They hadn't seen me, hunched and miserable on my bench, but I had seen them, a flash of a blue jacket exiting the main door, head down, shoulders slumped. My body moved before my mind could catch up.
I launched myself across the parking lot, a sodden phantom weaving through the gridlock. A chorus of angry horns blared as I darted in front of idling cars, the drivers' shouts muffled by the water still dripping from my hair and the blood pounding in my ears. I didn't care. I skidded to a halt, standing directly in their path, my chest heaving.
"Meki," I pleaded, the name a raw, desperate sound.
Their head snapped up, eyes wide with a mixture of shock and sheer panic. "Go away… Nim." Their gaze wasn't on me for long; it darted over my shoulder, scanning the rooftops, the lampposts, the very air itself. The eyes. In my single-minded madness, I had forgotten the cameras, the drones, the ever-present digital gaze. They still had the sense I had lost.
"Please, just take this," I insisted, thrusting the crumpled, sodden piece of paper with my number into their hand. They didn't look at it, their fingers closing around it by reflex before shoving it deep into their handbag, a furtive, shameful gesture.
"We need to talk," I started, my voice cracking.
"Not here. Not now," they hissed, their voice low and tight. They tried to step around me, their body already turning to flee. "I don't want you to see me like this."
A fresh wave of desperation washed over me. I took a quick step forward and my hand shot out, grabbing their arm. "Meki!"
It was as if I had branded them with a hot iron. They flinched so violently it was a full-body recoil. Their eyes, wide with a fresh horror, looked down at my hand on their sleeve as if it were a venomous snake. They yanked their arm from my grip, the motion so sharp and sudden it felt like a jolt of lightning had passed between us.
"Don't touch me!" The words weren't just angry; they were laced with a venomous, primal fury I had never heard from them before. Their face was a mask of betrayal and rage.
"Meki," I pleaded one last time, my voice breaking, my empty hand still hanging in the air between us.
"I am Michelle," they snarled, spitting the name like a curse. "Now fuck off."
They turned and stormed down the street, their form quickly swallowed by the evening gloom and the shimmering reflections on the wet pavement. I just stood there, rooted to the spot, watching the space where they had vanished. The cold I had felt before was nothing compared to the absolute numbness that seized me now. Hot tears welled in my eyes, mixing with the rain still on my face. I didn't know what to do. I didn't even know who I was. The hero who could take down a drone was powerless, and the friend who I wanted to help had become just another source of pain.
I don't know how long I stood there, a statue of failure in a drying puddle. It could have been minutes or an hour; time had lost all meaning the moment Meki had vanished. The only change was the light. The sun had bled out below the horizon, and the bruised purple of twilight had deepened into a true, oppressive night. With the dark came a fresh chill, a cold that seeped through my wet clothes and bit deep into my bones, a final, physical punishment for my stupidity.
I had no options left. No grand plan, no hidden sanctuary. There was only one direction to go: retreat. I turned tail, a beaten dog, and began the long, shameful walk home.
Every step through those poison streets felt heavier than the last. My soul was a dark, heavy stone in my chest. Everything I saw fed a corrosive hatred: the laughing couples in warmly lit cafes, the clean, oblivious people boarding dry buses, the smug, solid houses with their neat, orderly lives, the drones overhead. They were all part of the machine, and I was a broken cog that didn't fit anywhere, not even in the rebellion I called home. I was a no one, fit for nothing. A failure as a son, a liability as a friend. The one person I truly cared about had looked at me with pure venom. "I am Michelle. Now fuck off."
The walk was a torturous loop of my own making. I replayed the day on a reel of shame, searching for the precise moment it had all gone wrong. Was it because I was Simon? Was it grabbing their arm? Should I have just left the note and walked away? What single, different word could have changed everything? The scenarios played on a hellish repeat, each one ending with that same look of betrayed fury on Meki's face.
By the time I finally stood outside my house, my mind was raw. And then, my gut wrenched anew as a fresh horror surfaced: I had shoved my father. In my frantic flight, I had physically pushed past him. The memory of the shock on his face was a new layer of ice on my already frozen heart.
I was trapped. Cold, soaked to the skin, and utterly alone. The Drop Inn was on lockdown, its digital doors sealed shut to me. There was no refuge, no comfort, no understanding.
With a final, shuddering breath, I bit the bullet. The taste was of copper and defeat. I placed my key in the lock, the click echoing with a dreadful finality, and stepped back into the cage I had run from all my life.
"Is that you, dear?" My mother's voice, thin and disembodied, echoed down the dim hallway from the living room, pulling me from my thoughts.
I went gingerly, my wet shoes squelching on the hall runner, and came to a stop in the doorway, not daring to venture further into their domain. "Yes, it's me," I said, my voice flat.
My eyes were drawn, as they always were, to the wall opposite. There, hanging in a place of honour, was the framed poster from the Whiplash Smile Tour, Billy Idol's iconic sneer frozen in time, the words REBEL YELL slashed across it in bold, defiant lettering. Directly beneath it, as if in dialogue, was my parents' wedding photo. My mother, radiant and sharp-edged in her untraditional black goth dress, a lace choker around her neck, stared out with a challenge in her eyes. Ever the rebel back then. The photo was surrounded by a constellation of other family members, my sisters and their families, all smiling from within their neat, successful lives.
The irony was a physical ache in my chest. Is this what a rebel looks like now? I thought, my gaze dropping from the vibrant, frozen history on the wall to the two husks sitting in their worn armchairs, bathed in the flickering blue light of the television. The yell had become a whisper, the rebellion a memory.
"Simon," my dad said, not turning from the screen. His voice was gruff, but not unkind. Just tired. "There's food on the table. You can reheat it."
It was then that my mother managed to tear her eyes from the flashing images. She looked over, and her brow furrowed with a distant, automatic concern. "You're all wet, dear," she observed, her voice laced with a ghost of its former strength. "You'll catch your death. Go and get a shower." She paused, the script of motherhood coming to her lips by rote. "You have Uni in the morning."
The ordinariness of it all was the final, crushing weight. I was standing there, my soul screaming from a night of digital warfare and shattered friendships, and the only response was a reminder about reheated pasta and a morning lecture. I just nodded, a silent surrender, and turned away from the ghosts on the wall and the living ghosts in their chairs, to go and wash the rain and the failure from my skin.
The hot water stung my cold skin but failed to penetrate the numbness inside. I changed into clean, soft night clothes, the fabric feeling alien against my raw nerves. The ritual of normalcy was a hollow pantomime.
Heading back downstairs, the house was silent save for the low hum of the TV from the living room. I found the plate of food on the table, some kind of pasta bake, and shoved it into the microwave. The machine's whirring drone was the only sound in the stark kitchen light. When it beeped, I took the scalding-hot plate upstairs, the heat a distant warning in my palms.
Back in the sanctuary of my room, I tried to eat. But the first forkful was like ash. The second was a struggle to swallow, the flavours completely muted, the texture like wet cardboard. My stomach churned, a swirling vortex of anxiety and self-loathing. After three futile bites, I gave up, pushing the plate away. The sight of the food made me feel sick.
I crawled into bed, pulling the duvet over my head, creating a dark, warm cave. I just lay there, lifeless, curled into a ball. The adrenaline was gone; the despair had solidified into a heavy, inert mass in my chest. I wasn't crying. I wasn't thinking. I was just a void, hiding from a world that had rejected me on all fronts.
Then - beep.
The sound was like a pinprick of light in absolute blackness. My heart, which had felt still, gave a single, hard thud. I shot up, the duvet falling away, and fumbled for my phone on the bedside cabinet. The screen glowed, a beacon in the dark room.
1 Message
I swiped, my thumb trembling.
The text was from an unknown number, but I knew. I just knew.
Sorry. Come tomorrow night. Outside my place. Sunfield View Nr. 20. 21:00.
I read it once. Then again. A third time, my breath catching in my throat.
The heavy, cold stone in my chest didn't vanish, but it cracked. Through that crack, a single, brilliant, terrifying shaft of light poured in. My world, which had ended just minutes ago, had just changed all over again.