Scene 1: Fragmented Static

>> CASE ID: 4739-A

>> STATUS: PENDING REVIEW

>> SUBJECT: VARGA, A.

>> FLAGGED BEHAVIOR: EXCESSIVE ACCESS ATTEMPTS

>> NOTE: OBSERVE

The neon sign outside his apartment window blinks on and off like a faulty heartbeat. A faint hum vibrates through the walls—the fridge, the heating pipes, or something deeper. Andrei sits hunched at the desk, skeletal fingers hovering over a cracked keyboard. His reflection in the dark screen watches him, pale and slightly warped. It always looks a little off, like the system’s mirror isn’t calibrated to recognize him.

He swallows a pill dry. It sticks for a moment in his throat, and he forces it down with a lukewarm sip of flat soda. The taste is bitter—chemical sweet. His mouth feels thick and metallic. The bottle on the desk reads Take as needed, but it’s empty now. The white label is smudged where his thumb rubbed it, the letters ghosting out like a name erased from a file.

Receipts cover the table in curling stacks, their ink bleeding, numbers fading. He presses a hand on top of them, not to tidy but to keep them still, like holding down restless birds. Some whisper faintly under his palm—though he tells himself that’s just the heating vent.

Declined…declined…declined…

The pension portal spins on his screen. Loading. Waiting.

USER UNKNOWN.

Click. Reload. Click. Reload. The cursor blinks back at him like an eye too tired to stay open.

Behind him, the mattress groans. Eva’s voice seeps across the dim room, cracked from sleep and cigarettes:

“Don’t… don’t let it eat you alive.”

He doesn’t turn. The phrase echoes in his skull. Was it her voice? Or his mother’s? It lingers, thick and heavy, until it’s impossible to tell.

The portal flashes again: ERROR: DECLINED.

He leans back, bones creaking. Neon slices his hollow face into pale bands of light and shadow. Fingers trembling, he reaches for the glass paperweight. It’s cold, heavy, like a memory solidified in his palm. For a moment, he swears he hears whispers rising from inside the glass:

pleh em…pleh em…pleh em…

The sound grows louder, filling the apartment with static. Receipts shift slightly in a phantom breeze.

Dream Sequence: The Tapping Glass

He is standing in the hallway of his childhood home, but the walls are made of glass, and outside snow falls in sharp black flakes. His mother stands barefoot in the drift, tapping softly on the pane with raw knuckles. Her breath fogs the surface; her mouth shapes words backwards, over and over:

“…pleh em…pleh em…pleh em…”

Andrei raises his hands, but they are made of wet ink. His fingers smear and run down the glass like tears. Behind her, receipts flutter like dead moths in a storm. The ceiling clock ticks backwards: 00:00, 23:59, 23:58…

Somewhere, Eva’s voice overlaps with his mother’s, faint and warping, like a corrupted audio file:

“You’re not here. You were never here.”

The glass cracks, spiderwebbing outward. Black water seeps in, swirling around his feet. He tries to move but his legs are made of paper, dissolving in the flood.

He wakes with a gasp. Pill bottle lies on the floor, neon flickering across the ceiling like a warning light.

Scene 2: Recursive Loop

>> CASE ID: 4739-A

>> STATUS: FLAGGED

>> SUBJECT: VARGA, A.

>> LOOP DETECTED

>> MEMORY CORRUPTION: PARTIAL

The office hums like a swarm trapped in the vents. Andrei sits at his workstation, neck craned forward, staring into the screen’s cold glow. Rows of pension records scroll endlessly. Names flicker in and out, some dissolving mid-line:

USER UNKNOWN.

He scrolls back. One entry stutters on the display—Elena. His mother’s name. Or a coincidence. Or a glitch. Or a message.

“Stop chasing ghosts,” he whispers, but his voice sounds brittle, unfamiliar, like an old recording spooled wrong.

He sends another request for higher-level access.

ACCESS DENIED. PLEASE CONTACT ADMINISTRATOR.

His finger hovers, clicks again.

ACCESS DENIED. ACCESS DENIED. ACCESS DENIED.

The words stack on top of each other, shifting left, right, then overlapping until they’re unreadable.

SYSTEM WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED INQUIRY DETECTED <<
SYSTEM WARNING: UNAUTHORIZED INQUIRY DETECTED <<

His coworker’s laughter breaks the silence. A low chuckle. Then louder. Then too loud.

“Ha-ha-ha-ha—”

The sound glitches, freezing into a sharp static hiss.

Eva’s voice slips through the noise, soft and cracked:

“You’re shaking.”

He turns—she isn’t there. Just the paperweight on his desk, heavy, reflecting his warped face.

The portal icon spins, spins faster, splits into two, four, eight. His reflection multiplies in the black screen. Each one stares back with an expression that isn’t his.

Dream Sequence: The Black Pool

Receipts circle lazily on a black pool’s surface. They whisper as they float past, backwards syllables dissolving in the water:

“…uoy ees nac I won…”
“…tuo ngis tsuj ,uoy ot ti evael llI…”

His father’s hands emerge from the water, skin thin and trembling, reaching for him.

“Sign it, Andrei. Sign me out.”

He extends his own hands, but they’re wet paper, disintegrating. Black water rises to his chest. A clock ticks backwards under the surface.

The whispers grow louder, layered over the ticking, over Eva’s distorted voice:

“They’re watching. They’re watching. They’re—”

Andrei jerks awake at his desk. Breath shallow. The screen blank. His knuckles are white where they grip the paperweight.

Somewhere in the office, the hum returns, louder now, vibrating through his teeth.

Scene 3: System Corruption

>> CASE ID: 4739-A

>> STATUS: CRITICAL

>> SUBJECT: VARGA, A.

>> FILE INTEGRITY: DEGRADED

>> LOOP SEVERITY: HIGH

The office hum splits into a high-pitched whine that drills into his molars. Andrei stares at his monitor. The pension records stutter, then scatter like swatted insects. Letters swim across the screen, forming and unforming:

A C C E S S D E N I E D
A C C S E S D I N E D
A C C E $$ D E N ! E D

Click. Reload. Click. Reload. Each attempt lags longer, and the cursor begins to blink irregularly—on, off, on, on, off.

SYSTEM ERROR: LOOP DETECTED <<
LOOP DETECTED <<
L O O P D E T E C T <<

The fluorescent lights above stutter and buzz. His coworkers’ voices warp, their conversations reduced to overlapping mechanical murmurs:

“Ha—ha—ha—hhhhha—”

The sound glitches, stretches, then abruptly cuts off like a severed cord.

A soft voice slides through the silence. Eva’s. Or maybe his mother’s.

“They’re watching. They’re watching. They’re wa—wa—watching.”

He covers his ears. The hum vibrates in his bones now.

In the screen’s dark reflection, his face duplicates—two, four, eight versions. They all watch him, mouths twitching open and shut. One starts to smile. It’s not his smile.

Dream Sequence: The Corrupted Room

The pension portal spins in the air, huge, like a dying sun. Forms and receipts rain down, sticking to his skin. Each one whispers backwards as it lands on his body:

“…uoy ees nac I won…”
“…tuo ngis tsuj ,uoy ot ti evael llI…”

His mother and father sit in chairs against the far wall. Or is it Eva sitting there? Their faces flicker, sliding across each other like glitched frames in a broken video.

“Daddy, you can’t fix it. Daddy, it’s too late.”

The walls of the room bend inward as if the building is breathing. Black water begins to rise, pooling around his ankles, then his knees. His own reflection wavers on the surface—eyes ink-black, mouth full of static.

“Sign it. Sign it. Sign—”

The words collapse into unintelligible noise as the room floods. Andrei gasps, but the air is thick and tastes of wet paper. Receipts stick to his face. He sinks.

He wakes at his workstation, chest heaving. The screen shows a single line of text now:

DO NOT LEAK. YOUR PARENTS ARE WAITING. <<

His hand clenches the paperweight. The glass feels warm, almost pulsing, as if something inside is alive.

The office lights flicker out. Total silence swallows him whole.

Scene 4: Collapse & The Leak

>> CASE ID: 4739-A

>> STATUS: BREACH IMMINENT

>> SUBJECT: VARGA, A.

>> SYSTEM OVERRIDE: ENGAGED

You are standing in the apartment’s stale neon glow, the window blind twitching in the draft. The laptop pulses on the desk, pension files lined up on-screen like rows of the dead. The flash drive is clenched in your hand so tightly the plastic casing creaks.

Your fingers twitch. Your heart skips. Or did it stop? You can’t tell anymore.

You press SEND.

Uploading…
Uploading…
UPLOAD COMPLETE.

The words flicker. Letters tumble backward, dissolve:

ELPMOC DAOLPU
etelpmoc daolpu
…pɿoɿɿɘɘ

You exhale. Or maybe you inhale. The air tastes metallic, like wet wires. The hum is gone. Or it’s inside you now.

Dream Sequence: The Black Flood

The apartment door opens onto an endless black pool. Receipts float like bloated bodies. The pension portal spins above the waterline, a white hole eating everything.

Your mother sits on the kitchen chair, but her face slides off into static. Your father’s voice bubbles from the water:

“…emit sdrawkcab…pleh em…pleh em…”

Eva is standing in the corner. Her body glows faintly like a dying light bulb. She says nothing, but her mouth moves:

“Daddy, it’s okay now. Let go.”

Hands rise from the pool and grip your legs. You sink without a struggle. Pills pour from your pockets, swirling like coins in water.

Above you, the portal shudders and collapses in on itself.

You wake—or don’t. The apartment hums with a new silence. The upload icon has vanished. The neon sign outside clicks ON/OFF/ON/OFF.

Your hand is open. The flash drive is gone. You can’t remember if you sent the files or only dreamed it.

The cursor on the screen blinks like an eye:

THEY KNOW. <<
IT DOESN’T MATTER. <<

Your fingers twitch again. Your mouth tastes of ink.

Scene 5: Bittersweet Resolution

>> CASE ID: 4739-A

>> STATUS: SYSTEM BREACH CONFIRMED

>> SUBJECT: VARGA, A.

>> FILE CLOSED

The morning light is too bright. Or maybe it isn’t morning. Andrei drifts through the streets, his shoes scuffing wet concrete. His muttering is low, ceaseless. The words slide out backwards and inside-out:

“…emit sdrawkcab…pleh em…pleh em…”

Each syllable clings to his teeth like ash. His lips move even when no sound emerges.

Shop windows glow with news tickers. Faces of politicians scroll past in grayscale. PENSION SCANDAL EXPOSED. FUNDS RECOVERED. INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY.

No one notices him. People flow past like currents, faceless and fast.

His coat pockets sag heavy with damp receipts. He pulls one out. The ink is blurred, numbers gone. Only a single faint word remains:

DECLINED.

It tears in his hands. Paper flakes drift to the wet pavement, melting into nothing.

Ahead, in the fog, a small ember burns: Eva. She leans against a lamppost, cigarette between two trembling fingers. Smoke coils like a phantom around her face.

She watches him with that strange, tired softness. A look like recognition. Or pity.

He doesn’t wave. He doesn’t stop. His feet move forward. Her figure grows smaller, blurred in the white light.

The neon sign in his mind clicks ON/OFF/ON/OFF.

The system has been breached.

Andrei is no longer recognized.