After losing yet another game, Anna throws her controller down in frustration. It hits the carpet with a thump and bounces away.

“Jeez Anna, don’t be such a sore loser,” Wally scolds her, wearing a triumphant grin.

“Oh, fuck off Wally,” she snaps. “Maybe I wouldn’t be so sore if you didn’t use such cheap characters and shitty tactics that ruin the fun of the game.” She’s being uncharacteristically vicious, but she feels so inexplicably angry at him. The way he trounces her at every game they play. His smug little grin every time he beats her, as if he thinks he’s better than her. She hates him for it, even though in the back of her mind she knows it’s silly to get so worked up over something so pointless, and that she’s just projecting her own feelings of inadequacy.

She thought that hanging out with Wally would give her a brief respite. All she wanted to do was unwind and forget about her worries for a few hours. But anxiety seeps into everything, tainting her thoughts, making her irritable and constantly on edge. Every glance becomes a glare, every smile a judgement, every word a veiled insult. It even invades her dreams. For the past few nights, she’s had horrible nightmares about shadowy, faceless people attacking her or grabbing her for behind. She screams for help, but no one around her seems to hear. They don’t even stop to watch as she’s dragged away.

She wants to tell Wally about everything she’s been going through. About the threats she’s been receiving that have her constantly looking over her shoulder, wondering if the world is conspiring against her. She wants so desperately to have a shoulder to cry on. But it’s too late for that now. Her secrets and lies have been piling up, covered up with fake smiles and assurances that everything’s fine. If she lets it all out now, she’s convinced their friendship will be ruined. After all, they made a promise to comfort and confide in each other, to rely on each other no matter what. She’s betrayed that promise many times over.

“Anna!” Wally’s concerned shout pulls her away from her storm of thoughts.

“Huh?” she replies.

“I said are you okay? You zoned out for a minute there.”

She stands up and retrieves her controller. “Oh… yeah… I’m fine. Sorry for snapping at you.” She walks over to Wally’s desk, where his computer monitor is still displaying the victory screen, and sets the controller down. Then, she heads toward the door.

Wally quickly sits up, furrowing his brow. “That’s okay. Are you leaving already?”

“Yeah…” she responds without further explanation. She needs to leave now, before she explodes at him for no reason and says something she’ll regret.

“Where are you going?” he asks as she turns the door handle.

“Out for a run in the park. I just need some fresh air,” she replies.

“Oh… well be careful out there. It’ll be dark soon.” He looks as if he wants to say more, but she’s already stepping out of the room.

“Don’t worry, I will,” she says, waving goodbye with a forced smile. “See you tomorrow.”

***

After staying up late into the night waiting for a response, Wally finally gave up and went to bed, taking the remainder of the pizza with him. I promised to text him as soon as I received a reply. Keeping Anna’s laptop on the bed beside me, I continued to monitor her inbox to no avail until eventually, I drifted off to sleep.

I awoke early the next morning and immediately went to check the conversation with Whiz Kid. After an agonizing few seconds waiting for the laptop to exit sleep mode, I finally saw it. One new message. Before anything else, I texted Wally that Whiz Kid had taken the bait. In less than a minute, I heard a frantic knocking on my door.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

As soon as I unlocked the door, Wally zipped into the room. He was still wearing pajamas, his hair was even more disheveled than usual, and his eyes were reddened and puffy. “What’d he say?”

“You got here so quickly, I haven’t even checked yet,” I replied. I grabbed the laptop off the bed and set it on the desk. Wally followed me, standing so close behind me that I could feel his exhaled breath on my shoulder. Finally, I opened the message.

> WhizKid20: Anna??? omg you haven’t posted any vids so I’ve been really worried about you! please forget about all the awful things I said before. I was going through a really hard time at home and school and I took it out on you. I’m sooo sorry, it was really wrong of me ☹

Whiz Kid had confided in Anna before about his supposedly troubled home life. He claimed his father had left when he was young, leaving his unemployed mother to raise him and his four younger sisters on her own. He had also mentioned being relentlessly bullied at school. Of course, we didn’t buy any part of his sob story.

“Wow,” Wally scoffed. “This asshole still thinks he can weasel his way into getting sympathy?”

I shook my head in agreement. “Still, he seems pretty unphased to get a message from the girl he thought he killed. Does he think he failed somehow? Or does he know it’s not really Anna?”

“Who knows?” Wally said with a shrug. “All that matters now is that we can catch the bastard. We just need to get him to meet up with us…”

I frowned. “Do you really think he’d agree that easily? I mean, he’s got to think something is off here.”

Wally put a hand on his chin. “We’ll have to ease him into it. Let’s just chat with him for a few days to get him to lower his guard. We have to somehow convince him that he’s really speaking with Anna, and that she has no idea he attacked her. With any luck, he’ll want to finish what he started.”

With that, we formulated our reply and sent it off.

> Uni Anna: It’s ok, I shouldn’t have been so rude to you to begin with... Sorry to hear you were having a tough time.

After waiting several minutes without receiving a response, Wally headed back to his room to get ready for the day. While periodically checking for a reply, I did the same. Even without having to worry about luring in Anna’s killer, I had a long day ahead of me—chemistry, physics, calculus, and expository writing all landed on Thursday. Catching Whiz Kid was obviously more important than Anna’s classes, but there wasn’t much point in waiting around all day, not knowing when Whiz Kid’s next message would come. I texted Wally to let him know how busy I would be, and sent him Anna’s login information so he could also monitor the account.

After chemistry with Nessa, I met up with Wally in physics. Once again, we took a seat off to the side, where we could whisper to each other and check our phones without being noticed. The entire lecture went by and there was still no reply from Whiz Kid. I was beginning to worry that he had caught on, and judging from Wally’s look of consternation as he packed his things, he felt the same. We agreed to meet in my room for lunch, then parted ways to head to our next class.

In calculus, Nessa seemed to notice my worsening mood and frequent, anxious glances at my phone.

“Hey Anna, is everything okay?” she whispered to me halfway through the lecture.

“Yeah, I just um… I’m waiting for an important call.”

“Oh, okay. You seemed pretty distracted, so let me know if you need the lecture notes later,” she replied, then shifted focus back to the whiteboard. I silently thanked how selfless and caring Nessa was, always willing to help but never trying to pry.

Once again, class ended and Whiz Kid still hadn’t replied. I trudged back to the dorm, already trying to come up with ways we could locate him in case he never messaged us back. Could we trace his IP address? I wasn’t familiar enough with technology to know how, but maybe Wally would.

Upon reaching my room, I set my bookbag aside and opened up Anna’s laptop. I checked her messages, at this point expecting not to see anything new. When I saw the notification, I did a double take. Whiz Kid had finally responded.

> WhizKid20: don’t apologize! what I said was really unacceptable. honestly, I’m surprised you even gave me a second chance. it really means a lot…

After texting Wally about it, I reread the message a few times. It was short, but it implied something crucial. Even after revealing a glimpse his true nature, Whiz Kid was still attempting to play the part of the innocent fan. He was trying to endear himself to Anna and regain her trust, no doubt so he could lure her in and kill her for good. But that was exactly what we wanted, and it rendered what we planned to do next that much easier.