I wake to pale morning light slanting through half-closed blinds, my back stiff against a sagging mattress and a tangled sheet clinging to my legs. Empty energy-drink cans clutter the stained carpet beside my desk, heaped with tangled headphone cords, half-eaten instant ramen packets, and gaming magazines whose edges curl from coffee spills. I rub crusted sleep from my eyes, flex sore muscles in my shoulders and neck, and roll onto my side to peer at the monitor's glow—lines of text flickering against in-game landscapes I barely remember playing. "'Huh? Do you accept the price?'" I murmur, voice rough, leaning forward to read each word as a gentle hum issues from my desktop tower. "'This is so weird but I guess I'll hit yes,'" I say aloud, my shoulder muscles tensing as I click the mouse; my heart thumps in my ears like a war drum.
Instinctively, a scorching current races from my wrist through every vein, and I gasp as heat blossoms beneath my skin. I jerk back, knocking over a half-empty mug, and watch in stunned fascination as bronze-tinted metal coils upward from my forearm, plating itself over soft flesh in ornate segments lined with faintly glowing runes. I try to peel the gauntlet off, fingertips brushing cold steel as it snaps into place with a subtle click. My vision blurs around the edges, and the room goes silent except for a low mechanical thrum emanating from this new artifact. I flex my fingers and feel a pulse of power—a vibration against bone—and just as I steady my breathing, a new message flashes on the screen: "Contract sealed. Await your first directive." My eyes widen as the gauntlet's glow intensifies, and I realize I can't look away from either the text or the burning force now fused to my arm.
"What the fuck is happening? This can't be real." I reach for the soda I left on my desk last night and crush it in my fist, splattering myself and the monitor in sticky liquid. "Oh my God, I barely touched it—what is going on?" I grit my teeth, willing the gauntlet to disappear, to dissolve into nothingness and release me from its oppressive grip. To my shock, the metal artifact ripples and sinks into my skin, vanishing from view as if it were never there. A rush of relief floods through me, but a creeping unease settles in the pit of my stomach. With a deep breath, I command the gauntlet to reappear, and like a snake uncoiling, it emerges from my flesh, metal gleaming against the harsh light of my computer screen. My heart races as I contemplate the implications of this strange power now residing within me. The message on the screen blurs before my eyes, a mix of dread and curiosity swirling in my gut as I grapple with this newfound connection to the unknown. With a trembling hand, I reach out to touch the surface of the gauntlet, feeling the cool steel beneath my fingertips.
I don't know it yet, but the moment that runed metal attached itself to my arm is the moment everything fractured. My old life—fragile, repetitive, insulated by the four walls of my room and the digital haze of MMOs—has already split down the middle and is oozing out between the seams. I'm too stunned to scream, too analytical to panic properly; instead, I sit cross-legged on my bed in a state of suspended disbelief, half expecting the adrenaline spike to wear off and leave me with nothing but a vague anecdote about sleep deprivation and a caffeine-induced hallucination.
"This is a prank," I mutter, hands numb as they hover over bulging veins that fade back into flesh, leaving behind not even a bruise. "This has to be some kind of cosmic joke." But every time I squeeze my eyes shut and blink again, the world doesn't reset. The desktop log-in screen stares back at me with relentless indifference. In its glow, every object in my room—overturned ramen cups, discarded hoodies, cheap plastic trophies from science fairs where I placed third or lower—takes on an alien significance. I'm suddenly an intruder in my own life.
The taste of copper lingers at the back of my throat as I drag myself upright and pace unevenly across the carpet. My legs feel like they belong to someone else until I flex them twice and slap at my thigh above my jeans for confirmation. My hand lands with a dull smack; I'm real, at least for now.
Moments later I feel eyes on me from the hallway—a prickling awareness that starts at the base of my skull and works its way down like static electricity. It's not supernatural, just parental: my mother watches from the kitchen doorway, coffee mug clutched in both hands as if she needs its warmth to keep her upright this early in the morning. She looks at me with guarded concern; she saw all she needed last week when we fought about "responsibility" and "potential" until both became hollow syllables echoing off drywall.
I calculate escape routes as she clears her throat and gestures vaguely at a plate left out for me on the counter—a peace offering of burnt toast and microwaved eggs. Between them, Dad's hunched over a tablet and my little sister Una scrapes peanut butter from her chin with elegant disinterest. Nobody says anything until I'm already halfway to the door.
"Hey!" Mom cuts through the silence with precision honed by years of adolescence management. "Where are you going now?" Her tone flattens "now" into something accusatory: Now? Again? After last night?
I freeze mid-stride, my heart hammering so hard it vibrates my vision for a second. "Uh—I can't explain right now," I stammer without turning around. The words seem to come from higher up than usual; I half expect to see them hanging in a speech bubble above my head. I cast about for an excuse that would satisfy her, but none come to mind that don't sound like pure insanity or criminal intent.
"You're not skipping school again," Dad says without looking up from his screen, refusing to dignify my existence with eye contact. I could argue—I want to argue—but there's a new urgency bleeding down through my bones: whatever happened upstairs is still happening somewhere inside me. I feel an itch under the skin on my left arm and wonder if it'll start glowing again in public, if maybe this whole thing is contagious or visible only to people who know what to look for. I picture friends at school recoiling in disgust or fascination; worse yet, teachers calling in counselors or biohazard teams.
"I'll be back later," I hear myself say as I edge around Una's chair. She shoots me a look that says I know you're lying, but she's been training for this since pre-K and keeps her mouth full of toast instead.
I grab my backpack—straps frayed from too many late-night walks home—keys jangling with anxiety as I bolt down the front steps and into morning light that seems sharper than before. The air outside is autumn-cold and briefly sobering; I squint up at the cloudless blue sky and wonder how much time I have before whatever this is escalates.
At the curb waits my battered Civic with faded bumper stickers ("Question Reality"—ironic now—and "Future Engineers Do It With Precision"). I slide into the driver's seat on muscle memory alone, drop the bag onto the passenger-side floorboards already crowded with old receipts and empty gum wrappers, then hesitate with both hands hovering over the wheel as if it might electrocute me.
For what feels like an eternity, I just sit there in the driver's seat, breathing in and out, trying to find some semblance of normalcy within myself. I tune my ears to the ambient sounds—the chirp of distant birds, the rumble of a garbage truck—but all the while, I'm acutely aware of my own heartbeat, loud and galloping like a stampede trapped within my chest. I strain to catch any sign of disturbance beneath my skin or some glitchy pixelation at the edges of reality that might suggest this was all just a digital nightmare I could wake from. The gauntlet's touch still lingers like a phantom limb, itching beneath my mind's surface.
In my pocket, my phone feels heavy with potential communication. The idea of texting someone—anyone—crosses my mind. Maybe Dave from chem class who once dabbled in the occult for a laugh, or that therapist I begrudgingly saw last summer when Mom insisted on professional help. Yet the thought dissolves as quickly as it came; I'm not ready to be told I'm losing it by anyone else just yet.
Instead, I just sit there, vibrating with adrenaline until finally it ceases—not because everything returned to normal but because something solidified inside me, fortifying against whatever it was that threw me so completely off balance.
With resolve teetering between necessity and madness, I jam the key into the ignition with a quivering right hand—the same one that had been encased in surreal metal moments before—and drive forward without so much as a glance at mirrors or traffic signals. Each intersection flies past in a frenzied blur; two stop signs and one red light later, I'm several blocks away from home without even realizing how fast I got there.
"This has got to stop," I mumble aloud like an incantation. "Gotta get to the library... maybe they have something on this kind of thing." My mind spins tales of dusty reference books filled with ancient scripts or librarians with knowing eyes who might unravel this arcane puzzle for me.
I swerve into an empty parking space outside an old building that seems trapped in another era—its grayish-yellow paint flaking away in tired resignation—and can't help but let out a nervous laugh tinged with desperation as I kill the engine.
The library awaits—a relic from the 1980s if stories are true. It stands stalwart and nondescript against time's march and beckons me closer like a sentient guardian of secrets forgotten by digital-age immortals. "Let's hope they don't think I'm batshit insane," I mutter as I swing open the car door.
Rushing up the stone steps toward knowledge or salvation (I'm not sure which), I feel an odd sense of clarity wash over me—as if crossing this threshold might indeed provide answers or at least make sense out of the chaos incarnate.
"I hope I'm not going crazy," I say again for good measure—my plea transforming into an impromptu mantra—as I push through double doors that creak ominously on their hinges.
Once inside, cocooned by paperbacks stacked like sentinels alongside well-thumbed tomes whispering untold histories among dust motes suspended midair under faint fluorescent lights, I breathe easier despite myself.
Now, I'm going to assume all the useful arcana is in the occult section. I walk briskly down an aisle labeled Occult on a plaque overhead. "Where oh where could it be?" I whisper under my breath. Then I see her—a beautiful woman with reddish-yellow hair and a plunging neckline that leaves me momentarily dumbstruck. My eyes go wide when I notice her curves, and I force myself to look away. "Not now—focus," I mutter. "Ugh, but she was so hot..." I trail off.
A battered spine catches my eye: "Demonic Armaments and Rituals." Weird title, but it doesn't matter now. I grab the book, hurry to a nearby table, and open it, noting it hasn't been touched in what seems like an eternity. I brace myself for whatever secrets lie between its dusty covers.