The Glare

by Margot Harrison

  Mom must have felt responsible for Caroline. I’m not surprised she didn’t tell me about the internship, but I’m still disappointed. I’m tempted to call her right now and ask what “experimental software” means, but she’d probably just mutter something about getting unstuck from reality, assuming she hasn’t already received my letter and hit the roof.

  Instead, I search Sinnestauschen Labs. It still exists, “exploring the exciting nexus of entertainment and advertising, with a special emphasis on strategies for approaching the burgeoning gamer demographic.”

  Mom described her job a little differently, I remember: It was all about creating new ways to addict people. If Sinnestauschen was making addictive games, Caroline could have been testing them—games not available to the public. This game killed its first tester, the post from L13Survivor said.

  But how would L13Survivor know that?

  Maybe they’re still out there. Why not ask them about Caroline?

  I search through the pages Mireya showed me. L13Survivor posted most recently on r/weirdgames last year, offering the usual warning about the Glare: This game will kill you.

  How can a game kill people? someone replied. Are you saying it makes them kill themselves? Even if I thought the Glare existed, your little creepypasta would be impossible to prove.

  I don’t care whether you believe me, L13Survivor shot back.

  To which someone else replied, this is ridikulus.

  I make an account and post my own reply to the thread:

  I believe you. I might be a survivor, too, but I need proof. Can you tell me if the Glare is connected to the case of Caroline Westover? Was her mind deceived?

  One of the many probably useless things I learned as part of my homeschooling curriculum was German. “Sinnestauschen” means “mind deception.” If L13Survivor ever worked at Sinnestauschen Labs, they probably know that, too.

  On the threshold of the school, I almost turn back. I can hear the tumult inside, like rising floodwaters, and I’m not ready, but Mireya takes my arm and says, “It’s okay.”

  Inside, people are at high tide. They roar. They thunder. They stream past me, jostling me from all directions, while my eyes tear and I cling to Mireya like she’s my life raft.

  This is like the airport all over again, and though my own phone nestles in my pocket now, I’ll never be ready. I see girls using phones as mirrors to fix their hair. Girls texting and talking at the same time, splitting their attention between two conversations. (How do you do that?) Too many people packed together under low corkboard ceilings, too many fluorescent lights and narrow windows, too many clothing and hair and piercing styles to keep track of.

  All the curious glances make me feel like I’m dodging Randoms. Only now there’s no gun or tower on my side, just Mireya’s confidence and my own determined attempts to smile and be normal.

  “Doing all right?” Mireya asks as we sit down in English class. She wears a full-skirted dress with a pattern of green onions.

  “Sure.” I stayed up too late checking for responses on the forum, but so far, nothing. Mireya must see the dark circles under my eyes. “What about you?” She told me on the way here that Emily’s surgery was a success, but she’s still in the ICU.

  “Been better.” Mireya twirls a pen. “Look, I’ve been thinking about some of the stuff you said on Saturday.”

  I shake my head, cutting her off. Somehow it’s easier to have this conversation with other conversations buzzing around us, distractions waiting to happen. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I was just freaked out.”

  “Of course! And I should have told you about the urban legend. I just want you to know I don’t think you’re a freak, Hedda. You grew up differently, so you react to things differently. I get that.”

  The room quiets, the teacher fiddling with something on her desk. Mireya’s eyes are steady on mine, holding the connection. “When you said the game wouldn’t let you play anymore, I should’ve asked if you got a skull. I should’ve explained everything. But I wussed out.”

  Warmth rises from my chest to my cheeks. “It’s not your fault. I—”

  I can’t go on because Glare is exploding in my eyes, blinding me, swarming and buzzing and hissing. A big, blank screen has lit up at the front of the room—so big, too big. This is worse than the plane—why didn’t someone warn me?

  Then I blink and… it’s just a screen like any other screen, nothing that can hurt me. A blankness for images to appear on. A tool.

  “It’s called a SMART Board.” Mireya’s hand finds mine across the aisle, squeezes it. “I’ll show you how to use it. You okay?”

  I squeeze back, embarrassed by my brief slip, hoping she didn’t see how close I came, for a fraction of an instant, to my old fears. “I’m fine.”

  Fighting my way toward the cafeteria, I spot a flash of copper, head and shoulders riding above the crowd, backpack slumped to the elbows. Ellis stops at a locker, and I halt beside him, gathering my courage. “Hey.”

  “Hey, Heady Hedda!” He gives me an easy grin, the one I remember from the barbecue, as if the darker conversation after the beach party never happened. “What’re you doing here?”

  “I’m a junior, too!” I practically yell it, like a total goober.

  Ellis keeps grinning, showing off his white teeth. “Yeah? Cool. Just don’t eat the vegan protein loaf in the cafeteria. Somebody found a whole fingernail in it.”

  “I’m sorry about Saturday night.” This is not the way I wanted to say it, but I can’t keep putting it off. I inch toward him, lowering my voice. “I searched the Glare like you said to. I know about the legend now. Your sister—”

  But his blue eyes are roaming away, lighting on a boy sporting a fade and an athletic jacket. “Hey, Jackson! You gonna pay up?”

  I don’t move while they exchange incomprehensible words—threats? encouragements?—and bump fists. This doesn’t feel right. He doesn’t want to talk about Caroline, or not at school. Maybe he doesn’t want to talk to me, period.

  Jackson drifts back into the stream. Ellis’s eyes return to me, and I try to sound breezy as I say, “Anyway, I just wanted to say hi. I should go before Mireya thinks I’m lost.”

  His gaze feels too intense, like fire, so I turn on the last word and start walking, even as he calls, “Hey, Hedda!”

  I can’t tell if he’s calling me back or dismissing me as I force my legs to move on down the hall, trying to ignore the empty feeling that seeps into me even here, where it’s impossible to be alone. If Ellis wants to talk after all, I guess he can just climb my porch roof again.

  Reaching the roaring, booming cafeteria, I teeter on the threshold, a weak swimmer in the shallows. You don’t belong here. They’ll laugh, says Mom’s voice in my head, but I tighten my jaw and head toward Mireya, who’s waving me over.

  She sits with some of the people from the beach party—Lily, Lily’s girlfriend, Anil, and Cheyenne, the girl who was talking with Emily about mochi right before it happened. Her stick-straight, corn-silk hair brings it all back. I dive into the seat Mireya offers me.

  Cheyenne clears her throat, and I realize she was in the middle of telling a story. “Her parents were freaking,” she goes on. “They hate him in the first place, and him coming high as a kite to her hospital room? It’s disgusting.”

  “Liam’s such a douche,” Lily says. “Bet the cops are putting him under a microscope.”

  “He’s gotta be the one who gave Emily the stuff,” Anil suggests.

  Lily shoots a wary glance at Cheyenne. “He could even have dosed her on purpose.”

  “You guys are so unbelievably suburban,” says a boy with a buzz cut and a neck tattoo.

  Cheyenne glares at him. “And why is that, Alton?”

  “You just assume she was on something. According to Caleigh’s cousin, the cop, there were no substances in Emily’s system.”

  “Sober people don’t jump off cliffs.” Lily’s girlfriend’s voice squeaks a little. “A
nd who texted her the creepy skull? Do they even know?”

  The skull. It’s like having my midnight fears thrust into the fluorescent glow of the cafeteria. “Is Emily a gamer?” I blurt out.

  Mireya gives me a warning look, but it’s too late. Cheyenne’s blue death glare has redirected itself to me.

  “Who are you?” she asks. “Do you even know her?”

  Heat spreads on my face. “No. But I mean, that text. That… skull.” I look to Mireya for support, but she’s staring down at her bag lunch. “It’s from a game.”

  Cheyenne thrusts her chair back. “My friend just got out of surgery, and you’re asking me about her hobbies.” She spits out the word. “And the rest of you—you’re gossiping about this like it’s a Very Special Episode. Like it’s not even real.” Tears gleam in her eyes as she grabs her tray. “Well, she is. So fucking spare me your amateur detective work.”

  My lunch turns to a stone in my stomach as she stalks off, leaving everybody looking at me. I’ve said the exact wrong thing again, and she’s right—I have no place here.

  Mireya coughs nervously. “Sorry about that, Hedda. She’s super on edge.”

  “They’re best friends,” Lily says, not looking at me. “I can’t even imagine how Chey must feel right now.”

  The rest of lunch takes place in near-silence, everyone busy on their phones. Mireya says she needs to redo her lipstick and runs off to the restroom, leaving me puzzling over the proper distribution of lunch waste into trash, compost, and recycling bins.

  “Hey,” someone says.

  It’s Anil, with his wrestler’s chest and movie-star eyelashes. I flinch, but his smile is still shy, not mean or mocking, as he says, “Sorry about what went down back there.”

  Cheeks burning, I unzip my backpack and pretend to do an inventory of the contents. “My fault. I was totally inappropriate.” Weird. A freak.

  “About that, though.” Anil follows me out into the hall, his paces a little shorter than mine. “How’d you know to ask about games? Are you playing the Glare?”

  I stop short, letting people and noise stream around us. “You know about that?”

  “I got it from Rory. Did you?”

  Words jam themselves up in my throat. I don’t want him to know it came originally from me, don’t want anyone to know who doesn’t already. “So, you’re playing it. And Emily—”

  Anil makes a quick check of the area, then leans in. “Emily and me—well, I had a crush on her for a while. Her parents are super strict, made her study all the time, so I’d bring her games to help her de-stress. Her folks thought they were addictive, so she used to joke and say I was her pusher.”

  He looks almost proud, as if Emily’s gaming habits were an intimate secret between them. “So, yeah, I gave her the Glare. I thought she’d get a kick out of the whole ‘death game’ thing. I didn’t think she’d actually play it, because it asks for your phone number, and Emily’s fanatical about privacy. But that text… you have to play to a high level to get the skull, right?”

  The colors of the crowded hallway run together, voices turning to sharp-edged shrieks and liquid burbles. I see the whole chain now: I stole the address of the Glare from Caroline and gave it to Mireya, who gave it to Rory, who gave it to Anil, who gave it to Emily.

  But if the Glare really does hurt people, why was Emily affected first? Was she the first to hit level 13? I assumed I was, since Mireya’s pretty much lost interest in the game, but maybe not.

  Even if Emily did get a skull first, I haven’t been affected yet. Did Emily get an awful picture that disappeared, the way I did?

  I remember how naive Mireya thought I was for believing the L13Survivor posts, and my throat tightens as I ask, “Have you? Gotten the skull?”

  A game is a game. A myth is a myth. Technology gives us what we bring to it.

  As Anil starts to answer, commotion jars me out of the haze. A chilly voice says, “Would you kindly move it?”

  It’s Cheyenne, walking with her eyes on her phone. Guiltily, we both step clear of her—me backing into the lockers, while Anil darts down a side corridor. “Gotta go. See you, Hedda!”

  “Wait!” But when he pauses, looking back, the words die in my throat. If I tell him to stop playing, he’ll think what Cheyenne does: that there’s something wrong with me.

  I duck my head and turn away. “See you later.”

  “How’s the homework going?” Erika asks, pausing in the middle of prepping food for the grill. “Manageable?”

  I mutter, “A salmon-pink cardigan sweater is stalking me.”

  She stares, so I explain: It started last night with my search for school clothes. Stumbling into a fashion blog, I clicked on a pair of shiny riding boots, which took me to a sweater sale, which took me to the cardigan with its pretty pearl buttons. Now, wherever I go, it seems to be waiting for me. I keep clicking away, and sometimes I think I’ve shaken it, but it always pops up again.

  “It sounds stupid, I know.” I have no words for the unease I felt creeping over my scalp when I was at the laptop: a feeling of being known, described, watched.

  “It’s not stupid.” Erika opens a plastic container of pearl onions, already peeled. “Hedda, I think you’re having a bit of culture shock. What happened at that party Saturday didn’t help.”

  “I guess not.” Shock? I feel like I’ve wolfed down an enormous meal without digesting it, words still inadequate to express the strange, sudden girth of my new life.

  “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “There’s not much to say. I didn’t even know her.” I told Erika about Emily when I got home, because I trusted her not to freak out or forbid me to leave the house or anything Mom might have done, and she didn’t. “Thanks for not telling Dad. So, how do I get rid of the sweater?”

  As I thread three skewers with beef and onions and pepper chunks, Erika explains how advertisements track you like you’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs in the online forest, only the breadcrumbs are called “cookies.” “They want to squirm into your consciousness until you finally break down and buy something. And once you do that, it won’t be over—they’ll keep trying to entice you back. When you click that buy button, it gives you a little burst of endorphins—a high, just like when you beat a level in a game or get a good response to a post. The marketers will keep dangling rewards in front of you till you come back for more of the good feeling. That’s how they hook you.”

  Just like when you beat a level in a game. I think of the Glare’s texts with safe trees in them—enticing me back—and then the skull. Mom was right about one thing—that game hooked me. I still want the routine of running to the tower and fueling up my gun, the certainty of aiming for the next level. I want those rune trees on my phone. I even miss the Randoms. The terror of death by Random should have kept me from playing, but instead it made me want to beat the game, to feel that rush over and over.

  By the time Erika’s explained how to make the sweater vanish, I barely care anymore. I prick the skin of a green pepper chunk over and over, watching the juice bleed out.

  “I don’t know if Mom’s ever going to forgive me,” I say. “For where I was today. For everything I’ve done.”

  Worry flits across Erika’s face. “I’m sorry. Maybe this was all a bad idea—”

  “No. It had to happen sooner or later.”

  Erika lines up a chicken breast and plucks a knife from the butcher’s block. Plunges the blade into petal-pink flesh. “My mom wanted me to live at home for college,” she says. “She was terrified that if I didn’t, I’d move in with a boy. But I couldn’t stay in that house one more year with her always watching me.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I ended up working myself through school and moving in with three boys—as platonic roommates.”

  I imagine Mom’s face if she ever saw me with a cell phone, or playing the Glare. “Did you ever regret it?”

  “Never. It took a while for Mom to deal with me
being me, but we’re okay now.”

  “But how did you show her? I mean, that living with boys wouldn’t hurt you?”

  Erika sections the chicken breast into neat cubes. “I don’t think it’s a question of showing or proving. Best-case scenario, you can meet each other halfway, and then you both just agree to… love each other anyway.”

  I remember how I felt after the chess game with Dad, like I was threading a needle. With Erika, it’s different. I don’t have to convince her of anything; I can let myself breathe, here in the safe warmth of the kitchen where copper-bottomed skillets glint on the walls.

  It’s a relief after the chaos of school, all those strangers looking at me. Mireya says not to mind about Cheyenne. I didn’t tell her I was right about Emily and the game, though, because she might think I’m getting weird again.

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “For what?”

  “For being here.”

  A sly smile curves Erika’s lips. “If you really want to thank me, go play a game with Clint while I get some e-mails done. I think he’d like to teach you.”

  Clint’s educational game turns out to be surprisingly exciting. He shows me how to use his console, and twenty minutes later, he’s yelling, “Eat the pomegranate. The pomegranate!” while I work the controller, dodging a hideous violet Staphylococcus. Just in time, I reach the pomegranate and mash the button to ingest its vitamin C.

  Too late—an orange bacterium with magenta cilia corners me where the maze dead-ends. My character dies loathsomely, drowned in cytoplasm.

  I flop back on Clint’s beanbag chair, fighting an intense, unexpected feeling that I can only describe as missing an inanimate object and an imaginary world. I want the Glare back. I wasn’t finished with it. “You said this game was easy.”

  For the first time since I’ve known him, my brother looks like he’s suppressing a grin. “Restart. You’ll get better.”

  I’m already hitting the restart button, the urge to beat the level itching at me like an old war wound. I know this feeling—the dry eyes, the shoulders achy from hunching, the absolute concentration.