Cover Photo By Julia Basan
Cover Photo By Julia Basan.

Reconnecting…


The world can stop anytime; whether on or off-screen.


By Atticus | Thursday, 2 December 2021

“Pao, are you joining or what?” Reggie’s choppy voice echoed through Paolo’s plastic headphones. He frustratedly clicked the WiFi icon on his screen, causing the tab to rapidly open and close. “Hold on, I think my internet is dying.”

The game site wouldn’t load. He didn’t want to piss the other guys off, especially when they were running mostly on alcohol and a lack of brain cells. They teased him as if their goading could suddenly fix his connection. He already did everything he could—turning off his camera, exiting all other tabs, and even muting himself. Yet his friends’ faces remained frozen on their respective box cutouts spread across his screen, the cacophony of slurred voices being the only thing Paolo could make sense of.

Considering leaving the call, he typed a defeated message in the chat telling them that he’d try turning the modem on and off—a classic hail mary for all technology problems.

“Wow. Thank you, PLDC,” Paolo muttered under his breath. Even his messages can’t crawl over the massive lag. His mother already warned him against getting a plan upgrade, saying that it would just be a waste of his money; he wished he believed her back then. Without anything else to do, he copy-pasted the message and attempted to send it again.

And again.

The only response he got was Zomo’s blaring automated notification. He had expected to be disconnected from the call by now. Yet, strangely enough, he could still hear his friends, barely able to decipher what they were saying. Reggie’s and Martin’s words distorted, their vowels extending. The static from Nikko’s mic smothered his low chuckles. Paolo was about to leave, but then he heard Reggie call him.

“Dude, I’m dying here, remember?” He opened his mic, half-hoping that his friends could still hear him. He sent another message in the chat just to be sure, but even his phone got cut off. “Guys, I’ll try to recon—”

The sudden surge in volume made him yank his headphones off his head. Laughter burst through the earpieces, bass boosted like the audio-cuts in the trashy videos they’d send each other. Paolo pressed his palms to his ears, his heart drumming like it was going to implode. He unplugged the cord, resorting to listening in through his speakers. 

I’m almost in the room now.

Paolo felt like he’d been doused in ice water. That sounded like him. That was the only thing he heard clearly, and he swore, it was his voice. Trying to dismiss it, he moved the cursor to click off the tab, only to find that it, too, was stuck in place. He tried wagging the mouse but to no avail.

Give me a second.”

Paolo stood up, floundering on his way out of the room. Stumbling downstairs, he sought after his mom, being the only other person in the house. Maybe his shocked state made him hear things wrong, or maybe it was the high-pitched ringing that echoed through his ears. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.

Standing in the kitchen with her back facing him, his mom looked rigid. She was in the middle of washing the dishes, except she remained motionless. He slowly stepped towards her, trying to see her face.

“Mom?”

His eyes shifted towards the faucet, where only silence greeted him rather than the sound of water crashing into the metal sink. Dread crept through his spine, his feet turning away from the kitchen before he knew it. Then it hit him all at once, everything else was silent except for the faint conversation continuing from his laptop. He tore his eyes away from the scene, a singular frame plucked from a movie.

Golden light poured in through the screen door, interrupted by a floating, dark shadow in the middle of the door frame. It was detached from anything outside—an impossible placement. Paolo trudged closer to it, his stomach wrenching like it was warning him from doing so. He fought against it, eventually finding himself bathing in the sunset. 

It was a bird, wings outstretched mid-flight. It didn’t fall, not even with the loss of its means to propel itself. Paolo could see the ruffle of its feathers, a small insect hanging off the curve of its sharp beak. He looked up to where the bird was supposedly headed, eyes trailing to his bedroom window. From there, the faint static of his laptop served as a thread grounding him to this tableau reality—the same thing keeping him out of his room. He wasn’t in the mindset to dig around and find out why someone — something — sounded like him. 

All he knew was that he felt safer the farther he was from the sound. He had made it back to his front porch when he saw it—a long, moving figure at the end of the street. He couldn’t make out its features; like he was looking at it through frosted glass. It was almost human, save for its arms long enough to brush the ground, or what seemed to be its mouth taking up most of its face.

He squinted his eyes, struggling to sharpen his vision. It was slowly moving closer, just enough for him to discern movement in its lips. And like the rest of his world, fear paralyzed him as he finally understood what it was saying. 

I’m here now,” his voice sinisterly rolled off its tongue. 

His legs felt like they were weighted down by thick liquid. Alarm bells blared in his head, dread rising from his throat. He trashed his limbs, trying to distance himself from the thing…until he didn’t need to. A powerful force slammed against his chest, pummeling him into the gravel. 

Whiplash hit him, like a rubber band flinging him back to his room. His bones felt liquified, mustering only enough strength to lift his head from the back of his chair. Peering at the bottom corner of his laptop, a full-barred WiFi icon greeted him.

“Pao, are you joining or what?” Reggie’s voice was crisp, laced with a hint of tipsiness. 

For a few seconds, all Paolo could do was stare at the chat, devoid of his unsent messages. Reggie’s voice reeled back his attention. “Dude, are you okay? We could hear you breathing, you know.”

Paolo blinked, all tension leaving his body. He couldn’t remember why he felt so scared in the first place. He cleared his throat, diving back into the conversation, more than relieved the reconnection didn’t take too long.


Tags: IntoStory