I wish I could tell you that I went home, slept and went to work the next day all in denial that I hadn’t actually seen Shelby swallow a miniature Pepper Diamond. The truth, though, is that I was made painfully aware of what had happened, and the consequences, through a series of messages from Shelby. She texted me about an hour after I left, asking why I had gone, and said it was a shame I hadn’t met Trent Halton. Then, as she sobered a little, she messaged to say sorry, maybe she’d acted rash. Then the news came in about Pepper and Trent dying, in real life, and she sent messages freaking out. I sent some back equally freaked. I told her she had to find the woman who sold her that TV, had to steer clear of using it, had to tell no one what had happened.

I barely slept, running wired on terrified, nervous energy, reliving that sight over and over in my mind: Pepper’s kicking legs disappearing into Shelby’s mouth. I could still hear her screams, and I couldn’t help but imagine the same scene played over again with Trent. A dashing actor, utterly lovable. Now dead, through some unreal connection to my layabout friend sucking people through her TV.

That was, after all, exactly what she suddenly had the power to do.

The next morning, I was wracking my brain for where to go with this. It wasn’t like we could confess to these crimes; there was no way anyone would believe it, and if they did, what sense would it make that Shelby eating a small version of a celebrity would kill the original, halfway around the world? Taking responsibility was hardly an option, then, but I determined that we must destroy the TV. I messaged Shelby to say so before work, and convinced myself that would be the end of it. Put it out of my mind.

Shelby’s last messages in the night suggested deep remorse: I can’t believe I did that. Why didn’t you stop me? and finally, They’ve stopped moving. I’m a monster. But when I finally heard from her again, almost midday, it was another shock: It still works!

I made quick excuses to leave the office and called her from the toilets, demanding, “What do you mean it still works?”

“I’ve got Jenny Fallop trapped in a bowl right now,” Shelby said with amusement. A daytime TV chef – crap, I could picture it, Shelby getting hungry watching a cooking show. “Do you want to come round for lunch? I thought maybe you might –”

“Are you crazy?” I hissed, lowering my voice and double-checking outside the cubicle that no one was there. “Two people are dead, Shelby.” I paused. Oh no. I told her to wait as I brought up Twitter and checked the trends. Hell, hell – it was breaking that very minute. “Oh my God, Shelby. Three people. Jenny’s collapsed live on air.”

“Huh,” Shelby said, surprised but not with the kind of shock she should have. “Well then you’ve got nothing to worry about. She’s still alive here, kicking up a storm. The deaths can’t be related to me eating whatever these small versions are – this one is still alive.”

“How can they possibly not be related?” I replied quickly. “Not to you eating them, but them getting dragged into your living room! There must be a way to send her back –”

“Now that she’s seen who I am? Sorry, but no. Look, I wanted you to come for a reason. Something I want to share.”

“I’m not interested,” I send. “You’re out of your mind, and this needs to stop. Shelby, I swear – you can’t do this, you can’t –” I ran out of air, talking too fast, too stressed. I tried to take quick breaths.

“You’ll give yourself a brain hemorrhage to go with them,” Shelby joked, and moved on before I could express horror at her attitude. “Look, I’ll wait a half-hour, come if you want or don’t. But you ought to see this.”

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She hung up and I was left almost in tears at what was happening. My friend, through means that I couldn’t comprehend, had turned into a murderous cannibal overnight. What could I do? In half an hour, the police could break down her door and rescue Jenny Fallop. Except, would they even respond to my claims? I went back to my desk sweating and on the verge of a panic attack.

Nothing came to me, and pretty soon my supervisor came to check what was wrong. He suggested I go home, I looked awful. I reluctantly agreed, but he added a caveat: “Right after the presentation.”

That made me operate on automatic. I went into our meeting that afternoon looking like a warmed-up corpse, mumbling through my points, dabbing my head with a tissue, all the while trying to stop thinking about Shelby and her TV. It went terribly. And by the time I finished, Shelby had sent me another message: As we always knew: Jenny Fallop makes one delicious meal!

I closed my eyes, pushing it down, and found, surprisingly, something like relief. It was done. There was nothing more I could do, either way. I didn’t reply to the message and went home to try and sleep the horrors off.

Shelby’s messages slowed down after that, and I avoided talking to her. She dropped hints that she was still using the TV and I should get involved, but nothing specific. I watched the news for more unexplained deaths, but saw nothing reported. Days went past, then, and I gradually let myself believe she had backed off, having realised how terrible her actions were. All the while I followed the investigations into the celebrity deaths but the details were sparse, and the conclusions generally dismissive: it was a huge and terrible coincidence, nothing more.

I’m sorry to say all I wanted to do was put it behind me.

Two weeks passed before Shelby messaged me again, with something akin to how we usually communicated: Dinner and a movie tomorrow night, be there or be square!

I spent an afternoon mulling it over, barely able to focus on work. We needed to talk. I needed to see where she had got to, and check that it was over. But I was scared that it wasn’t. Eventually, I convinced myself there was no way I could let things lie the way they were. I’d go and find the happy, friendly Shelby I knew, having put the mad few days behind her.

The truth was far, far worse.

I could see Shelby was different from the moment she opened the door. Her usually loose t-shirt looked even looser and her sweatpants hung off her hips. She wasn’t an unhealthy weight, though, quite the opposite: her face glowed and her bare arms looked toned. Even her hair was cleaner and neater than usual, if a little roughly cut, around shoulder height. I asked if she’d been working out and she responded with her usual, light laugh. She lifted her shirt to show off a flat stomach, saying, “Looks good, doesn’t it?”

“Best shape I’ve ever seen you,” I told her, as she led me to the living room. Another surprise waited there: the apartment was clean. Nothing on the floor, PlayStation neatly set to the side, glasses and dishes in the sink or put away. My heart lifted with the hope of something I’d been wanting to see for years: had the incident with the TV triggered her into getting her life in order?

“No, Brian,” she said playfully, apparently reading my expression. “I’m lazy as ever. But settle down, relax, I’ll show you.”

I did as she asked, sitting on the sofa while she served up dinner from the kitchenette: a salad, pre-prepared. She had a small bowl and gave me a slightly larger portion. It didn’t look like enough, and that made me uncomfortable. She wasn’t eating right, I supposed, after the trauma of what she’d done.

But she explained, “We’ll have the main course later.” Alarm bells rang as she turned on the TV. “I’ve already got something lined up. Look. Remember Isla Carr? She was in a bunch of soaps in the 80s but had a drug overdose. Here she is.”

I frowned as the promised show came up. Isla Carr in the middle of an argument with a moustached man, the image grainy with age. I wanted to ask where this was going. Shelby was watching the screen intently, waiting for something. She spoke out the side of her mouth, “I’m not an idiot, Brian. I’ve been careful. It works when the person is already dead – without the real-world consequences.”

“What do you –” I started to ask, dumbly, but the scene shifted, blinking to a shot where Carr was walking down a hall, on her own, and Shelby punched the button. The TV flashed as I shouted an instinctive protest – but it was too late. A miniature version of Carr was tossed out of the screen.