[hr][center][h3]D A M I E N[/h3][/center][hr]

“Seriously!?” There were no new updates since 11:58pm when he had last checked before nearly passing out on the couch. 
Damien now lay half naked and tangled in his bed sheets, still half asleep even though morning had long since started, he swiped up on his phone again as he had already done at least five times over in the last thirty seconds and still, again, the screen loaded its data and produced the same old tired images he was trying to escape. 
“Why is there nothing new?” 

It was the same across all his apps. He punched in a comment questioning and complaining about the phenomenon and posted it. It went through. Weird. 
He spent a couple more minutes (maybe hours) falling down the rabbit hole, flicking through images and videos which started innocently  enough with his interests but eventually just degraded into shameless perving. 

He puffed on the last drags of the spliff he had rummaged from his top draw, messaged his supplier for a meetup and finally began undergoing some slow slobbish semblance of a (late) morning ritual. 

His latest house in a long line of houses was a fancy two story one, as usual it was empty, nothing new or surprising there. His parents away again. So with his music blaring he made use of the lap pool and the still half-packed gym room. He had a cone with his cereal and washed it all down with a protein shake. He showered and got ready for the day.

Checking his phone again, still no reply, still no social media updates. Transferring his music to wireless earbuds, he grabbed his skateboard and headed out into the streets. He wasn’t even sure where he was going, just that he was going. 

Somewhere subconsciously he felt it, a part of him noticed it, the eerily still streets. The lack of cars. The lack of rubbish. Everything was too clean, too still, too similar but different. It crawled over his skin like dread infused goosebumps. He tried to ignore it, to deny it, but the longer he went on the louder the silent scream became. Until somewhere from the near distance a bell chime cut through the air.

The noise had pierced his music and somehow taken that external feeling of dread and sunk it deep into his bones. Now he was starting to freak out. Something was so very wrong but he couldn’t figure out exactly what or why. Actually so many things were wrong.

He picked up his pace, with long heavy strides he pushed his skateboard faster and faster, sweeping wide back and forth over the whole street as he no longer feared the cars that weren’t there. He raced to the busiest place he knew. The mall.