Captive (Polybius x Reader)

Restrained

In the two days it had been since Max's disappearance, word had started to spread throughout the small district YN lived in. Rumors were flying, and missing kid posters with his ugly face on them were stapled to every telephone post for a mile.

In that same amount of time, she'd been able to resist going back to the arcade after school.

Well, to be fair, she couldn't anyway.

After coming home late after that fateful night she heard the voice in the machine, her parents had grounded her from going anywhere after school for a week. At the time, the teen had been complaisant. Grateful, even, to have a reason not to go back there.

But every time another rumor would spread about some nerd getting to an unforeseen level, every time the game's name would trip from the tongue of one of her peers, something deep in YN's chest yawned restlessly. Opening a crater of longing.

No. No...this is what he does to you. You have to fight it. You have to fight him.

You have to fight him...with his tantalizing lights; his strangely gentle voice; his soft reassurances...

P O L Y B

As soon as she found herself mentally tracing the name into the air ahead of her with her eyes, YN gave her HC head a rapid, willful shake. Setting her teeth, she tried with all her might to direct her mental energy onto the lesson her teacher was giving. There were only two minutes left in math class, and YN thought she might as well use them wisely.

Because after that bell rang, she was booking (ha ha) it on out of here and breaking curfew, if only for a few minutes.

Just to get a small glimpse of him through the brightly painted windows of the Sparkade. Just to watch someone else drive the tiny spaceship across his screen, as the blue spiral beckoned forward hungry new players lying in wait with its covetous glow like the eye of a starving predator.

Maybe, she thought with a twist at the hem of her shirt, to watch him reel in another, much prettier girl.

If only YN knew how much he missed her too...