She's a YouTuber with a small fanbase and big dreams, but the path she's taken has made her stop and look back. She misses the privacy. She misses the simplicity that being a "nobody" brought. She misses the girl she used to be, but she can't go bac...
Annalise sits in her grade ten geography class the next day, head propped on her hand. Her binder is propped up on her lap, hiding her phone from view, and her teacher drones on and on about the Great Lakes on the American-Canadian border.
She can only come up with two explanations for what she saw last night and only one of them is even remotely believable. Either everything was a dream or, here's the harder to swallow pill, everything was real. Seriously, how could it be real? PizzaNunchucker appearing in her room, those terrifying green eyes, six strange creatures in Washington Square Park? She must have eaten something bad before bed.
Then again, she thinks as she chews her lip. She doesn't remember walking home from the park yesterday and the bump on her head is far too prominent to be the product of a dream. Did she hit her head in the park and then, in her dazed state, she imagined that the person that brought her home was PizzaNunchucker?
It's all so crazy that she can't wrap her head around it.
She exits YouTube and double taps her home button, revealing all the apps she still has open. It's all the basics, apps she uses all the time, except...
She frowns. Her photos app is open and she knows that without a doubt that she hasn't used it recently. She swipes away all the others and clicks it, stifling a scream when the latest picture pops up. It's a screenshot of her lock screen, but there's a transparent, metallic woman blocking out the time and the wallpaper. Her eyes are glowing red and the malicious smile on her face makes Annalise's stomach churn.
No, she thinks, screaming internally. It can't be. It can't. That's...
She gulps hard when she thinks of just a day or two ago when her video uploaded on its own and the glitching screen, the strands of glowing blue and yellow hair. A wave of terrifying nostalgia crashes over her and she squeezes her eyes shut, hands shaking.
She can't tell anyone, not yet. Who would believe her even if she did? What would she say? She plays out the scenario in her mind flawlessly.
"Excuse me, police?"
"Yes?"
"There's this virus on my computer and my phone, but it looks like this. Please help."
She holds the phone up to the officers. They stare at it for a second as their eyes go wide.
The scene switches to the teen rolling around in a padded room with a straight-jacket on.
Annalise shudders at the idea as she steals another hesitant glance at the woman. It really can't be her, can it?
"Miss Hughes!"
She snaps to attention. Her teacher and several classmates stare at her expectantly, her throat going dry when she realizes that a question must have been asked. She swallows.
"Um...Lake Superior?" she guesses.
Her teacher shakes her head. "Close, but no. Lake Erie is the warmest, due to its shallow depth. Superior actually stays the coldest because of its size, but that was a good guess."
A few classmates grumble in annoyance as Annalise slumps back in her seat, relieved. She grips her phone a little tighter as she swipes out of photos, mind whirring as she tries to think of something less worrying. The only thing that comes to mind is her dream about someone cradling her and the boy that called himself PizzaNunchucker.
His voice was almost childlike, happy and uplifting behind the fear in his tone. As Annalise thinks of it, she's heard that voice before, but...where? No matter how hard she tries to pinpoint it, nothing comes.
Even so, the reveal of the woman in her phone combined with the events of last night, whether real or fake, urge her to do something. She opens her email and opens a new message, typing out the first few letters of the email address that PizzaNunchucker used to sign up for the contest. It auto-fills the rest of the address and she starts typing.
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Sarina sighs heavily as her computer's cursor crawls across the screen, glitching and out of synch with her mouse. She sits back and cracks her fingers before delving into the very depths of her system in search of a bug or virus. It's not uncommon for things like this to show up and slow her computer down, but thankfully, she's very good at exterminating them.
However, as coding scrolls by on her screen, the letters and numbers start to wiggle and swerve. She blinks as her eyes flash and she wonders whether she's stayed up late enough to warrant hallucinations.
She glances behind her at Donatello, who is completely passed out at his desk with his head resting on his arms. She smiles lightly at her boyfriend before turning back around to examine the strange coding.
Right before her eyes, the coding swims into repeating sequences of the same four words written in binary code. Sarina has no trouble translating, as she is able to read binary the way Destiny reads Shakespeare.
This message is nothing like Shakespeare. It's much worse.
THE WORLD WILL FALL
The cyborg stares at the screen as the little green numbers swim by in their black ocean. Then, there's a short blip of light and a lithe, robotic being appears. Her body is pieced together with different coloured metals, mostly purple and blue, and she's utterly nude. Her neon hair floats as if suspended in water and a grin breaks across her noseless face.
"The world will fall," she repeats, voice clipped with an English accent. She throws her head back and releases a loud laugh.
Sarina's head lurches with agony as if something is digging into it with tiny jackhammers. Sight blurring and heart pounding, she lunges down and yanks the computer cord from the wall. She stares at the blank screen, her ears ringing.
Michelangelo dashes into the laboratory not a second later, eyes wide. Sarina doesn't even have time to ask him what he's doing awake at such an hour when he shoves his phone into her hands.
"Annalise needs help," he says in a raised whisper. "I'm serious!"
She stares at the cryptic email, frowning a little. She looks at her computer, still thinking of the metallic woman and the ominous message that came with her.
