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The darkness of the room was so thick it made it impossible to see past one's own nose.
The only sliver of light came from a desk in the corner.
Two computers cast a pale white glow on a pallid face with cadaverous eyes.
His pupils were fixed on the front screen, where a live stream was being broadcast by a cute avatar; while she chatted with her audience, he almost never looked away, only when his eyes were completely irritated and filled with tears would he bother to close them.
The girl's soft voice overlapped with the sound of keys being struck on the right keyboard; another VTuber's live stream was displayed on that screen, but he rarely glanced in that direction, and only to check the chat.
Even as the hours passed, he never changed, remaining motionless and watching, until the main avatar began saying goodbye to her audience and ended the stream.
He shifted position and turned his chair to face the other screen directly. His right hand, which had stopped typing, reached out to pick up the microphone and bring it to his mouth, but before making any sound, he took out his phone and, still expressionless, scrolled through his contacts to send the message that would set the evening hunt in motion.
*bzz-bzz*
The girl lying on the bed slowly opened her eyes and, with an irritated expression, picked up her phone to check the notification.
She had wanted to rest her eyes from the screen after all those hours of streaming, but without thinking, she picked up her phone anyway to see who had written to her.
The moment she understood, she let the phone drop onto the mattress in frustration. A friend had texted to remind her he would be coming over shortly.
She had just finished streaming while he was still live; it had been kind of him to write and remind her of the appointment, but she was deeply irritated nonetheless.
She wanted to believe the reason for her irritation was that her friend thought her stupid enough to forget a previously arranged appointment, but she knew that wasn't it.
After all, she really had forgotten. She had accepted his invitation only because she had to; she couldn't have justified a refusal.
So the real reason might have been her friend's kindness itself.
Why did he have to be so considerate when no one had asked him to be? No one would have been angry with him if he hadn't done it, no one would have even thought about it.
But that explanation wasn't right either; it was only the surface of the real reason: she hated the guilt she felt every time she saw considerate people, because she couldn't help comparing herself to them.
And yet, the first time she had met him, he had been so similar to her. They had met and started collaborating through their fandoms; it was natural that in front of an audience they would act friendly, but outside of streams they behaved like acquaintances, when the other had a birthday they'd write "happy birthday" and then "thanks."
It wasn't that they disliked each other; there was more of a pact of indifference.
Both performed the usual rituals of socialisation, but without ever going deeper.
Then, suddenly, he had changed, becoming exactly what she had never had the courage to be.
As if that weren't enough, this change had been followed by a surge in popularity; his subscribers had doubled, and that couldn't make her feel anything but worse.
She was watching what she could have been, what she had wanted to be, and was being shown that the change would have been a positive one.
And yet she wasn't capable of it, too worried about the possible negative consequences, no matter how unlikely they were.
She picked up her phone again and began scrolling through the live streams currently running.
Her eye fell automatically on the view counts; he wasn't the only one who had changed, simply the one she had been in contact with the longest. At least four other acquaintances in the field had gone through the same transformation.
She felt as though there were a secret course on how to shed embarrassment and live more freely, and no one had invited her.
She decided to find her friend's channel and watch one of his older streams, since he had just gone offline; maybe she could pick up something to imitate.
Once she opened it, she began watching the chat scroll by, and after a short while she noticed that the avatar was taking far longer than it should to respond, as if its processing required many more steps than usual.
Thinking this, she couldn't help letting out a bitter little laugh: at least she was better than him at something.
In fact, listening to him speak, she could add that her own voice was nicer.
The words coming from the avatar did have something… mechanical about them.
A snake appeared at her feet.
An intense pain struck her in the abdomen, her lungs emptied.
She let the phone fall onto her chest.
*"Is this fear?"*
The thought came to her naturally.
But why should she be afraid?
It was irrational: he was far more sociable and warm, he'd had no trouble meeting his old self, so why on earth should she be afraid of him now?
The question thundered through her mind.
She leapt out of bed; she had nowhere to go, she just needed to move, to distract herself from the serpentine fear slithering inside her.
She wanted to believe these were just stupid paranoid thoughts, that her antisocial brain was trying to stop her from leaving the house, but the certainty kept growing within her that the darkness inside her colleague had increased, that he hadn't simply "changed."
It wasn't something she could explain rationally; if anyone had asked her to put this fear into words, she would have fall- *"DING"*
Silence.
Both outside and inside her mind.
She stood completely still, frozen by anxiety, because she knew exactly who the only person at her door could be.
"Serena, it's me."
Said a warm, familiar voice.
Her heart doubled its pace.
"What… what do I do?"
The question pierced her soul.
"Don't be an idiot and open the door"
repeated one part of her mind,but from the other: "pretend you're not home and wait for him to leave."
Although only a few seconds had passed, the war inside her lasted hours.
Slowly, she began taking small steps toward the entrance.
She felt as though her legs were submerged in quicksand.
Each step was harder than the last.
But she kept walking.
He knew she was home; if she was rude, he could spread the word, and her community would realise she wasn't truly the sunny girl they saw every day, just a mask covering the dull person she really was.
She HAD to open the door.
Even though she had turned on the hallway light, she thought she could see a wolf-shaped shadow spreading beneath the door.
Reaching the door, she felt her clothes were damp; she had only walked down a hallway, yet she was sweating profusely.
She reached toward the handle.
Just as she was about to open it, she saw it.
The peephole.
It was stupid.
But she pulled her hand from the handle.
She pressed her eye to the lens.
Only darkness.
The snake was climbing up her body.
"Everything okay? You're taking a while to open."
That voice no longer sounded mechanical, it sounded genuinely human.
But her heartbeat only quickened.
"Sor-ry,"
her lips wouldn't stop trembling,
"I just… I can't see you."
A moment of silence.
"What do you mean? Don't tell me you were looking through the peephole."
SHUT UP.
She wanted to scream it, she didn't want to hear that voice anymore, but there was still a wall holding her back.
"Come on,"he repeated,
"it might just be dirty. Why are you making such a fuss? It's rude not to open the door for your friends."
A stab wound would have been better.
The fear of losing her mask and another she couldn't name were fighting each other.
Beads of cold sweat covered her face, but that information wasn't even being processed.
In an instant, rational fear won out.
She opened the door.
The wolf closed its jaw.
Her friend's smiling face,replaced by a tall, pale man.
For an instant, time stopped.
The snake, now at her head, whispered: "I told you so."
She pulled the door back faster than her thoughts could follow.
A foot wedged itself in.
The door flew open.
She stumbled back and tried to scream.
A hand covered her mouth.
She felt the hard floor against her head.
She felt strong hands close around her throat.
She punched, kicked, even bit the motionless figure, but her resistance lasted less than her breath.
She saw his eyes, wide open to the point of making his eyelids invisible.
Red enough to put any sunset to shame.
She felt the strength leave her body, making room for a new darkness.