System Access

An Empty Apartment

    The door opened and the darkness of his apartment beckoned him like the jaws of a waiting beast, humid and practically alive with energy.  Shaking off the thrill of the party he'd just come from, Xakep pulled off his shirt and threw it onto his bed as he walked to the bathroom to shower.  He tapped his phone while he waited for the water to heat up and music started playing from his computer, the sound somewhat muffled as it traveled from his bedroom to the bathroom, but it got the job done.

    Forty five minutes later, at ten o'clock, he stepped out, refreshed and much cleaner, ready to start his evening.

    The apartment felt more comfortable now with music playing, and he danced through the hall on his way to the kitchen to grab dinner, probably some kind of microwave cuisine, his usual.

    Cracking the freezer, he noticed that it was nowhere near as cold as it should be and he made an annoyed sound.  Opening it wider, he moaned loudly and pulled out the first thing he could grab, glad that it was still at least partially frozen.  

    "Bella, make a note to call management tomorrow.  The freezer is broken...again."

    His phone dinged back and said, "Noted."

    Pulling the box apart and trashing the cardboard, he popped the dinner in the microwave, pressing the three button several times before he remembered...the microwave had broken yesterday.  He was supposed to stop by his job at Tavern's Heart and grab something from there...but he'd been invited to that party and had lost track of time.

    He sighed and said, "Ok...this is still workable."

    Pulling his dinner from the microwave with one hand, he used his free hand to push the buttons on his oven, the beeping reassuring him that it still worked...against all odds.

    He would EAT tonight!

    While the oven preheated, his phone rang, and checking to see who it was, accidentally answered it, only to hear his girlfriend practically screaming at him.

    "Where have you been all night, Xak!?"   

    Crap.

    The dinner.

    That's why he'd been uptown in the first place...buying a suit to go the dinner with her parents.

    Well he couldn't tell her he'd been at a party, that much was for sure.

    "Hey hun, I'm so sorry, I've been in bed sick all day, just really grossly sick," he lied, using the tried and true.

    He could almost see the look on her face when she said, "I have a key, you i***t.  I came by to check on you and you were gone this morning, so I came by around seven...so, try again.  Where were you?"

    Xakep tried to explain, but she cut him off, "You know, my parents were right about you.  Hell, YOUR parents were right about you.  You don't care about anyone but yourself, you're irresponsible, and you're going nowhere."

    He flinched.  His parents had stopped talking to him a few years back because he'd turned down their offer to send him to college...she knew that was a sore subject for him, but he knew he was in the wrong.

    "Look, hun, I know I screwed up, but I promise it won't happen again, let me reschedule and I can make it up to you, I promise," he said, verging on desperate.

    "I'll make it up to you, I'll make it up to you," she mocked, "that's all I hear from you nowadays.  You aren't even TRYING, are you?!"

    He had been trying...he just...struggled with getting side-tracked...right!  The suit!  

    "Wait, look I know this looks bad, but baby, I did start!  I've got the suit and everything," he said defensively.

    She sighed, long and hard, and said, "Xak...the suit was for the last time we were supposed to meet up with my parents.  This time you literally just had to show up, that's how much of a chance they were giving you to fix this."

    Last time?

    That had been...right...he'd ended up having to work that night because Marv had to take a sick day.

    "Look, please, I'm actually begging you right now, just let me make this up, I promise I can find a way!"

    "No.  Xak...look...I loved you so much.  I really wanted to make this work, I was even willing to live with you just working in that stupid bar...but four times?  You miss dinner with my parents four times, and want another chance?  No...this is it Xak."    

    Xakep felt time slow around him.  The music down the hall went down until he couldn't even hear it anymore and the room spun around him.

    "Loved?"

    Her voice softened, realizing how harshly she had said that...though she was still firm, "Look...I'm sorry to do it this way...I wanted to tell you over lunch in a couple of days...but...yeah...I can't keep doing this with you anymore.  I want to raise a family...and how can I do that with a partner who can't even do something as simple as show up?"

    A tear fell down his cheek as he said, "Yeah...no...yeah...you're right."

    "Are you ok?"

    It felt as though a knife were tearing through him as she asked, but he tried to catch his breath while the room closed in on him, its walls so close he could barely breathe as he said, "Yeah...yeah, I'm ok.  Don't...uh...don't worry about me...I hope you find someone who you can rely on..."

    She started to say something, but he ended the call before he could hear it.

    She was right of course.

    He was unreliable...and in a dead end job.  Oh and selfish.

    Walking to his sofa, he dropped onto the cushions and grabbed the stuffed bear he'd bought for her and looked around.

    The rest of her things were gone.  She must have picked them up when she came back and he wasn't there.

    He hadn't noticed it before, but without her touch...the living room was really...empty.

    The word rang through his head as he stared at the walls, devoid of her pictures and her little souvenirs from all of her travels.

    The bare walls seemed to laugh at him, still so close in his mind that he could practically touch them, though he wouldn't do that.  It would mean letting go of the bear, and he didn't know if he could cope with that right now.

    The bear's fur was soft, comforting against his cheek as he curled up on the sofa, trying to wrap himself around it as much as he could.  Maybe he could stay like this forever, holding this bear that had her scent and so many good memories.

    She'd kept it with her a lot of the time...almost always in her arms when she was here in the apartment, practically glued to her.

    His phone vibrated on the floor, just within reach, though he left it there. There was nothing he wanted to talk about right now, and as far as he knew...probably nobody who actually wanted to talk to him right now either.  It was probably just some coupon or ad text; he'd been getting a lot of those recently.

    The phone kept vibrating, but he just pulled his blanket over himself and stayed there, wrapped around the abandoned stuffed animal of a woman who had loved him.

    "I guess you're mine now," he said quietly.

    Several days passed like this, him getting up and making food, as best he could with the broken freezer and microwave, and a stuffed animal in one arm, and then lying down on his couch again and sleeping.

    He ignored alarms, calls, text messages, app messages, game notifications, and system notifications, intent on blocking out the world until he was ready to deal with it again.

    Sometimes he turned on the tv and listened to static, since his cable had apparently been turned off.

    Four days after she'd left him, he finally checked his phone, surprised to see that he somehow only had a single missed message.

    "Aren't you tired of living like this?"

    It didn't have a contact...or even a number.  

    Weird.

    "I don't have it in me to deal with this, weird ghost text," he said, half mumbling.

    The truth was...he didn't know what that even meant.  Living like this?

    He had money saved up...just...nothing to do with it.  

    Once, a long time ago, he was going to be a writer, going to change the world with his words.  That had lasted a solid two months, an was probably the longest he'd stuck with anything.  He couldn't find a publisher, and nobody, not even his friends, would even open the link he sent for their opinions and advice.

    When he'd asked Arin, the owner of the Tavern, the old man had asked, "Why even bother?  You know I'll make sure you are paid."

    His girlfriend...ex-girlfriend hadn't even bothered to open it either...so yeah, why bother?

    That was years ago now, and he hadn't found anything major yet.  He refused to go to school now, since he was almost thirty, and didn't want to feel foolish in front of all the smarter, younger students.  Arin paid well, unreasonably well, but didn't offer work that he could use to learn any new or useful skills.    

    At some point, Xakep had slipped into a void, one where he didn't need to change or worry or even adapt, and he'd developed a lot of bad habits along the way, obviously.    

    His phone vibrated again.

    "Do you ever wonder if there's more?"

    Was this some kind of self-help advertisement?  It hit a little too close to home for him, and he was about to turn off the phone when his TV roared to life.

    The static flowed down from the screen as though it were water and covered his floor, leaving only a black screen and white text.

    "Aren't you tired of this?"

    "What the hell is going on," he asked aloud.

    "You have so much more potential than the world around you is willing to let you achieve."

    A small logo appeared at the top right of the screen, some strange symbol with the word Sys.Tem overlaid.

    "What are your goals?"

    He tried to look away, but when he turned his head, the wall had turned totally black and the white text flickered in front of him.

    "Who are you living for?"

    Pulling the blankets over his head again, he clutched the bear to his cheek and cried, sobbed hard into its fur for a few moments before he realized something.

    The bear didn't smell like her anymore.

    It didn't have a scent at all...it was just...fabric again.  He'd used up all of its magic trying to make it to tomorrow, but he knew the truth.

    There was no tomorrow in his life.

    Everyday was the same, the same routine, the same blank attempts to create the illusion of meaning in the misadventures of someone who had no destination and was walking on a road with no lights.

    He could go to a thousand parties, meet a million people, and do everything he wanted, but if he had no goals or plans...none of it mattered.

    He took a deep breath, or tried to at least, and said, "I want to live for myself."

    The entire room flashed blindingly white and then the walls were normal again and the message on the TV changed.

    "Would you change your life if you could?"

    Xakep nodded, softly at first, then quickly and hard as he said, "Definitely!"

    The static on the floor rose up a solid foot and the message on the TV said, "I am a System...and I have chosen you because I believe that you can help me achieve my purpose...and that you deserve to be happy."

    "What do I need to do?"

    The static rose until it reached his neck, cold and fizzing, as though it were soda, and the TV responded, "Join with me."

    He nodded one more time and the static filled the room, loud and screaming sound surrounding him so intensely it had physical presence against his body.

    The room, filled with static in one instant and empty the next, returned to normal.

    The bear floated in the air for a second, almost as though someone who had just been there was deciding if it would come with him...and then fell, landing on the couch.

    There was no sound.

    There was nobody in the apartment now to make a sound.

    The lock on the front door clicked and it opened as Luna, his ex-girlfriend, walked inside.

    "Xakep," she called, strangely uncomfortable in the apartment she'd lived in for almost two years.

    "I came to apologize...I haven't heard from you in a few days and...I missed you.  I want to try and work this out...please?"

    She called and looked around, but he was nowhere to be found, missing along with his phone.  She wondered if maybe he'd just...left...but nothing was missing.

    A message on the TV filled her with confusion and distress.

    "Would you like to follow him?"

    She thought for a moment and nodded.

    "I can help you leave your world behind."

    She walked to the TV and put her hand on it, pushing her family and her friends and work out of her mind.

    A rush of energy filled her and dozens of arms reached out of the TV, wrapping her up and covering her mouth with their hands, and pulled her into the screen.

    The apartment was silent again, and the door slowly closed shut, locking itself.

    Outside, the number next to the door disappeared and the door soon disappeared, leaving only a conspicuous blank spot where it should have been.