Fortuitous (bxb)

Cyber Invisibility

Zachary was setting up his new account on facebook, feeling nervous. He had never done anything like this before; lie about his identity and pretend to be something he wasn't. He used a picture of a girl off of Instagram, someone he found just by chance that didn't have too many followers and he used the false name of 'Anna Martin'.

He sent a few people he knew from high school a friend request, as well as a few others from his brand new college classes. There was a pain in his lower lip from where he nearly chewed through it. The sound of music filled his room from his Spotify account because his roommate wasn't there yet.

It quickly got boring just waiting for people to accept the requests they sent and he started studying. He got lost in the sound of the music playing softly throughout the room, softly humming along as he studied his book. The notification sound from facebook was startling at first, but at the same time exciting.

When the tab was opened up, only one person had accepted the friend request. Some weird jock from high school. He didn't really care that much and went back to studying, silencing facebook so he didn't get jump scared again by a silly boop. It didn't take long for him to relax from his nervous state and get tired.

The next morning was more eventful seeing as when he opened his computer up, there was a good 12 accepted and one message towards him. He swallowed hard, not sure what to expect. Was is someone who felt they could be getting scammed? A person who was a little overly eager to flirt with the new girl? The mouse was moved slowly to hover over the message as they let out a breath then opened it.

On the screen was a name that felt familiar, but he couldn't quite put a finger on where he remembered hearing it before. He wasn't exactly popular in school, but he had a pretty good network of friends in school. Was it possible it was a secondary friend of his? Huffing a little he decided to click the grey box where the other person's message laid. He could already read most of it but he still wanted to finish it.

The display name was Caine Donaghue. Inside of the small box was an image of what Zach would guess was a face. "Who are you, why did you friend me, and what do you want? You don't look familiar, so how do you know me?" The questions seemed flat and to the point, which reminded him of someone but it was blurry.

Zach wasn't sure how to respond to this onslaught of questions. Flirty? He was there pretending to be a girl but then again did he want to come off as that type. Straight to the point? It would seem like this new persona that was created would be kind of an ass if they were. Instead, they opened their profile in a new tab.

When they opened up the tab up, their brows furrowed together for a short second before realising who it was. Caine was a guy who was a few years older than he was. Their younger brother had been a year younger than he was. They didn't really ever cross paths much, but he remembered that this was the boy who had a locker near him at one point. He gave Zach a pencil he chewed on one time, and that's about the fondest memory he had of him.

This is where he wished he was more of a social butterfly as a teen instead of trying to be cool and angsty. "my name is anna i went 2 school with u i was a few years younger then u since i was a freshman, u  mght not remember me im sorry i just kinda friended u outta nowhere" Zach's heart was about to explode. Lying to this random person felt weird.

It took twenty minutes for them to message back, even though they say it two minutes after it was sent. "It took you four, almost five, years to find some guy you barely know online? Actually...that doesn't sound too hard nowadays. Well, okay. You didn't answer my most important question with your somewhat bad typing style. Why. Did. You. Friend. Me. I've spent the last few years trying to put high school in the past." Caine seemed to have a lot of shit he was going through at the moment, and Zach was worried he was treading on something that he didn't expect.

Immediately Zach responded. "oh uh...i just wanted friends" Zach responded. The lip biting was back as they watched the 'Caine is typing' sign on the bottom of the screen. There was a soft shiver running through their body at the thought of getting a bad response.

If messages had voices, this one would be full of venom and anger. "Then find someone who doesn't mind shitty typing. Try again when you learn how to actually write words and punctuate." He just stared at his screen, trying to understand why this other boy was so mad at him.

Then, an idea struck him. "Listen, Im not stupid. I know how to do those things, I just prefer not to. Can we try to be friends now?" He was hoping for the best. There was about an hour before he had to head to class, so if it didn't, he might have a bad experience in the class all day. The response came back surprisingly fast.

"I'm*" Caine's response almost made Zach mad, but was followed by a longer one. "Fine, if you really want to, but I swear to god the second I feel you're full of shit I'll block you." There wasn't a type of doubt that filled him as he read Caine's newest answer. He just had to be convincing.

[This story IS gunna be trash so you can comment how trash it is if you want.]