Silvertroll

Alicia

She stands at the door, frozen, unable to enter her son's room.

Untouched.

Messy.

The urge to go in and clean gnaws at her heart, her breath reluctant to escape her lungs. Alicia scans the room, allowing herself to memorise the layout. How the bed sits under the window sill, making it awkward to open and shut the window. How the cupboard stands with the doors open, a sight too familiar, having never seen them neatly shut.

The desk.

The wall colour, pockmarked with damage sustained over the years by a rumbustious teenager.

The carpet, littered with a weeks worth of laundry.

The distinct smell of body odour and burnt plastic.

Alicia looks down at the black metal bin, searching the contents for anything of value worth keeping. She knows keeping Julian's belonging as artefacts will eventually become detrimental to her sanity, but for now Alicia intends not to do anything drastic, or anything that she may later regret.

A notebook is wedged down the side of the bin. Alicia is tempted to pluck it out and inspect it, but resists, not emotionally ready to delve into such activities. Not yet anyway. She turns away and heads back down the stairs, wondering into the kitchen. Alicia is startled to see Nathan, his back to her, seated at the table. Her anger flares and burns at her cheeks. She knows this is visible, so she waits, puts on a brave, less angry face, the kind she wears when dealing with customers, even the ones committing violations, and enters the kitchen.

She sits next to Nathan. He acknowledges her, only slightly.

"I take it you've seen the comments," he says.

"Welcome to the internet," she tells him.

Does he get it? Probably not.

The Caveman finally looks at her, again briefly.

Alicia continues, "You don't, under no circumstance, respond to trolls. Look at what you've done. The Neechat page is now inundated with these vile comments. These creeps are now posting on other sites. We've become a target. These stupid trolls will now deface every place Julian has a presence." Tears threaten, like storm clouds, but she holds them back. "That's what they do, for fun. They gang up and attack."

"I'm gonna sort them out," he says.

Swallowing her shock, she says, "No. You're not gonna sort it out. Nope. What do you think you are? A troll hunter? No. You've done enough damage. Don't you ever learn?" She reaches into her bag that's sitting on  the table and pulls out her small police issue tablet. "Look at what you've freakin' done."

He looks at the screen and seems confused by what he sees.

She explains it to him, "They're using your profile to troll other people's memorial sites. They've even got you trolling Heather. Dear God. This is awful."

"How?"

"How else! They've hacked your Neechat account. Worse, they've set up fake profiles using your name. Why do you do that? Who uses their real name on Neechat?"

"I'll get them."

"You'll get them? There is no way to hurt a troll. You can't get at them, and even if you do, they'll revel in the attention." She stands and storms out of the kitchen, unable to contain her anger, afraid she might say something she couldn't take back. Alicia stops, turns back into the kitchen and tells him, "If you didn't want to go, attend your son's funeral, you could have spoken to me about it. I would have understood."

She leaves him with those words. Alicia goes upstairs and hits the bed, praying for sleep. She hopes Nathan will come to bed, but she's thankful he's home.

For hours she doesn't sleep.

Deep into the silent night, she gets up and goes down to check on him, finding him sleeping on the couch, with her laptop wedged between his knees. She leaves him be, goes back up to her bed and waits for sleep.