John Maux hunched over his laptop in the crowded coffee shop on campus at Arizona State University. John was in his final semester of his graduate degree in Computer Science, his fingers gliding over the keyboard like a pianist lost in a symphony. He was a fit, slim young man with short, silky, curly blonde hair—kept in a tidy, buzz-cut style. The glow of the screen painted his sharp features, flickering light in his deep-set amber eyes. His half-melted iced coffee sat forgotten beside him, condensation pooling into a ring on the wooden table. The outside world had blurred into static noise—distant murmurs of students, the hiss of the espresso machine, the rhythmic clatter of cups against saucers. None of it mattered. Only the code did.
But this wasn't just a class assignment. This was something more. Something alive. The symbols on his screen pulsed in ways that defied logic, shifting between patterns he didn't fully understand. His fingers hesitated for the first time all night. The glyphs from his dreams had found their way into his work again—ancient symbols woven into the very language of the program. Was he writing them? Or were they writing through him?
Across from him, Elsa Nyström sighed, twirling a strand of platinum blonde hair around her manicured fingers. She had been watching him—waiting, like a cat toying with its prey.
"John, be a genius and help me with this project, would you?" she asked, her voice feather-light with faux innocence.
John, paused with hesitation, his fingers stopped coding for a brief moment, then he resumed and barely looked up. "I already told you, Elsa. I'll explain how to do it, but for some reason it seems like there is this expectation that I do your work for you."
Elsa's lips curled into a small, knowing smirk. "Right, right. 'Teaching a person to fish' and all that. But honestly, this stuff is impossible. And you, my dear John, should be in some top-secret futuristic facility instead of wasting your time here."
He forced a chuckle, eyes flickering back to his screen. If only she knew.
Elsa leaned in, her perfume a mix of vanilla and something expensive. "It's a bit warm in here," she said as she fanned herself with her hand,leaning just enough to erase the space between them. "Come on. Just this once?"
Before John could respond, another voice cut through the air. "She doesn't want to learn, John. She just wants to use you."
John turned to see his younger sister, Ronni, standing at their table, arms crossed like an iron gate. Her normally innocent bright green eyes were burning with irritation. "Why do you let people walk all over you?"
Elsa rolled her eyes, masking her annoyance with a brittle smile. "Oh great, the little sister police. Shouldn't you be off doing… I don't know, kid things? I'll get you some Pokémon cards or something"
"Whatever Buffy, I'm twenty, not ten. And unlike you, I don't have to fake flirt or pretend to be nice to get what I want."
John exhaled slowly. "Ronni! What the F…!"
"No, John. Not this time. I don't trust her" Ronni jabbed a finger at Elsa. "She's using you, and you know it."
Elsa stood up from the table, brushing imaginary dust off her designer jeans. "…Unbelievable! I don't have time for this foolishness! Anyways Pippy…! I have better things to do. John, call me later…!" And with that, she turned her coke-bottle figure towards the door where her friends were waiting for her and sauntered off, as if she did not care leaving behind only the lingering scent of her perfume.
Ronni plopped down smiling obnoxiously in Elsa's vacant seat, glaring at him. "You're welcome."
John forced a laugh, but his gaze lingered on the door Elsa had disappeared through with her throng of jackals that she called friends. He should have felt relieved, but instead, there was an achy feeling of despair loitering in his chest, a quiet disappointment he couldn't quite shake. Deep down, some part of him had wanted her to stay—to keep teasing him, to pretend for just a little longer that she actually cared. It was pathetic, and he knew it, but the feeling refused to leave him. But John prided himself on his principles and his logic, so above all else he refused to be used ungraciously.
Ronni snapped her fingers in front of his face, breaking his trance. "Snap out of it, John. She isn't worth it."
John barely registered her words. A sudden wave of dizziness slammed into him, turning the world into a distorted haze. His vision flickered, darkness and light warping at the edges. His breath hitched. His pulse thundered in his ears.
"John?" Ronni's voice was distant, muffled by the static roaring through his skull.
Heat crawled through his veins, an electric current igniting something foreign inside him. He gasped, gripping the table as his fingers trembled. A golden light bled into his vision, followed by violent swirls of violet, like galaxies collapsing behind his eyelids.
The lights in the coffee shop flickered wildly, casting eerie shadows across the café. Then, without warning, the ground trembled beneath them—an earthquake-like vibration that sent cups rattling against saucers and startled gasps rippling through the crowd. Chairs scraped against the floor, and a barista dropped a ceramic mug, the shatter punctuating the moment like an exclamation of fear.
Then he saw it.
A shape—looming, shifting, whispering. It wasn't in the café. It wasn't even in this reality. It pressed against existence itself, an outline where there shouldn't be one – watching, waiting.
"John!" Ronni's grip on his shoulders yanked him back, and he blinked hard. She gasped. "Your eyes—"
He didn't need a mirror to know what she saw. The opalescent glow in his irises pulsed like liquid fire, shifting between gold and bright violet. The café lights flickered violently before steadying. Murmurs rippled through the room, but no one seemed to notice him—only the strange momentary power surge.
John swallowed hard, his throat dry. "I… I just need some rest."
Ronni hesitated. "John, this isn't normal. Maybe we should—"
"I said I'm fine." The steadiness in his voice surprised even him, but inside, panic twisted his gut into knots. He pushed to his feet, wavering for only a second before finding his balance. He had to get out of here.
The moment he stepped outside, the cool night air hit his skin, but it did nothing to calm the storm inside him. His hands wouldn't stop shaking. The glow in his eyes hadn't faded. And worst of all, he still felt it—something reaching for him, unseen but undeniable.
John felt afraid, not knowing what was going on with him. Over the last year he had a number of unexplained things happen to him: random electrical pulses shocking him when entering and exiting certain buildings, strange flashes of déjà vu during storms, feelings of missing connections from those he had known.
He couldn't pinpoint what this essence actually was that was reaching out to him. Was it attacking him? Was it warming him? Did it want to stop him from doing certain things?
These were all questions that permeated his thinking. The visions and thoughts were everywhere, his nightmares, his daydreams and now in the software he was building.
The glyphs weren't just from his dreams.
They were calling him back. But where?
And somewhere, beyond the veil of reality, something else was waking up.