Falling Apart

Exhibit B

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Nate was finally back in the den, aka, his bedroom. This was where he spent most of his day when he wasn't being forced to do other dumb or stupid activities, and the setup going on wasn't too shabby. He's had his own television handed down to him, a bunch of different gaming consoles that he had way too many games for, and a nice comfy bed to which he could burrito up in blankets on. It wasn't the most intense or fancy space, but it was his nonetheless. While Nate was getting ready to watch a show he's been dying to continue, he heard his phone pop off with the sound of a text message.

"You finally finish the show I told you about?????"

Nate quickly looked at his phone and gave an audible sigh and texted back, "Nope, I've been stuck with my mom all day lol... Back to school shopping is so boring...". Almost in an instant, the other phone user gave their response.

"Tell me about it! My parents insisted that I go with them so I can 'Help them choose the right materials'! Like, I gave them a list and everything, I think they just wanted me to suffer along with them lol!"

Nate looked at the words on the screen and then turned back to the TV eager to escape back into the series he'd been "asked" to watch. He didn't really find too much intriguing about the show at first glance, but that was before Mia so happily relayed that this show was so much more than what he was giving it credit for.

Mia had been Nate's best friend for as long as he can remember, not that he remembered much from before he was ten years old. But putting that to the side, Nate always saw her as somewhat of an older sister, someone he could look up to. She was very helpful when Nate's family was going through a rough patch, and would always comfort him whenever need be. When things weren't so serious, she was usually a very loud and chaotic person, one that always tried to stand out from the rest of the crowd, whether it be in a good way or bad way. Either way, Nate and Mia were definitely close to each other, and they couldn't fathom how they could've gone through high school without each other.

"Are you watching it now???"

Nate made sure to respond to this message right away, or else a million other texts would have followed. "Yes Mia, I'm trying to watch, but someone keeps on interrupting me..."

"Ahh... Alright then lol. What episode are you on rn?"

Nate jumped to the menu to see how far his journey had taken him. To his surprise, he was actually almost done with the series, 2 episodes left, which kind of bummed him out a little bit since he was enjoying it so much. But as life has shown time and time again, all good things must come to an end.

"I'm at the beginning of episode 9..."

"Dang dude! You're already on the last episode?! I told you to watch it like two days ago... how did you already get that far!?" Nate read the message and then immediately went to correct a mistake he noticed in the first sentence he read.

"You mean second to last episode." He was still on the episode select screen and could clearly see that there were ten episodes that a user could select from. Nate was sort of thrown off though. Mia was usually the queen of shows and knew everything there was to know about anything she watched, including something basic as the amount of episodes. Nate sent an image of his screen so he could provide proof that she was wrong, and then went back to watching the show.

The last two episodes were quite the spectacle to behold, with so many plot twists confined in two hour-long specials. Nate wasn't quite satisfied though because of how it ended on such a huge cliffhanger, so all he could do now was wait for season 2 to be announced and released at some point.

It was around 11 at night when Nate finished watching, and he was pretty beat. It takes a lot out of a teen to sit through a bunch of television, especially when one gets into that binge-like mood. With the tv turned off, and the room standing still, Nate started to drift off to sleep with hopes of a more relaxed day for him in the morning.

Of course, that would have been preferred, but some people don't like letting the others sleep, and the phone that sat right next to Nate buzzed off, and jolted him off of his bed. His senses were in sudden shock, in between passed out and wide awake. He did not like the feeling very much, and decided to give the buzzer a piece of his mind. Of course, he wanted to see why the phone buzzed in the first place, and was greeted to a message from Mia.

"What are you talking about?! There are only 9 episodes lol! You can tell by your so-called proof."

Nate was ready to go at her throat with the picture he took earlier, but when he scrolled back to the image, he couldn't believe what he was seeing. There it said on the episode selection screen, "9 Episodes". He was completely baffled as to how this happened, and quickly booted up his streaming service to confirm if it was the same on the site. To his dismay, on the corner of the screen, he read the words "9 Episodes".

Nate had no idea what was going on and could've sworn that he saw ten episodes. Not only did he see the text for "10 Episodes" on the site before, but there was also the fact that he watched a total of ten episodes. He tried to think about his time watching them, but could only remember the plot for the season finale, not the episode he had watched before it. Not only that, but the time frame from when he started to when he ended his viewing made absolutely no sense if he watched television for around 2 hours. There just wasn't enough time for that.

With all of these thoughts troubling him, Nate felt extremely nauseous and passed out back on the bed. He hoped that he'd find an answer in the morning, but there really was no need as he would soon realize.

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