Tanya sat cross-legged on her floor, trying to meditate. Twin sharp vibrations of her phone beside her knee brought her out of a shallow darkness. Her eyes snapped open. She swiped the phone, and the notification made her skin hot and her pulse quicken. @VV_in_Recovery sent you a DM. She opened the message and read it. She read it again because she could hardly believe it. After three days of a checkmark beside her message, she assumed VV had chosen to ignore her.
She typed back, OMG, hey! Thanks for responding. Can we Skype? Would that be okay? When are you available??
She read the message over to make sure she didn't sound too frantic.
Frantic, though, was how she felt. She had slept maybe ten hours in the past three days. And each bout of sleep had been filled with fever dreams in which she wandered blank hallways broken only by dark, doorless passages. These halls were lit by a source she could never spot. Her breaths rushed in and out as she wandered, and they sounded distorted, like they were coming through an old phone or a bad cell connection. She woke from these dreams soaked so badly with sweat that she had to change her clothes.
Today was the first day she'd avoided caffeine, and a withdrawal headache throbbed in the center of her forehead like a recurring explosion. She squeezed her eyes shut against the phone's blue light, then read her message again. Satisfied, she pressed SEND.
Unable to rip her gaze away, she watched for a reply.
This was not like her, and she didn't like it.
VV's message popped up beneath Tanya's.
Yeah, Skype works. What's your handle?
Tanya told her.
Cool, calling, VV typed back.
Wait. Now? Tanya typed, but before she could hit SEND, her laptop lit up. The familiar jingle of an incoming call came through the headphones resting on her desk.
"Shit," she said and pushed up from the floor. She scrambled into her chair, put on her headphones, and clicked the ANSWER button. "Hello?"
The woman from the Instagram photos materialized on Tanya's monitor. She wore thick-rimmed glasses Tanya hadn't seen in any of the pictures, but otherwise, it was the same woman. Up close like this, she even more resembled the hand-drawn character on the Rusted Blood cover. Her mouth made a severe expression, and Tanya got the impression VV—Vanessa—might not yet trust her.
"Hi," Tanya said. "Thanks for calling me."
"Yeah, sure. So, tell me about your channel. Why do you care about what happened to me? Why do you care about missing people?"
"Well, I, um … how many of my videos have you seen?"
"Just the most recent one. Did that really happen to you? With the guy?"
"It did."
"Exactly like you said?"
"Exactly like I said. Why would I lie?"
Vanessa narrowed her eyes at Tanya. "Why would some tech company dump me and five others in an old amusement park and try to convince me my dead father was somehow responsible?"
"You have a point, but I'm not lying. I swear."
Vanessa kept her eyes fixed on Tanya and narrowed to slits for several seconds. Tanya shifted in her seat and wondered if Vanessa had frozen. Finally, the other woman's expression softened.
"I guess I wouldn't be able to tell either way," she said. "A lot has happened that's made me question not just everyone but everything. Like, I'm not sure what's real most days. I still make it to work, though, because what the fuck am I gonna do? Be homeless?"
The corner of Vanessa's mouth twitched. She looked away for a second.
"Gotta pay the bills, right?" Tanya said, a nervous tremor in her voice. She made a sound of clearing her throat. "Did that really happen to you?"
"What? The exact plot of that shitty game?"
Tanya nodded quickly. "Yes."
Vanessa's eyes went dark. "How about you answer my questions first?"
"Um …" Tanya's breath caught. She ran the last few minutes through her mind to attempt recalling what Vanessa had asked.
"Why do you care about me? Why do you care about missing people?"
"Oh, well …"
"Let me guess: for the content?"
"No, it's more than—"
"Did something else happen to you? I mean, beyond the shit with that guy the other night?"
"Well, not exactly."
"What then?"
"My uncle disappeared a week before I was born," she said. "I never met him, but he and my mom were close, twins. His disappearance hung over my childhood like this black cloud. So, I guess, I don't know. I became obsessed with missing people, unsolved cases specifically."
"My case was considered solved," Vanessa said.
"You don't think it is."
"That's not a question, is it?"
Tanya shook her head. "It's not."
"You're damn right it's not." Vanessa stared at Tanya. She was running something through her mind, but damned if Tanya knew what. "Listen, uh, HazyGurl."
"It's Tanya. That's my real name."
"Right. Tanya." She grimaced. "You want some advice?"
"Um, sure. I guess."
"Leave this alone," Vanessa said.
"What?"
"This. Rusted Blood. SilberLab. Me. I know you like rabbit holes. You don't want to go down this one. Trust me."
"Wait a minute."
"That's why I called. Well, one of the reasons. I also wanted to make sure you're real. More than anything, though, I want you to leave this alone. It sounds like a cliché, but you don't know what you're dealing with. I've lost whole days. All my dreams are nightmares. I don't have rats or hooded figures after me anymore, but I don't need them after me to keep living in fear. You go through something like I did, it leaves stains." She frowned. "That's not right. Not stains. It's like an invisible rash."
"But I can help," Tanya said.
"Oh, really?" Vanessa flashed a patronizing smile. "How?"
"We can find out what really happened. Help you get some closure."
Vanessa scoffed. "You don't get it. There is no closure. Some days just hurt less than others. That's the best you or I or anyone can hope for. If you don't want that kind of life, forget about me. Forget Rusted Blood."
"But the other night. That guy … how did my friends not remember him? Why did I want and not want to kiss him at the same time?"
"I'm not going to explain the complexities of attraction to you. You're a grownup. As far as him essentially slipping out of reality goes, maybe he was sent to you for a reason, and not a good one. You need to be careful, Tanya. Get on with your life if it's not too late."
"What about you?"
"You don't even know me. I'll keep on trucking." She paused and frowned. "My dad used to say that. Keep on trucking. Forget about this. I mean it."
Vanessa terminated the call. Tanya stared at her monitor, trying to make sense of what just happened. A buzz from her phone jerked her out of her trance. She pushed away from her desk to check the message. She'd half-expected—hoped—for a follow-up DM from Vanessa, but the message was from Frank. It was a picture of his dick.