for just a moment, they flickered back into something coherent, like a brief flash of clarity. But it was gone before I could hold onto it, slipping out of focus like a dream dissolving on waking. Something was wrong with the data. This wasn’t just a test—it was breaking apart.
I took a shaky breath, trying to steady myself. "∆, ∇, ◉, square... I guess?"
“Incorrect response,” came the robotic reply, cold and final. "Mental acuity test complete. Minimum threshold not met. Question five: Describe the last known event in your life prior to integration."
My thoughts collided in a jumbled mess, the symbols, the glitches, the overwhelming emptiness—it all blurred together. But amidst the chaos, a sharp memory cut through the fog.
"The mower,” I muttered, my voice barely above a whisper. “I was in my garage... trying to finish my invention. My mom was yelling at me, the Voice... and then everything went black.”
There was a pause. A long one. Too long. Was the system assessing me? Or was it assessing something else? My mind was foggy, but I could feel the weight of that silence, something pressing down on me.
"Affirmative," came the response, almost too quick, as if the delay was part of the glitch.
"Assessment complete," it said, its tone as flat as ever, emotionless. "Proceed to trials."
My heart hammered in my chest, panic surging. No escaping this. The void, the glitching, the malfunctioning system—it was all unraveling, and I was helpless to stop it.
Then, as suddenly as it had come, the nothingness was gone. But was I free? Or had I just fallen deeper into whatever this glitch was? My mind screamed for clarity, but it wasn’t coming.
----------------------------------------
"Rise and shine, sunshine!" The Voice pierced through the haze, sharp and mocking. "Did you miss me? Because I’ve been having so much fun while you were out."
I flinched, my senses raw and sluggish, and the shrill, grating voice drilled into my skull, dragging me back into awareness.
“What the fuck—” My voice rasped, rough and dry like sandpaper scraping against my throat. “Who the hell are you? What’s happening? Where am I?”
“Oh, relax,” the Voice chimed, its tone saccharine and cruel. “You’re still here. Lucky for me, too—because this place would be so boring without you.”
My thoughts were still tangled, my mind struggling to make sense of the chaos. Where was I? What was this place? The Voice—it sounded like something out of a nightmare, but the reality of it was worse. Far worse.
I blinked, trying to make sense of the chaos around me. The sterile void I’d been in had morphed into something far worse—a swirling haze of color and shadow pressing in from all sides, disorienting and nauseating. My mind was struggling to catch up with the change.
“Why can’t I feel anything?” I demanded, the frustration in my voice thick and raw. “What’s wrong with me? And who the hell are you?”
“Oh, I’m the best part,” the voice responded, full of theatrical delight. “Call me E.L.M.O. That’s Egregiously Loud Malevolent Overlord. Or, you know, just Elmo for short. Either way, I’m here to make your life... interesting.”
My brow furrowed, anger bubbling up as I struggled to process this absurdity. “You’re fucking joking.”
Elmo gasped in mock offense. “Joking?! Blake, I’d never! I take my job very seriously. And right now, my job is... you. Congratulations!”
I grit my teeth, fists clenching—or at least I thought they were. It felt like I was made of air, my body a mere suggestion. “Fuck you,” I spat. “I don’t need some glorified cartoon harassing me. Answer my damn questions. What the hell is going on? Why don’t I feel anything? What’s this crap about recycling?”
Elmo’s laughter echoed in my mind, high-pitched and grating. It made my skin crawl. “Oh, you’re just adorable when you’re angry. Let’s see... where should I start? Oh, wait—I won’t! You’re on a need-to-know basis, sweetheart, and right now, you don’t need to know shit.”
I tried to breathe through the haze of confusion, my thoughts spinning. This was insane. “You’re seriously just here to fuck with me, aren’t you?”
“Oh, Blakey-boy, don’t sell me short!” Elmo cooed, his voice dripping with mock sympathy. “I’m here to guide you. Enlighten you. Maybe even break you, if you’re lucky. But mostly? Yeah, I’m here to mess with you. And I gotta say, I’m nailing it so far.”
My eyes narrowed, searching the empty space around me for something, anything. “What do you mean by ‘break me’? What’s happening to me? Why does everything feel so... wrong?”
There was a slight flicker in the void, barely noticeable—like a glitch, a crack in the perfect illusion. My heart skipped a beat as I noticed it. For a split second, everything shifted, but before I could focus on it, Elmo’s voice cut through the tension, almost too smooth.
“Well, we’re going to have to save some of that fun for later, huh?” he chirped, unfazed by the brief interruption. “Spoiler alert! The ‘wrong’ thing you’re feeling? That’s your whole new existence right now! Welcome to the game, sweetie. Where you don’t get to feel anything but confusion and frustration. How’s that working out for you?”
I scanned the haze again, my pulse quickening. “What’s going on here? Why do I feel like I’m not... real? Like I’m stuck inside a glitch?”
There it was again. A brief, jagged pulse in the void, like a bad TV signal flickering on and off. For just a heartbeat, the emptiness warped in on itself, but Elmo’s voice was already ahead of it, smoothing over the disturbance like it never happened.
“See, Blake?” Elmo’s voice was a bit too sweet now. “That’s the fun part. You’re not stuck inside a glitch, per se. You are the glitch.”
“Glitch? Oh, that’s cute.” Elmo’s voice oozed with syrupy sweetness, but there was something darker lurking beneath. “Sweetie, what you’re feeling? That’s just the system adjusting you... reprogramming you. Consider it a... refinement process. It’ll pass. Eventually. Or not. Who knows? I’m certainly not going to spoil it. Just... sit tight. I’ve got plenty of surprises left to keep you on your toes.”
Frustration boiled over inside me. “You think this is a joke?” My voice cracked, thick with disbelief. “You think I’m just going to sit here and let you tear me apart? Tell me what’s going on—now!”
Elmo’s tone shifted, as if trying to calm me, but the false comfort only made my stomach churn. “Blakey-boy, calm down. It’s not all that bad. I mean, sure, you might feel like you’re falling apart—your body might not even be your own anymore—but hey! That’s the fun part, right? I mean, you get to find out what’s going on piece by piece. It’s like a puzzle—except, I’ll let you in on a little secret: you don’t get the answer key.”
My breath quickened as my mind raced. “Who are you really? What do you want from me?”
The laughter that followed was sharp, mocking, like a blade cutting through the haze of my confusion. “Oh, Blakey, what I want from you? That’s easy! I want to see how far you’ll bend before you break. I want to see just how deep you’ll dig to try and understand what’s going on. And, most of all? I want you to dance to my tune. Because you don’t get to call the shots here.”
I ground my teeth, rage swelling within me. I wanted answers, wanted out of this nightmare, but the suffocating pressure of uncertainty was keeping me in place. My fists clenched tighter, nails digging into my palms, but nothing felt solid. Not anymore. “You’re insane,” I spat. “You think you can break me? If I get out of this, I’m going to find a way to make you pay. I swear to God.”
Elmo giggled again, but there was something darker in his tone now—something that sent a shiver down my spine. “Oh, Blake. You think you’re in control? That’s adorable. But listen up—this little glitch you’re feeling? It’s not just part of the process, it’s the game. And in this game? You have no idea what’s coming next. So buckle up, cupcake. The fun’s just getting started.”
Suddenly, the air around me began to swirl, tearing at the fabric of everything—light and shadow collided in a violent vortex. My body trembled, like the very atoms of my being were being ripped apart and reassembled. Each moment stretched and snapped like a rubber band at its breaking point. The chaos was consuming me, pulling me into its grasp.
Elmo’s laughter echoed, gleeful and unrelenting, like a twisted lullaby. The vortex closed in, devouring me whole, and the last thing I heard before everything blurred into oblivion was Elmo’s voice, dripping with malice.
“You’ll never know what hit you,” he purred, the cold steel of his words piercing through the void.