It was a cool misty morning, he took any excuse to wear bulky clothes and threw on a black hoodie and headed for work, the scanner took 4 tries but he managed his way inside. His boss wasn't at his desk but this wasn't too uncommon but he had an unsettling feeling and went straight to his emails rather than his usual meandering and found an email of interest from his boss.

"Good morning staff,

Apologies for my absence, I had to head back home to England for a family emergency, I'm not sure if or when I will be back, please talk to Jackson if you have any questions. I will be in touch on Monday.

Your friend, J Samson"

Great... what the fuck is this reality? also 'had' instead of 'have'? as in he is already there? he must have left straight after work last night meaning he most likely heard the news before leaving for the day, I wonder if anyone read a change of mood in him. Friend? Samson? what a strange message.

He looked his boss up online and didn't find much but found out enough about him that it wasn't a mistype, his surname was indeed Samson.

So now I have this to deal with, another thing where I don't know whether it happened because I felt like it was happening or if I felt it was happening because it was happening. Reality is so fake, such a joke, they are even changing his name to try and mess with me. I'll probably be fired at this point, that's not an entirely bad thing though, my life could do with a change, though I guess it's changing regardless, but then what does a little more change matter? it's essentially a fresh start regardless without Ner, may as well get a new job while I'm at it, is Ner really gone though? surely there is still hope, I can tell she loves me or at least used to, if she used to then I can make her again, I just have to find what she loved.

Jackson... he knows I do jack shit around here, he will want to get rid of me, it's times like this you need friends, I should have made friends. Maybe Jackson is temporary, maybe Jeff will call the shots of the new system, maybe a new boss entirely will come in and just keep things exactly the same under advise from Jeff, it doesn't matter I guess, the world is probably ending anyway and if it's not, another job could be fun. That's pretty cool and rare that Jeff doesn't have much media, that's a good sign for a person, maybe I should have made friends with him, or maybe I intentionally didn't to hurt myself.

He kept looking for anything of interest about his boss online but to no success, he started writing again to Ner as a way to distract himself from confronting the coincidence of his imaginary story now playing out in reality but this time after writing in his notepad he wrote it out a second time as an actual message, fine tuning the language and actually sent it this time.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

"To Ner,

I understand more now, I made mistakes. All I ask now is another chance, can we please just have one more day where we pretend everything is fine and that we love each other? just pretend this for one day and then at the end of the day see how it went, see how we felt? if it goes well then we can do it another day, and then if that works maybe we can do it for a week and if that week is nicer than without each other then maybe another week. Please, just try one day at a time, we can do this, I want to be right for you."

Just 2 minutes after the message being read she responded

"No, there is nothing there, it seems like you never understood me or cared about the real me but that is ok I guess"

"I don't believe you, block me if this is what you actually believe"

"I'm not going to block you, if you have something more to say then I still have some patience to hear you out because that is the right thing to do but I don't have much to say to you"

"It would be better for us both if you block me, do it for my sake, prove to me that you feel nothing by hurting me, it's also obvious that I just annoy you at this point so it's better for you too"

"I'm not blocking you, it's not right"

"I don't like seeing our chat open and available, it makes me think of things to say to you, it reminds me of your existence and the cruel ways you treated me, I don't like this in-between stage of being able to technically talk to you but not really be able to convey or receive any meaningful communication, I don't like this constant draw to talk to you but the inevitable realisation that I have to control and limit what I say, I want to talk to you so bad. It feels like you only talk to me out of pity at this point, I'd rather you block me than make me feel like this"

"I understand, but no"

"Anyone with a brain would assume based on how you treat me that you do indeed feel nothing for me or even hate me but it really feels like to me that you love me, I can't think of any reason why you wouldn't except for absolutely terrible reasons which I'm sure your conscience would demand you to share if that was the case"

She didn't respond for ten minutes or even open the message so he sent another message "Just because you're pretty doesn't mean you can treat people like shit" which almost instantly changed to 'read' status but again she didn't reply. He didn't know what to think, he kept bouncing back and forth between different explanations as to why she acted the way she did and invented fantastical stories for things that might have occurred that he was not aware of. He imagined that she was sick and dying and she was intentionally trying to make him hate her as a way to ruin his image of her, a benevolent goal so her inevitable death would be easier for him to accept. He imagined her drug abuse had gotten so bad that her self worth was now so low that him being relatively put together made her bitter by comparison. He imagined she had killed someone and she was about to run away and didn't want to put that on him. He imagined she had been sleeping with another guy from the start and was only ever messing with his mind this whole time. He gave up trying to work it out and knowing he was going to have a lot to mentally digest this weekend and would prefer to spend it alone he text Sarah.

"Hey, I'm not going to text tomorrow but can I take you out for dinner on Sunday?"

"Yes, we can go to dinner on Sunday, 515?" and she shared a link to a map which was presumably her house.

"I can hardly wait"

'We' she doesn't like being 'taken out' for dinner as if she is the subject, interesting...