Dinners with extended family members were never very fun. Especially not surprise ones. Elise could only sit there in silence as she watched her grandparents rant about god knows what.

“And I’m telling you, this is why they gotta start teaching christianity in those schools again.” Elise’s grandfather said. “They stop teaching those kids christianity and everything goes to shit.”

“That’s great, father.” Elise’s mother said back as she was beginning to have second thoughts about having this dinner.

“No, this isn’t right.”

“You’re disgusting.”

“She’s just being nice.”

“It doesn’t matter what she may think, deep within, you are a gross, perverted piece of shit.”

It wasn’t long before Devin’s mind started to turn dark after the initial serenity of the moment faded. He had been standing there on the porch to his house for minutes on end, contemplating what had just happened.

“She kissed me. Why can’t you just focus on that?”

“Be realistic for once.”

1 Year Earlier

This user “liuzixuan”, seems to be posting a lot.

Their stories are unintelligible.

They kept posting each chapter of their first story, “changeday 中國”, as its own story, which is against the site's rules.

It didn’t help that the story was written in Chinese.

Fortunately this was handled by the moderator and the front page isn’t spammed with their stuff anymore.

But they’re still posting a bunch of stories on the site. This time in english, albeit very broken english.

8 Months Earlier

“Come on Devin, we’re going to be late!” Elise yelled.

Devin ran from his mirror and quickly got to the car. He had specifically picked his suit based on Elise’s wishes. He had never been to a homecoming dance before, and probably would’ve blown off finding an outfit if it weren’t for her. He wanted to make this night very special for her. He wasn’t going to let Elise down, no matter what mental crisis he was in.

“Sorry I was just…” Devin started. “Never mind, we better get going. You look stunning by the way.”

Elise was making her way to the front door of Devin’s house. Her parents knew she was going to his house, but they didn’t know his parents weren’t there. She didn’t tell them that part, since they probably wouldn’t have let her go otherwise.

As she approached his house, she knew that she would need to keep a close eye on Devin. She may not have been the most observant person in the world, but she wasn’t blind. Something was clearly happening to him.