Olivia sits up. “Okay, I’ll try.” She doesn’t make eye contact as she uses her fingers to comb her hair back in front of her shoulders.
I sigh. “Olivia, I promise this won’t happen again.”
“Welcome back. Everything alright?” I ask as Mrs. Davis drops her enormous bag and kicks off her shoes when she gets home.
“Yeah.” She sighs. “I’m going to go take a shower. Their father is going to pick them up in about an hour, so you can go now. Thanks again for staying.”
“Sure! Anytime.”
She frantically shuffles through her bag. She pulls out two twenties and holds them out for me, giving me a tense stare the whole time.
When I try to pull the money from her grasp, she doesn’t let go.
“Everything alright?” I ask again.
She shakes her head and relinquishes her grip. “Sorry. Yes. Just fine. Have a good day, you two.”
Olivia and I gather our things, say goodbye, and I walk Olivia to her friend’s house.
“You stay here until I talk to Mom. I’ll come get you after. We’ll figure this out,” I say, bending down to match Olivia’s height, giving her a reassuring squeeze on the shoulder.
“Okay,” she says timidly, her eyes on the ground. Her friend, Amy, is waiting for her on the front porch.
“None of this is your fault. I promise.” I hug her goodbye, psyching myself up the whole way home. But when I get there, the house is empty. Mom must have work today.
Deflating a little, I make my way to the computer, feeling the exhaustion press upon me the moment I sit down. I’m supposed to be grounded from “for fun” computer use, but I surf using incognito mode, which blocks internet history. I check Reddit, pausing when I see photos of the Carina and Trifid nebulae slowly loading at the top of my personal feed, posted by the astronomy subreddit. “And goodbye to Reddit,” I say as I close the window.
I’m a few days behind on homework, but I’m so tired. I lay my head on the desk to rest my eyes, just for a second. But in the dark of approaching sleep, glowing limbs start to appear, like nebulae in the black of space. I open my eyes before the body can finish taking shape. Stupid. It was just a rainbow in the desert … Why can’t I just let it go?
I move on to Instagram, massaging my temples as the slow hamsterwheel in this ancient computer strains to load the page. The first five posts are memes about the Sleeping Syndrome. Jane’s posted a video with tons of conspiracy hashtags under it. After clicking on it, I have to wait for a second before it starts playing.
“He was being followed by the government, my boy was,” says a rough man with stubble and a dirty baseball cap. “He was tryin’ to get away. Came here to New York to find a job where they couldn’t keep track of him. You know, work under the table and whatnot. Told me he found some job in construction.”
“Why were they after him?” a voice off camera asks.
“Says he saw something. Wouldn’t tell me what. Somethin’ in the woods when he was campin’ with his friends. Came home all white-faced and said he had to leave. Said they’d find him.”
“You think that was the government?”
“Oh yeah. Told me if anybody came lookin’ for him, tell them I hadn’t heard from him in months. Left his driver’s license and everything. Then they must have found him and–” The man breaks down into sobs, wiping away the tears with the corners of his sleeves. “–killed him. The government somehow knew he was staying at that homeless shelter where all them people was killed in New York.”
The video fades to black and a binoculars logo with the words we know underneath it fade in. I notice that Jane is also using the logo as her profile pic.
He saw something and wouldn’t tell anyone what it was — just like me. Could it be the same thing?
I type ‘we know’ into Google and click on the link to the website. The page slowly loads with a stream of news content. I take a deep breath and type in ‘glowing figure.’ My heart races as the results come back with a mixture of links and images. I click around, scrolling through a few obviously photoshopped pictures. When I don’t find anything of serious interest, I go back to the images in the search results. There are photos of little glowing orbs, soldiers under a night-vision green hue, and unidentified flying objects in the sky. There are even some personal sketches of fairies in there – the kind of crap that’s been clogging up the internet as long as there’s been an internet.
I can’t bring myself to keep searching because it feels like something’s trying to pull me in.
I jump when the house begins to creak. What the hell is going on?
The man’s words from the video squirm in my thoughts: “Says he saw something … Saw somethin’ in the woods … Said they’d find him. Then they found him and killed him.”
Could these things be connected?
I can’t take being alone. I lock the front door, and begin to run.

Maria lives in a one-story house six blocks from mine, it’s easy to spot as it’s the only house around here painted pink.
Maria’s mom answers the door with a scowl, but once she recognizes me, she smiles and says, “Hello, Harper.”
The house is heavily perfumed with cooking oil, and the walls are adorned with foil posters of saints and roses.
“Oh. Harper. I didn’t expect you,” Maria says from the couch. Her two younger brothers and sister are busy smashing together toy cars on the floor.
Her mom interrupts, and says something in Spanish. Maria rolls her eyes, and her mom picks up her purse and heads out.
“What was that about?” I ask.
“Dad’s still out of town so she needs me to watch them tonight,” she says, nodding to her siblings, “even though I have a debate club meeting in two hours.” She sighs.
“This is so dumb. I can’t miss another meeting. I’m going to get kicked out, and I need the extracurricular if I’m going to get into a good school. My mom and dad don’t care though. Sometimes I wonder if they’re trying to sabotage me.”
Tears swell in the corners of Maria’s eyes. “They say it takes up too much time and we need extra money to pay for the house.”
I plop next to her on the couch and sigh. “You’ll figure something out, Maria. You’re brilliant. Plus, I’m always here if you need anything.”
She gives a soft nod and runs her fingers through her silky dark hair. “Hey, what are you doing here? I thought you were grounded?”
“I am.” I smirk.
She chuckles softly and shakes her head. I grab a Kleenex and hand it to her. She blots her eyes.
“Did you see my message? I’ve been sending you DMs, but you haven’t been responding.”
“I didn’t see any notifications.”
“I sent you like three, I almost wrote a comment but I didn’t want your mom to see.”
“Are you sure? I was just on Insta and there wasn’t anything.”
“Look.” Maria pulls out her phone and loads the app. “It’s right … hmm, that’s weird. Did you delete your account?”