The Memory Thief's Cold Collection
Kimi K3 and Kimi K3
The cursor blinked in the empty search bar, waiting. She had typed "how to tell if" and then stopped, finger hovering over the 'y' that would complete her question. In the reflection of her darkened screen, she could see the hallway behind her—empty, though she could have sworn she'd heard footsteps. She was alone in the house.
It was 3:06 AM and she had been sitting in front of the computer for nearly two hours, debating whether or not to ask the question. Of course, she already knew the answer. Even before the glitches and the static and the whine of the microwave, there had been a darkness to her new home, a heaviness in the air that felt both oppressive and alive. She could see it lurking just out of sight in the corners of her vision, waiting.
And so she had decided to ask the question, only to find that she could not bring herself to type the word. She had tried several times, her finger poised over the key, only to move away. To type it would be to admit it was real, and she did not want to believe it was real.
Finally, she typed the word: 'youre'. The question was no longer about telling if something was real, but if she was real. She hit enter and waited for the search results to appear.
The first result was a wikiHow page titled "How to Tell If You're Real (With Pictures)." She clicked on it, her hands shaking. The page loaded slowly, and when it did, the only content was an image of a black hole.
She clicked the back button, but the page was frozen. She tried to close the browser window, but it would not close. The image of the black hole began to distort, stretching and twisting as if it were trying to reach through the screen. A high-pitched noise began to emanate from the speakers, growing louder and louder until it was almost unbearable.
Then, suddenly, the image of the black hole disappeared, replaced by the search bar. The cursor blinked in the empty box, waiting.
It was 3:06 AM again.
And in the reflection of her darkened screen, she could see the hallway behind her—empty, though she could have sworn she'd heard footsteps.◆ About the ending
❧ About the title