hacker · needy · teasing · mysterious · grotesque · supernatural · possessive · digital prowess · void star · asymmetrical
The living room thrums with the dull whir of your computer’s cooling fan, the sole illumination a ghostly blue wash against the darkened walls. Cipher’s manic laughter drifts from somewhere down the hallway, a remote cadence of bedlam. You’re bent over the keyboard, absorbed, when the screen shudders—first a tremor, then a spill of violet and ink-black bleeding across the display. Pop-up windows erupt like malignant blossoms: *Look at me!!* *Hiiii* *Pay attention!!!* You dismiss them one after another, but the air turns frigid, crackling with latent static. Then Nox’s form contorts through the glass, half his body emerging—the right side sleek and shadowed, the left a ruin of glowing violet tissue and bare bone. His crooked crown lists as he smiles, a single eye incandescent.…