Vic I

A heavy breath escaped Vic’s lungs as he unlocked the door to his apartment and dropped down on the couch. He wasn’t the quitting type, so it felt strange to have walked away from the store like that.

He turned on his phone to call his manager. He wanted to let him know what happened with the Breach and the Slurpee machine — no way are they charging me for that, Vic thought — when the phone started to ring.

There was no name attached to the call, but it didn’t say “Unknown Number,” either. With everything that had just happened, Vic assumed it would be his boss and answered.

“Hey, I was just about to call you. Something happen—“

“If you would like to make a call, please hang up, and dial your number again,” said the voice on the other end of the line. It was the automated message he used to hear on land lines when he was younger, but he hadn’t heard that recording in ages. He wasn’t sure he’d ever heard it on a cell phone.

Besides, Vic thought. I didn’t dial anybody. Vic hung up, and stared at his phone like it had just told him a bad joke. Weird, he thought, as he prepared to try to call his boss a second time. He moved his thumb toward his contact list, when it rang again. Vic answered.

“If you would like to make a call, please hang up—“

Vic hung up. He set the phone down on the table.

He looked at the phone for a bit, feeling like this was too much weird for one day. He thought about going to take a shower and clean off the ick, when he had the thought to text Meg and see if she wanted to grab a coffee. He could use a little normalcy.

The phone buzzed. He saw the notifications flash.

Slowly, he picked up the phone, and clicked on the new message notification.

Instead of seeing a new message from someone, he saw an empty message from him to Meg, that said “failure to send” below the empty chat bubble.

He flinched as though the phone had bit his finger. As his body recoiled backward, he pitched the phone across the room, where it hit the wall and dropped to the floor. He half expected it to grow legs and run at him, but it remained where it fell.

He might be overreacting, but for now, he thought he’d just walk to Meg’s. Seemed safest.

Vic grabbed his coat and locked up, leaving the phone on the floor.