I was a quarter of the way done with my coffee by the time Digo pulled into the driveway of my house.

I had moved into this house with my family about eh...six years ago? Little more than that? Yep, right when house prices in the US had skyrocketed. We ain't rich, let me tell you, Mass ain't a cheap place to live in, but it's a liberal state so I guess beggars can't be choosers.

But hey, only a few more months and I'll be up and out of here for good.

In Canada, with Quiet and the rest of my real family. My chosen family.

"Are you ranting in your head again?" Digo asked suddenly, snapping me out of my thoughts. "You're wearing your "dramatic monologue" expression."

I rolled my eyes, giving no answer but a smirk as I opened the passenger door, kicking it open fully with the heel of my shoe.

It was still raining, and as much as I loved the rain I really didn't want my hair dye to drip out and stain my clothes, so I raced Digo for the door, trying my best not to spill my drink. I jammed my keys into the doorknob, swinging it open. Only Josh was home, the homeschooled little twat. Lu and Ezra were still on the bus, because I was awesome and had a friend with a car.

And both my parents were at work, thank god.

"Hey– Joshua started, sitting crisscross on the couch, my mom's laptop balanced on his knees. Kid would be starting ninth grade next year, the grade my parents allowed all of us to start public school. Yep, I was a homeschooled kid myself. Explains a lot of things, doesn't it?

I glanced his way. "Usually you're done with work by now–"

"I am." He replied defensively, blowing a strand of dark brown hair that had fallen out of his man bun. "I'm playing google snake–"

"Valid." Digo said, attempting to hide their word behind a very obvious cough.

I rolled my eyes. "Whatever– good luck beating my score." I half-taunted, slinging my backpack strap more comfortably over my shoulder before jogging up the stairs.

I heard Digo following me just as I swung myself down the mini hall and into my room, darkened by the olive green walls. I threw myself down into my gaming chair, dropping my coffee onto my desk, turning my PC on and reaching for my epic RGB gaming mouse.

I heard Digo plop themself down on my bed, beginning to rummage around the objects stacked nearly a foot high on my nightstand. "Ooo what're these?" They asked.

I spun around on my spindley-windley chair (his name is Gerald) to look at what Digo was talking about. They were holding up this little cardboard plaque, and immediately I knew what they had found.

I had picked up some cool earrings during my visit to Canada during Spring Break. They were Coca-Cola bottle caps, strung on the silver chain that looked like it belonged on a dog tag necklace.

And Digo was a sucker for earrings. They were wearing some right now, silver fish skeletons dangling from their earlobes, along with several piercings along their cartilage line.

"They're cool, aren't they? Got them with Quiet while we were walking around a craft place." I explained, folding my arms across my chest as I leaned back in Gerald.

"Hell yeah they are! Can I try them on?" Digo asked, already going to remove the fishbone earrings.

"Sure– I've already worn them though, might wanna spray 'em with some hydrogen peroxide first." I suggested, watching as they pulled the bottle cap earrings from the cardboard backing they had come on.

"Got ittt." Digo said, stuffing their former earrings into their pants pocket. I decided to get up and grab the bottle of hydrogen peroxide for them out of the bathroom across the hall.

I poked my head into the room, rummaging around in the cabinet for a second, before my hand recognized the hydrogen peroxide and I pulled out the dark brown bottle to bring to Digo. Just as I stepped back into my bedroom, I witnessed Digo already stabbing the bottle cap earrings through their ears.

"Sooo you didn't want to sanitize them first–? Y'know I've already worn them, they're not clean." I reminded them, raising an eyebrow.

Digo paused. "Oops...?" They began, before shrugging and going to put the other one in.

"Not on me I guess. But if your ears blow up to the size of Pennywise's balloons by next week, I will laugh." I commented, hiding a smirk.

"Fair enough." Digo snorted, sliding the backs onto the earrings before shaking their head, grinning as the bottle caps jangled. "These are epiccc!"

"I know right?!" I agreed, letting myself fall back into Gerald, the chair's back braced against the edge of my desk. The pink, white and blue of the flag hung up in my window sent pretty colored pastel light across my desk and in my lap, despite the overcast. "Only eight bucks too."

"Oh are you serious? That's a steal!" I caught a sliver of Digo's grin before I swiveled around, clicking into the footage from the stream last night. I had scrawled a few bullet points onto a sticky note stuck crookedly onto my screen, listing some funny moments from the stream I wanted to remember to add into the short-form video.

My screen flickered.

"Huh," I frowned, trying to click out of the tab and reopen it. The screen froze before nearly five seconds later skipping back and forth between the two displays. "What the hell–" I muttered. "This is a new PC."

"What's wrong?" Digo asked, earrings jingling again.

"My computer's being stupid." I said, clicking the x in the corner rapidly with my mouse. "I swear, this thing is new–"

"Maybe the file's too big to load? Just give it a couple minutes." Digo replied with a small shrug.

I sighed. "I dunno." I said, before doing as they had said and spinning around to leave it alone. "What'dya wanna do now?"

"Uh–" Digo didn't have time to finish their exclamation.

"HEY AJ, YOU PROMISED ME A GAME OF MARIO KART!" Ezra's voice echoed up the stairs into my room. Oh great. The terrorists were home.

"DIGO'S OVER!" I shouted back down, powering off my computer and rolling my chair towards the door.

"THEY CAN PLAY TOO, I DON'T CARE."

I glanced over towards Digo, still sat on my bed. They were terrible at Mario Kart. Here was a chance to absolutely smoke them. "YOU GOT IT!" I replied, standing up and sending my friend a small smirk.

They looked mildly terrified for a second. Heh.

"Fun..." Digo exclaimed with a very obviously fake laugh, but they smiled.

"Ready to get your ass whooped?" I grinned as they hopped off the mattress and we started downstairs.

"Nuh uh, I'm going to win this time!" They declared confidently.

"Sureeee." I smirked. "We'll see about that."

"We will!" They replied overly cheerfully, probably to hide the immense fear at the prospect of going up against me. Heh.

We raced down the stairs, swinging out from the living room down the hall and into the guest room, complete with a convertible couch bed, TV and TV stand.

Ezra grinned as we stepped inside, a shit-eating grin that made me want to knock his teeth out. However, if I had even attempted to voice these thoughts to my little brother, he would have told me that I was too short to reach him. Wasn't my fault that he was like six goddamn feet tall.

"Took you long enough." He said, tossing me a red blue and black Nintendo Switch controller and Digo a matching one but absent of red. He himself had a clear one, showing the controller's wiry innards as it lit up different colors. Show off.

Moments after me and Digo had collapsed backwards onto the couch, Ezra had already started up the three-way game. I chose the mini turtle dude— was Lemmy his name? —on a bright green motorcycle. They were the easiest vehicle to handle, in my opinion. Made it easier to skid and get those coveted golden boosts.

Ezra had gone for Yoshi, specifically the black one, and had stolen my choice of transport. Digo on the other hand had chosen Princess Peach.

"What map?" Ezra asked, scrolling through the menu.

"Star," Digo immediately demanded, a small smile on their lips. "I wanna do Star."

"Alrighty then. My favorite. Let's do this. Anyone wanna bet who wins?" I said, smirking at my "brother" and my blood brother's direction.

Ezra rolled his eyes. "Don't get too cocky now, AJ." He said, selecting the map.

My palms already felt slippery clutching the handles of the controller as the systemized beeps began to ring out from the screen. I revved the engine just as a ginormous orange and yellow two blazed across my screen, before taking off at the final call...

Indigo was already cursing violently in Spanish.

___

"See you, broski!" Digo called, walking backwards down the dirt driveway towards their car.

"If you trip and fall I'll laugh!" I called back, my hands cupped over my mouth. Digo giggled, then promptly stumbled over the laces of their combat boots. "But see ya!"

I shut the door behind me just as I heard the slam of Digo's car door. We had spent nearly an hour playing Mario Kart (all but one win to me, I'll get my revenge on you while you're sleeping Ezra), but now it was time for me to get to work.

No, not my schoolwork, that essay was as far out of my mind as the idiotic white chocolate pretzels that Lucille had brought back from a school fundraiser (they were stupidly delicious). I was going to edit that stream now and expose myself to probably several hours of an incredibly bright screen that definitely would not help my sleep schedule.

My phone buzzed just as I reached the second floor landing, feet away from my room. I pushed the door inwards while opening the door, smiling once I realized that the notification was from Quiet.



Qᴜɪᴇᴛ_ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ
Hey

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
hellooo
how are you?

Qᴜɪᴇᴛ_ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ
Okay-ish, I guess. I'm starting to despise my social studies class

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
Why's that? something wrong?

Qᴜɪᴇᴛ_ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ
No, the people in there are just really irritating

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
oof :/

Qᴜɪᴇᴛ_ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ
yeah :/

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
anything I can do? you could always just call me up in the middle of class and I can tell them all to shut up–

Qᴜɪᴇᴛ_ꜱʜᴀᴅᴏᴡ
I don't think that's necessary- but thank you

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
anytime

I closed out of the chat for a moment to focus on getting my PC started back up after restarting it. A small hum suspiciously similar to the Jeopardy theme left my lips as I pressed my index finger against the power button, twisting around in Gerald as far as my arm would let me without breaking my elbow.

And then suddenly...the screen flickered...I jumped to the edge of my seat...aaaand it was black again. "DAMN IT!" I slammed my fist down onto the desk, rattling my keyboard. I did not want to spend another several hundred dollars on one of these.

In a flash I didn't expect, the screen suddenly shone an eerie shade of washed out blue. I blinked. This was not my home screen.

Streaks of odd symbols and signs were printed in vertical lines down my screen, moving up and down to show even more symbols and signs, like computer code. Except it definitely wasn't computer code.

"What the..." I muttered, grabbing my mouse. I tried to click on one of the symbols. It practically melted beneath the cursor, the blue it had been made up of avoiding the little white arrow at all costs. I couldn't hover over anything. Hitting the escape key did nothing.

All I could think about was how this looked straight out of a sci-fi movie where the main character (who would be me, duh) uncovers some secret government agency plan hidden in secret messages and then gets kidnapped and brainwashed into a half-steel assassin.

I mean the half-steel cyborg thing would be cool but I think I'd like to keep an organic brain full of my own thoughts, please and thank you.

I gawked at the screen for a couple more moments, trying to decipher what the frickin' heck it meant before deciding to hit up Digo and see if they knew what was happening. They were the coding IT master, they should have a better idea of what was going on.. I was just the short twinky jock who knew how to take cars apart and put them back together semi-decently.

I already had a text from them, not so surprisingly, when I opened up my phone.

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
Pronouns are now he/him :]

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
noted- uh- could I have some help with something?

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
Yeah, sure, what do you need?

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
one second-

Image attached

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
w o a h

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
yeahhh I think I figured out what was making my computer go all weird-

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
the fyck is that??

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
THAT'S WHAT I'M SAYING
I don't know what it is
it won't let me click out of it-

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
Is it a virus, you think?

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
idk. maybe?

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
I'll take a look at it tomorrow, broski

Ʀᴀɪɴʏᴊᴏɪ
ight, thanks man

ᴀʟᴡᴀʏꜱ_ɪɴᴅɪɢᴏ
np

I glanced back up at my screen, still squinting at the odd shifting messages in what I assumed must be a language of some kind. Maybe I could figure it out before tomorrow...

The next half hour was spent scrolling through google translate and testing out every language to see if any of their alphabets looked anything like what was appearing on my computer.

News flash: None of them were even close. Wonderful.

Tsuki was bound to be asleep by now, I couldn't ask it for help. Quiet would worry themself to insanity over the death threat or whatever was hiding behind the stupid hieroglyphics popping up on my screen. Maybe I could busy myself with that essay I said I'd turn in tonight?

But for this, I'd just have to wait. My specialty (it was not my specialty). 

***

ayooo new chapterrr

and if y'all are confused by why i unpublished the book and then republished the first two chapters + the prologue a couple hours agi, i just had to make a few changes to the chapters (and i had a softball game so this update was a little later than i would have liked-)

andddd i decided not to change this book to a first person pov! mainly because i have a certain style and humor that i write in and with, and i feel like both are harder to convey when writing in third. so first person it stays to remain with the Arlo touch :]]] 

anywaysss, hope y'all enjoy- votes and comments are appreciated!