Past

If you're reading this I'm already dead. The conversation I never had about a place I never saw. 

I put the roses on the bar and ordered the bartender's favorite drink to make. I had been waiting for the only thing I asked for, a dinner with my ghosts. 

That will come later.

I got an email about an event that I never signed up for so I figured that was the dinner but it was a secret or something. 

The bartender brought the drink and asked for the story about the roses. It was going to be almost two hours now of me waiting and no one seemed to be coming for them. 

I replied that he would not believe me and probably would stop serving me if I told him the truth. 

He insisted, so I told him. Around three years ago I listened to a podcast and as insane as it sounds that is where it all started for me. 

It was about the inventor of the library system or something like that, I can't remember the name but he was a creep with girls as quoted from the podcast. 

I got into the habit of writing little notes on my phone, quotes that were interesting or questions. The occasional poem for a woman that would never see the light of day. 

Cringy shit if anyone saw it. 

The podcasts were the first clue about the existence of something somewhere about me online. The first direct one. Fuck is not gonna make sense. 

Is like everywhere I logged in online it followed me. Kinda hard to explain that I can swear that I can sense that one woman staring at me in the zoom call. 

That in the grid the woman in the square next to mee kept her distance when I leaned over to her side of the square and that, maybe my own over analysis but someone told the staring woman to stop and she turned off her camera. 

That night after I listened I wrote on my notes, I'm not what you say I am. 

At that point I was binging podcasts of all types and this thing started to grow as I kept listening. 

However I don't think I'm the type to believe that the radio is talking to me, I mean a good show probably makes everyone feel that way no? 

That is of course until the radio started talking to me but we'll get to that. 

The solution came in another episode, an SEO trick. If people are talking about you online, start your own website and let that be the first thing they find about you. 

So I did, it was meant to be the notes app but public. So less cringy, or try to be at least.

As that was going on a new social media app started to grow. So I joined but didn't really care about it that much. 

At the same time I was creating a Playlist of beautiful voices I found around without any other intention than just to listen when I couldn't sleep. 

Choosing the headline, or whatever it's called on the app was complicated and nothing sounded right, so I wrote a couple and deleted them. 

The bartender interrupted and asked if I wanted another glass. It was an expensive bar and I didn't have a job at the time so I said yes.

As he brought it, noticing the story was getting long and there was no sign of a woman or the reason for the flowers, he pushed for a name as I took a sip of a whiskey something. 

I told him I had to get out of there in a bit anyway for the event and he looked even more confused about the flowers. To what I said that she might never come so I would have to leave. 

It didn't take long before this thing that followed me online started to show up on the new app. 

As it showed up here it also started to show up on an online course I was taking. When I say show up I don't mean screenshots or links I mean references or the repetition of a topic. 

At that point there had to be something for sure I mean so many things talking about the same. The problem of course was the confusion, am I the one making the pattern? or is the pattern there? and can it really be about me?

And then the tell the truth and the mistake and life is not defined by one moment. That's when it started, the horror film in the head about every bad thing you've ever done. What do they know about. 

And it played at night waking me up in the middle of it after a nightmare. They all come back, every last thing and they stand there like they're waiting at the door to come in and beat you up. 

So I did the sensible thing and started to confess in my notes app, about everything. By this point the game had started. 

The game? Asked the bartender. 

I would write in my notes app and there would be a reply in a podcast or an email. Not quite a reply but a reference. I had to make it a game in my head to not go crazy. Well I mean to be able to function in the real world. 

So is it true? Can there really be something out there somewhere online about me? Bringing this up became way too long so I started calling it the place. 

And with that unknown can it be true that the other references behind the scenes are also happening? 

I mean they are right? They have to be. But how do I know I'm not just going crazy. I can only prove to myself is happening and if I tell anyone they will confirm that I am in fact crazy as fuck. 

This was all happening at the height of the pandemic, where luckily for me I didn't have to worry about understanding any of this because I was too busy working. 

Not only work but I started more courses and was constantly busy doing something. There was no time to think it was just one thing after another. 

The bartender hesitated but offered another one as he seemed interested in the story finally. 

I accepted and continued. The place changed from understanding and second chances to fuck that guy, he should be dead quite frequently. 

The tone and I guess you could say support? Of the podcasts also changed depending on the season at the place. 

It was either spring or hunting. 

Inside, in the game the references that were not about the place but about the notes, the support didn't change that much. 

It wasn't that much about the place and what had been done but about the writing and what could be done. 

But the problem is that inside it wasn't just one faction, there were sections and different people. 

So I would react to one thing in front of everyone else and everyone would react to me sounding crazy. 

In the writing I started to try to understand what was happening and also borrow people for the stories.

 That's when trouble started. A pair of green eyes. A nameless sexlless nurse that seemed like everyone with green eyes that knew about the place thought it was about them. 

I never understood why it was so important, there was no description to the nurse. The character saw her across the room and it wasn't even important to the story. 

The problem was that the woman I liked at the moment had green eyes but they were not the ones borrowed for the story. 

By this point I was sure everyone in every platform knew about the place and were also reading the stories. 

Keep those green eyes in mind; they're important for the story later. 

About the ghosts, in the notes app I started to write to them. I started calling them that because of a book called the ghost in the wire. About a famous hacker. 

It was more interesting to write in stories than the reality of what it was. So the creation of this world started, one thing being another in my head.

Places online and digital ghosts and borrowed people in stories. Hard to understand situations that I couldn't explain so I made up an explanation or very confused characters. 

It was also a bit terrifying even knowing or hoping their intentions were good and they were. 

It was all fun and games until it got too much and I had to close my eyes. Meaning delete Instagram and not read email and stay away from the course. 

The problem though was that I'm guessing when the place was not pro me. The laptop where I worked stopped working. The drafting software would loop infinitely until it crashed something about the driver that did stuff. 

So I would have to restart the laptop but it wouldn't start working unless I open the course or read the email. 

Sometimes I would just leave the house and go to the office because I refused to.

The bartender asked for the story to be stopped as he served another whiskey something on the rocks to the other end of the bar. 

Then eventually work became part of the ghosts but I'll get to that too. 

Where was I? 

Right, the radio. At some point, can't remember exactly but the music in the radio started to echo what was happening in the podcasts. Somehow it matched and it started to become another window into the place. 

This was only possible because there was a third part that was showing the place, which was Instagram. Posts and captions and pictures with what was happening and eventually who was at the place. 

But before that, I listened to four radio stations that seemed to all be showing the place. So I named them, the man from the radio, girl power and the other two. 

There was a specific time where the man from the radio would talk about the place it was a line or two. So to be sure I tested it, I wrote a story and went on a drive. 

Put on the radio and there it was a reference to the last story I wrote. So I wrote him a story to tell him I heard the reference and welcomed him into the game.

The windows into the place started to become a problem, as I could write in my notes and the website about the things I heard were happening at the place that day, as if I saw them directly. 

So inside it looked like I had access to them. Even when I said how I was able to see into the place. And I mean I understand it is hard to believe. 

Then, work stumbled into the game. They came in and found that I would write almost as if there was an audience, because there was at that point but to them I probably just sounded crazy. 

They would bring up the game I played and the things I wrote about, it was pretty that there were two types of ghosts: the ones that want to get caught, the ones that want you to know they're playing and the ones that don't. 

The only weird part is that they would push for me to visit a porn website as they watched, never did it but it was very strange, never understood why they wanted me to. 

I'm getting ahead of myself. 

Back to the green eyes. My confusion about this whole thing was contagious and it would be a kind of midas touch to make people crazy. 

The woman who the story was about replied with a song " I noticed you noticing me" in the new social media app. But because I never sent a dm and couldn't get to the place where all the communication was happening it was probably very confusing for everyone. 

So the ghost thought I was manipulating and being bad so the only solution was to bring them in. The women from the Playlist and the ones that had found the place and were confused. 

I'm not getting the timeliness right, the point of why she's important is that based on a really hot picture she posted later laying on a couch wearing a miniskirt with the caption " I'm a spy" I understood that absolutely everything that I was writing in the notes app was being syfend word by word to the place. 

At this point there were more ghosts than when it all started. I wanted to learn about hacking so in the new app I started to follow accounts that taught it. Without thinking that they would also come into the game. 

Based on the post and the insistence by these new ghosts that I get a VPN there was no doubt that what I was writing in my notes wasn't private anymore. But I would be lying if I say that I figured it out right away.

At this point there were so many podcasts plus the Playlist plus the new ghosts. 

I understood that some women from the Playlist were inside when the woman I liked posted a video folding a paper crane. 

Pretty much since the beginning of all this I started to fold paper cranes, I wanted to get to one thousand. A way to guiltlessly watch TV but still feeling productive. 

I kept writing characters based on beautiful women without ever expecting they would notice. But because of the place and everything being how it was that was not an option. 

By this point because of the Playlist a few women in it had written a song about how they didn't belong in the Playlist. And then some of them, it is still hard to say this part out loud. They wrote me songs. 

At that moment, I guess it is my way of coping with the mess of it all. But for me it was a decision: a choice between they wrote for me and they didn't write for me. So I chose to think that they didn't, because it was too much to understand.

The bartender laughed and asked if I was ever going to get to the flowers. Was I waiting for one of the women in the Playlist? 

I said no that it was complicated but that I was almost getting closer to the flowers. 

The hard part about the way I was able to see into the place, was that I wasn't blissfully ignorant of the things they were saying about me but all I could do was write in the notes app. 

But it was another decision, that it was a better story even if most of the things were not true and at that point I also believed I had done the thing they were saying I did. Well one of the things. 

After two years of the place I decided to apologize and it turned out that it was not like I thought. 

I didn't know how big it was, I couldn't know but the website started to crash sometimes before I posted and things would happen that would not let me write.

So I started to disconnect from the internet write the post and connect back on to post it because either wasn't connected the website wouldn't save correctly and there would be double paragraphs and weird things that I would go in and edit later or completely forget about them. So out there it looked like I was on something. 

Someone let me know by seeing a meme of a drunk man in reference that I was the drunk because how else would the posts be so messy. 

The funny part is that they took the time to send this but nothing else, they could've asked if I was good or shown me the place. 

But of ourselves they also thought I had seen it but just didn't want to face it. The things I would write and the things I would like on social media, how could I not have seen it. 

That's when it started to change, you know when you joke with people about your fbi man in the feed? Well mine seemed to have a personality. 

It would make fun of me about what I wrote in the notes and call me a piece of shit depending on the place. Eventually when the place got bigger and famous people started to find it their faces started to show up on the feed. 

The face plus the reference on a podcast plus the radio plus a comment at work. It was almost like I was reading it myself with all this information. 

I started to suspect there really was someone behind the feed so I started to write about it and one day I wrote that Instagram wanted me to kill my self. A post said something that could've been interpreted that way. 

They went live on an app and communicated that they didn't want that at all and it was a misunderstanding. So I knew it was actually happening. 

Then it became part of the game, because of everything else I would know what they were saying at the place and a post would pop up referencing it, I could decide to like it or not. 

This like, would most probably be seen in people's feeds as I liked that, proving to them that I had seen it. 

I thought it was all orchestrated and organized and centralized but in reality none of the parties inside knew about each other. 

At something I couldn't deal with everything anymore so to test I changed a password, " I don't want to play this game anymore" this started a war inside, I imagine, as right after I did that someone complained that their laptop had stopped working in an email. But then I knew they had access to all my passwords. 

Then from a podcast it was revealed that there is. A hack where they record every keystroke and it all started to sense. 

I knew it was weird that Noone had talked to me about the place and yet so many people close to me had seen it because posts like " I'm going to need you to keep the same distance when I start winning" started to show up on the feed. 

So I would like them so that people saw them. At this point the people behind the feed thought I had seen the place, so every post was advised on what to do or how to react to what was happening. What to do, meaning motivational type of thing. 

But this was actually just a window into the place by understanding the advice and connecting it to the rest of the windows. 

This is how I knew about the "friends" talking shit, literally, about me and how after it got bigger they apologized and offered a handshake as an apology. A post of a hand shaking another but one becoming a snake that bites the other was what I got on the feed. 

The handshake happened. One day at volleyball, it was weird as he never shook hands so formally. And then there was a smile, contained trying to hide a sense that he got away with it. 

Is probably a good time to bring up the police. I started to write constantly at the same time every night, at nine o'clock. 

I would like to say it was all fantastical stories with beautiful women as their characters, but all I had as self defense was words. 

The stories inside my notes app, so when I got angry I wrote horror stories. When the podcasts were making fun of me I let them know I knew they were inside in stories. 

What I mean to say is that it didn't look great, at best I was an insane sociopath, at worst probably a mass something waiting to happen. 

I don't know how and don't know when. Or who brought them but they were well aware of my routine. 

Every time I was not writing at nine like I had been for a long time I would see two patrol cars. Sometimes behind me but that became too obvious so I would see them driving the opposite way. 

Always two, no matter where I went. 

The bartender laid back a bit thinking maybe he should cut me off now. But I didn't say anything. 

This was part of the patterns I had to hold as maybe. Maybe I'm right and they are reading or maybe I'm not and I'm crazy. 

Although one night I wrote about a pickup truck and someone also talked about the police, the very next day. A patrol car pickup truck drove by in the opposite direction as me. 

There are coincidences and then there's that, whatever that is. 

This is the first time I say this outloud because it is too insane to repeat. And I can't prove it. I don't even know if I'm right and it happened because I was writing. It happened but sometimes that's not enough. 

The pickup trucks were brought up because that was another part of the story. I started to notice a very specific pickup truck, not the same one but the same lights. 

Not sure who they were but I had an idea that they were also inside reading the notes. So to test I wrote them a poem, with all the things I thought a police officer would hate to hear. 

I wanted to see if I could generate a reaction and it did. I started seeing the trucks more often and the faces changed inside them, good man doing bad things or bad men doing good who knows. But I knew I was in trouble. 

This was also part of the, who the fuck knows if it's happening. Am I seeing the trucks and making up the pattern in my head or is it happening? 

Although one day at the dentist one of the trucks was parked beside my car. I had taken the last parking spot before the street but the truck was still parked beside mine. Without a parking spot. 

It didn't move when I got into my car so I backed out and made it seem like I wrote the license plate. I didn't but they didn't know that. 

Then came November and it started all over. I had hooked up with a woman at a resort in Mexico and I figured out based on the radio and posts on Instagram that somehow. Without ever exchanging names she had found the place. 

That's when I created my game. I was done with everything and I wanted everyone to get out, so I warned them I said I would kill my self if everyone didn't leave. 

To probe it that night I put the phone in front of me and opened the camera app then I cut myself in the shoulder three times. But it wasn't as dramatic as I thought it would be and no one knew left. 

The next day at work a coworker walked around me to see If I had actually cut but he had no way to see through the clothes so I didn't know what the plan was. 

The bartender stopped for a second to see the unchanged smile with which I was telling the story and started questioning if it was all made up and I was just killing time. 

I noticed and told him it was all true, I had no way to prove it because even the scars had gone away but it happened. 

I said that if I was losing him now he was going to hold on tight for the rest. 

When a hacker has complete control of a system or a computer it is said that they have achieved god level. So to communicate I would talk to god through the notes. 

More windows started to show up when the content from people at the place, or about me in a sense. Started to show up on the video feed, then the music app was also just like the social media app. 

From narcissism, to sociopathy, to psychopathy. I binged all the videos and started to notice the subtle and not that subtle pointers at the place. 

I stopped and took a sip of the newly poured drink and continued. This whole thing hasn't really affected my life, well I mean until now I said looking at the flowers. 

It has mostly been references of the place but they are always indirect or intended into something else that has the double meaning. 

But I'm pretty sure when I got a therapist he also found the place and tested me for sociopathy I think. I'm not that good at tests so I guess I'm not. 

The bartender leaned back and looked a bit scared of the word and started to wonder who I was but curiosity won it seemed as he asked me to continue with the story, saying that he eventually wanted to know about the flowers. 

I told him I was going to be a bit longer before I got there but I said I was going to get there. 

He said he was going to bring the good stuff out of the back. An aged bottle of his favorite whiskey. On the way to it he talked to his coworker and asked him about me. She told him I had been there before with different flowers and asked if he knew what the flowers were about. 

Looking back at the bar he said he was on his way to figuring it out but still far from it. 

She told him to be careful he was seen holding his phone like a call but there was no conversation, either they never picked up or he never talked. 

The bartender grabbed two bottles and headed back to the bar. He put the bottle on the counter and asked me if I thought I would get to the flowers before the bottle was done. 

I replied that we might need the second one and smiled. 

As the bartender opened the bottle he mentioned his coworker telling him I had been there before. 

I'm at the gates of heaven but they never seem to open up for me. I said as I grabbed the glass he just poured. 

He stopped and looked at me as he took a sip of his own and said I'm guessing I have to wait for the reason for the flowers to understand that. 

I gave him the choice to have the answer right there and then or to wait for the rest of the story not knowing how long it would take. 

He looked at me and paused for a moment and offered a bet, if he could guess the reason for the flowers at the end of the story I would pay for both bottles. 

I took the bet knowing it he would never guess and continued. He wrote his guess on a napkin and put it in his pocket. 

Where to go from here. I broke down and told everyone to get out and it worked, the next day I started seeing posts about missing people and things like that. 

But not everyone left, so I kept writing. Then the woman I liked didn't leave either but at this point things started to get worse. 

The people inside didn't believe me that I hadn't seen the place and started to push for me to go to it. To face the fears and go post myself. 

But I couldn't understand why this was happening so I started to try and find a way to get them out for sure. 

At this point it became almost a habit to delete Instagram and factory reset my phone. I had a few moments before I connected back to the internet where they weren't on the phone. 

 I bought a new router and used an old cd with a Linux os to try and see what I could do but there was no way to bridge the gap in knowledge. Especially because I didn't know shit about hacking.

The router worked for a few days but that night when I was installing it a post saying they were fast told me they got inside the new router. 

Because of the VPN installed on the router the internet was slow. Not because of the VPN but because of the hack and I couldn't quite explain why I had bought a new router that made the internet slower for no reason. 

So I couldn't explain away anymore to my family why I was doing what I was doing and had to unplug it and go back to the other one. 

Their reaction was that I was just doing the seduction thing of creating distance but I wasn't. 

I think that was one of the hardest parts to maintain what I started to call the real world intact and these other two realities. 

Because I tried to say it a couple of times but the natural normal reaction every time I started to talk about a thing online that I haven't seen yet knows it exists and I can know what they say because of podcasts references, the songs on the radio and posts on Instagram was that I must be crazy. 

That "you're crazy" look after saying all that and bringing up the dissociative things I started to call them. Like the place. 

Not being able to explain that it is real because I don't have any other evidence than the references that come and go. 

Then having to explain it away by agreeing that I must be losing my mind. 

It got really bad, I would walk out of stores and the pa system would call security, I thought it was about me but was never really sure. 

I started going on walks without my phone to a park nearby and I made the mistake to learn that some planes fly over protestors collecting cell phone data. Every plane on every walk felt like they were watching. But I was never sure if it was happening. 

After a party I walked home from that house because I didn't want to pay for a taxi. It was three hours but I didn't care. 

At the end of the walk I saw a very confused man looking at me from a car that looked like one of those undercover ones. He almost wanted to scream at me saying "what the fuck are you doing". Or at least his face looked that way. 

He looked like the bad guy from that one toy movie. Not saying he is just that that's how I remember him.

There was another instance where at a red-light another one oft those same cars stopped beside me. He was driving the opposite direction. It looked like he didn't intend for the cars to stop right beside each other because he very awkwardly try to hide somehow. 

He tried under the wheel, but he was a big man and could really make it work. This guy looked like the red haired Wildling from Game of thrones. 

There was one more that followed me close up until I noticed his face in my rear view mirror. The vibe on his face was a I'm going to get you kind of thing.

But as soon as I looked at him he backed away, that was what made me suspicious. The reaction was almost like he was caught. 

Usually the sun glasses gives them away is like they shop in the same store but in the movies to make it realistic they buy the same sunglasses.

I'm saying that in the hypothetical that I'm right and they were, which who knows. 

The bartender started to feel a bit uncomfortable, he didn't know if he had been wasting all his time with the lies of a drunk or someone that might need psychiatric help. But he didn't interrupt. 

I told the bartender that I was going to jump ahead and bring him into my world to reassure him I was not that crazy. 

The bartender stopped and looked up at the speakers by reflex. There was always music playing at the bar after five. 

I have never talked to the woman I'm waiting for and the only way I have to know if she's any closer to being here is through the music. 

He looked back down at me and didn't say a word. I gestured with my hand to listen.

It was a top forty song so I explained what the message behind it was. I had just liked a picture of an attractive woman on a social media app. So the fuck yous from the song were from her to me. 

He still didn't say a word and started to look worried as he looked at the just opened bottle. 

I explained that the rest of the story would explain everything then I continued. 

At that point I already knew, kind of, who had seen the place, who had been at the place and I was going to unfollow them in time. 

By this point also I had deleted all the pictures I had on the cloud and got into the habit of deleting conversations in the social media apps. 

So on St Patrick day I started to unfollow them, two people every day for a few days. But then I got stuck on the group chats because I had deleted the conversations and didn't have access to them. 

One day at work that week after I had unfollowed them. A notification popped up on my phone, it was the meditation app saying something about now is all we have and the future is not here and the past is gone.

The only important part about it was now. Somehow I understood that I had access to the group chats again so I opened the app and there it was, a freshly sent dm in the gruochats. So I took the chance and left them. 

Had I told you that the meditation app probably saved my life once? Of Course was not the meditation app but the ghost behind it. 

After I unfollowed people, the woman I liked was part of them, the one that folded the paper crane to let me know she was inside. 

I had sent her dms and tried to break through the mirror. Which was another of the delicious things I created to try to explain what was happening. 

But I never really could talk to her. It was a mixture of confusion as to why I wouldn't just go to the place and all the horror I would write Soni told her to use the reflection and leave me alone. And she did, use the reflection I mean. 

She started writing songs and I would reply to them with poems on my website but this was all the communication we had. 

The radio was the way I knew I had fucked up when I unfollowed her. A song started to Play. " why you gotta be so rude" and then layer I understood that she was offering some sort of collaboration to make a song. 

I had an idea and hit my forehead with the palm of my hand. I excitedly explained that I was able to prove everything to him. All I had to do was follow him on social media. 

But he was going to have to wait until I was done with the story or I was going to lose him to the other side of the mirror. 

I waited and followed her back to try to fix the mistake but at this point it was the second time I had done that. 

The first time was as it all started in the pandemic. I would wake up and look at my phone and she was always there in the stories. It was so routine that I even started to notice when she wore makeup or got prettier. 

So one day I noticed and instead of a question I told her that she looked very pretty that day. But it felt like it started to become unhealthy, obsessive almost. 

So I unfollowed her to not be creepy and then followed her back after months. Then she was inside the game and that was the first, I still don't know how to call them, relationship? That failed inside the game. 

I don't know exactly when it happened because I never saw the place but because of all the sketchy behavior on my part and a lot of rumors, I had become 'the abuser' and eventually people would call for my death. 

We're getting closer to the flowers. I'm getting ahead of myself again.

This is where it started to get bigger. Famous celebrities of all kinds found the place and started offering me stuff, presents. 

But I could never get there, I could only understand that there was money and then a wish. Because of the advice that would show up on the feed and then the radio. 

Eventually, their music wasn't talking about me anymore, or the place I mean. Well, fuck. Their music started to show up as they started to find the place. 

So I knew who it was that was offering me stuff because their music would play on the radio.

I kept writing stories and posting every Monday because I didn't know what else to do. But then the radio told me about the vibe at the place which was that I was " too sexy for this fame, too sexy for this check". 

That was frustrating. Because I wanted it, I just couldn't get to it. 

I took a sip of my drink and continued. About ten years ago I received a call from my then girlfriend who I had just broken up with. 

She told me her doctor had found she had and std and it most probably was me who gave it to her. I didn't listen, she had just been making out with my best friend for a year as I moved to a new country and she was the first and only woman I had even been with, so it didn't make sense it was me.

Not only that but no doctor had ever told me I had it. And I was tested when I moved to the new country and then again for the residence. 

But it started to show up. I had a suspicion because it had been all over in the references before so the time in Mexico I was careful and I had condoms with me. 

I didn't know it could give a warty throat until I heard it as a reference on a podcast. 

So there were four women who had strong reasons to hate me at that point. 

On the radio, when the woman from Mexico found it, " American woman, get away from me" started to play. And then " I blew up now everybody is trying to sue me" so it sounded like I most probably was in trouble or trouble was near. 

What I didn't expect was that people would want me dead. I mean it was more than the usual online " kill yourself" it was someone from the city I lived that had power and was aledgedly not in the right side of the law. 

My guess is that something at the place triggered this reaction but the feed started to strongly suggest I quit my job. So I put in my two week notice. 

The problem is that the suggestion had urgency " do it now" of course the rest of the post suggested it was talking about work but there was still enough room to interpret it was about me going to the place. 

To face my fears and all that and go to it because that is what the rest of the windows were suggesting. 

I didn't understand what had changed and why they were thinking I had seen it and had been lying all this time. 

" is better to raise strong children than to fix broken men" I remember that one because it started to show up a lot in the feed. In it there was the why are you lying why have you been fucking with us all this time. Didn't you say you wanted it all? It's right there for the taking. 

But I couldn't go. I didn't know what I was looking for or how to get there and I could understand how everyone else found it so easily. Although I think I saw it once. 

It popped up on a notification but I might not have looked long enough or deep enough because I never saw my face. If that's what I was supposed to find. It was something about sexual assault and I saw two faces of two men but I understood later that maybe that was the place and I didn't know it. 

So I quit the job but it got confusing as the podcasts talked about getting another job before quitting the one one has. So I didn't know if I had misunderstood the posts and moved too early or the possibility that it was not centralized and they were not communicating.

After one or more breakdowns holding onto the urge to leave everything behind and become a monk in a country I didn't speak the language. 

I followed the suggestion to buy a ring that would monitor my heart rate and was connected to the phone via Bluetooth. 

That would prove I was not using mesh networks to look into the place. Something I didn't know existed until I listened to the podcasts. 

The bartender noticed the drinks were getting to me but kept listening trying to catch up as his shift was now over. 

Before leaving work the main reason why they wanted me death at the place came in the form of a song "somebody come get her she's dancing like a stripper". 

This was mostly the way the place would show up at work. Like everywhere else references, but it would also change depending on the season at the place.

I didn't understand who that was about until months later, it was a woman from the Playlist. On The radio there were also songs saying something along the lines of I don't care who's watching as long as you are. 

Meaning me, the problem was that I wasn't and I couldn't understand why none would stop her, but then I guess it was up to me because it was for me I think.

Without being able to get there and everyone including inside in the notes app thinking I was watching but choosing not to go, it was the perfect recipe for protecting the innocent against evil. 

Bad men doing good things or good men doing bad things, either way this dude wanted me dead. 

Before I left work I tried one last time to ask about the place but because they had been inside and could see the place, once again I got nothing. 

I had no idea of course that there was a dude that wanted me dead, only the persisted danger from songs in the music app and the radio. Because even with the threat of death no one thought to bring it up. 

Without a job I started to make my own routine, staying amelessly busy to fill in the time. That's when the perceived danger started to grow. 

When I went out for a walk a song saying " I'm afraid when you leave smiling for the street… I think of your eyes like they are a bullet in the chest" played regularly. Then the radio when I was driving around would tell me that the dude " i'm not playing no i'm not joking" meaning he wasn't playing. 

One of the things I was doing to fill in the time was to drive for a delivery app, it would be a bit of money before, well before something I had no idea what was going to happen next. 

At this time was when I listened to the radio a lot and figured out I was supposed to leave the city " if I was you I was dead. A thousand miles away" as the radio said. 

But how real can the threat be, for me anyways if all I had was references from the radio? Could it be possible that no one cared enough to tell me or asked me what the fuck was I doing? 

So I kept driving and going to the gym and doing whatever to fill in the time and try to stay away from the house as I was having to explain why I left work, but the social media app told me to because there is something somewhere online about me, wasn't an option. 

I knew the gym wasn't safe or at least not wearing blue when the meditation app asked me "what are you trying to change from your experience?" Somehow that was enough to tell me I not only shouldn't wear blue but also shouldn't be at the gym. 

Is very easy to disassociate that there is danger when there isn't really a sign that there is danger. 

As luck would have it, on a day when I was delivering. His address came up, unknown to me and I to this day hope it was not the one where I forgot to leave the drink, but I left the food and left. 

The radio started to play the usual danger but this time it played a new one " I do it for the trills for the rush" but I really wasn't, there was no thrills or rush and that song didn't make sense until a post later on when I was home put it together " when I die I want it to be a button that will show me every time I was close but it didn't happen" 

I wrote that night that I was pretty sure I had delivered it to his house. 

The stressful part came one day when I was delivering, I had just finished one and a notification in the meditation app popped up " drop everything…" That was all I could see from it but it was enough to know it was hunting season. 

I changed from the music app to the radio to see what the vibe was and it seemed normal. At the same time another delivery started to ring in the app. 

Because the radio seemed normal, I took the other delivery. That was a mistake, pretty much as soon as I took it the radio changed. 

It was dangerous and not only dangerous, it was close or the music made it feel that way. 

I can't remember the song but it pretty much said that this time was the one that he was close and he could feel it. 

Everything was a warning sign. The car spending in front of me, a harsh turn from the car behind me. 

The radio kept playing and I went to the delivery sweating. I left it at the door and stopped receiving them. 

When I got home I screamed at the radio for no reason. 

I took another sip and looked to my right and then to my left. Then I looked at the bartender and told him I was not supposed to say this but everyone at the place was also in the game. 

Everyone I said and took another sip. 

He looked at me with pity and looked up at the speakers, it was another top forty song something about being over someone and having the next man coming over.

I noticed he looked and shrugged my shoulders as I pointed to pour the next glass. The off colored jokes and uncoordinated mannerisms gave me away that I was way over the pour next glass level but the bartender was off his shift and wanted to know about the flowers so he served it anyways.

I was screaming at them in the car. There was no way for anyone to know I left the house unless they worried and put it online. 

To fix this, I gave them a test. They were testing me on the feed to see what parts were true and which weren't so it felt right. 

I got in my car to leave the house like I did at the height of danger. But instead of leaving, I graded a book and sat in the car. I turned it on and turned off the wifi and data from my phone. That was before they all knew about my car being hacked, probably from that day at the dentist. 

The car didn't leave the driveway, but the radio changed and moved and worried like it did when I was out, then it changed to threats and to danger eventually. 

After an hour I stopped reading and the rain stopped, I put the book down and turned on the wifi after someone from the house came out and saw me in the car. 

At the end of the hour I told them it was a test and they all failed. I told them that out there no one knew I left the house, unless they told them online and they had to get better at playing the game.

I think it worked because fthe radio did not change that much after I left the house. 

Between escaping death, being excited I didn't have to go to the place and wasting all my savings. 

I kept writing, the only thing I was able to do for the four years that this thing had been going on for.

I understood later why the people inside didn't believe me either.

As I wrote every night I would write things about the place, things that were not mentioned in the references.

I didn't know as I wrote them but those things would show up on the poems and be proof for the people reading that I had a way to see the place and was just lying. 

Only after everyone was already inside and the ring was already part of the routine. The people that were inside from the beginning started to believe that maybe I wasn't lying. 

It made sense if it took that long, that the people that just got in were not going to be convinced. Especially because I didn't know but no one knew about the people behind the apps. 

The game changed and somehow I understood I was supposed to follow people as they started to show up as part of the references. 

Sometimes I would get ahead of the references because there was a name on a song or as part of a post so the doubt about me not ever seeing the place started over. 

To assure them that I hadn't, I made a bet. At this point without a job and bleeding out my savings by the minute. I bet the thing of value I had, my car and said that if I'm right and haven't seen it, the money they bet against It could go to a charity or something. 

This was a whole new game now after that bet. 

I later understood that a company had been created behind the scenes to manage the game. 

But I'll get to that. 

At this point for some reason the only solution was to bring people inside, so to save my life or at least not make it so stressful, he was brought in, the man that wanted me dead. 

This could've solved it but then he would have to also be convinced that I hadn't seen it and wasn't lying which wasn't an easy task as everyone that came in started to doubt. 

He came in, in secret it was one of those things no one knew about, I started to call them layers. Like security clearances almost except not that formal. 

I kept writing and the thing happened again, I wrote a story in which I recognized the place the character was standing. It was a tall wall looking into a river in a city close to me. 

Then the next night I started to write again but this time it was about him. I wrote about a meeting at a mall where I showed him how I was able to look into the place by bringing him into the car and listening to the radio. 

Then I understood, he was reading. He was now part of the game. 

That night or the next I wrote to him assuming I was right and he was now reading. 

But then he disappeared. He wasn't in the game anymore. 

The music app told me later she had saved my life again. Didn't know what she did but she was the one that made him disappear. 

I didn't want that, I wrote that maybe instead of pursuing me we could give the people lying a good scare and I think he was into that idea. 

There was still the possibility that I was going to keep writing and without knowing it referencing things that I could only know if I could look into the place and then he would have access to every location I was at, making me really easy to kill.

The treatment was as far away as everything else, but I still looked over my shoulder after the gym and used machines that looked at the door. If it was coming then at least I'll see it first. 

But it died down and with everyone from the place now in the game. I only had to worry about keeping the now very visible depression from everyone else in the house. 

After I couldn't do deliveries because it would probably get me killed I would go out and look for a Cafe or I even visited a library very frequently. 

The weeks passed and there was always this instant need to be doing something. I just didn't know what I was supposed to do, all I knew from the music was that I was running out of time. 

Now everyone I ever liked from movies or music was listening as I farted myself awake at night and aimlessly filled in the days with busy work, never moving anything forward. 

The stress of keeping real life intact without a job or structure plus knowing that whatever was supposed to happen was going to happen six months after the summer solstice plus running out of money plus an imaginary threat that could become real at any second. 

So I kept writing because I couldn't do anything else. Well people would disagree. 

Then July came.

The night where it was all finally going to be over. 

I went to an event I had bought tickets for a while back, it was to see two of the ghosts live. 

Finally meet in person and break the mirror. The music talked about what she liked in bed and I already knew as I've been listening for a long time, my reaction was more like " why are you telling me this? I already know?" 

But then the music was promising a night, how do I put this, fucking the music was talking about fucking most of the time. 

I had a drink and watched the show and then after there was a window of time to meet her. The show ended around eleven then I got to meet her and take a picture. 

As the show ended, one of the people from the theater came and told everyone still sitting in the chairs that the meat and greet happened in another room of the theater. I looked at my phone, one of the titles of a podcast was "death to the abuser". 

Once again the place wanted my head, it didn't help that I was dehydrated and hungry but my hands got cold, I went inside my head and everything felt distant. 

I went up and lined up to meet her, in my head I thought we were going to eat something after the show and then whatever happened after, happened but maybe I was just thinking about food because I was hungry. 

The handshake happened but as soon as she asked for my name I knew the mirror was snot going to break. To be fair we had never met before officially, I don't know what I was expecting. 

The meeting happened and I didn't know what to do, I was still not all the way there. So I left the building And wrote on my notes app. 

As I waited for something to happen, still not knowing what, I went to my car and took a sip of water I still had from a big water bottle. 

I wanted to be at least somewhat of a person so I took two pills of l'tyrosine to borrow dopamine from the next day and made my way back to the building. 

There was no way back up as the exit from the meet and greet took everyone right to the street and the main entrance was already closed. So I waited for someone to come out and held the door for them, then went back up to see if I could do something or talk again. Maybe she was going to walk out that door. 

But as I made it up I saw her see me and look just as confused as I was as to what to do and then be escorted towards the complete opposite way to where I was waiting. 

I was hungry and completely fucking lost. So I left the building again and made my way to the car as I went through the night in my head looking for a clue. 

She mentioned a hotel once, probably where she was staying. Fuck what was the name, I didn't know I was supposed to memorize it. 

I tried a direct way and sent a dm asking where she was going and what was the name of the hotel but I never heard back. 

So I turned on the car and put on the music and then tried to find something to eat. I was looking for a drive through but in this big city it was going to be harder than I thought. 

The music was already hating me, I make her feel so ordinary, she hated me, pretty much a fuck you every other song. By the time I found food and made it back to my car it was around two am. 

I kept writing on my notes app hoping there would be some signal or that she would reply. Then I thought about where she could be staying and there was one big hotel that famous people stay at or at least is known for. 

Without the faintest clue of what the name was, how to get there or even where I was I remember that we had to go to the embassy close to it for paperwork. So if I could find the embassy I could make it to the hotel. 

I asked outlook when I found it on the map if I was close. The music changed and it said I was right. 

Then I got there and waited, the only way to know what was happening was through the music. So I opened the music app with very low volume and put it close to my ear to make it seem like I was making a call. 

" you're man is calling, fuck your man is calling" played on the phone as I apologized for leaving because I didn't know what to do. 

I couldn't understand how it could be possible that everything was fine a few hours ago and then she completely hated me. 

Trying to find solutions I asked the counter if maybe she was registered with her name. Which was a last resort kind of thing because celebrities usually registered under different names. 

The man at the counter said she was not registered at the hotel. 

I sat back down to listen and the music said she had gotten "higher than the empire state" . I was not going to make it up to the room of a passed out celebrity with my reputation.

And in hindsight she would've been so angry that it didn't go as she planned it. But I'll get to that. 

I chuckled and took another sip of the drink. The bartender was half not really knowing if it was true and half still wanting to listen so I continued. 

The next day I stayed behind from a day at the beach knowing I would have the house to myself. 

I grabbed the big speaker and a bottle of gin and finished it singing at the speaker aimed right to my face. 

I couldn't understand what had happened the night before if I got the right hotel, anything. I filled up what was left with water so no one would notice and went to bed at five after emptying half that bottle from my stomach to the toilet.

The next day the music sounded uplifting, there was another chance. So I grabbed the car and went to the hotel again. 

As I got there and waited I put on the music again to know what was happening. The music told me she was " fresh out of a sticky situation. She had been spending nights in the high rises… with the boys" 

It didn't hit st the time as I waited because the song talked about hating me, so it was something I already knew was happening. But there was another man upstairs as I waited, I didn't understand until the second time he was there. 

It all fit into place after a post put it together. 

So not knowing what had happened the day before I went back to the hotel. I told the bartender that I was going to get really repetitive from now on and if he didn't mind I was also going to need the other bottle.

So the next day writing in the lobby I needed to find ways to pass the time, so I played on my phone and scrolled endlessly on social media. Almost forgot, I wore shorts, capital sin but I'll get there. 

As the hours passed I saw a story. I had looked at her profile earlier and decided to unfollow her everywhere but then the music said it was a mistake so I didn't. 

In the story it was her, in New York. The woman I was waiting for at the lobby was in another country at a concert. 

The world stopped and the rage and confusion reached levels I've never felt before in a matter of seconds. So there's no one at the hotel, why would they do this? Do they still think I'm lying? The next image in my head was to drive as fast as I could against a wall in the highway.

So I wrote in the notes app and started to listen to the music. The right songs in the right order and it started to make sense. 

It was the moon I was waiting for. 

It didn't help that at the time, the feed was telling me that no one was coming, it was just bad timing for the posts as I waited for someone that wasn't even the person I was waiting for.

That day as I waited for hours playing on my phone and putting the phone close to my ear pretending it was a call but not saying a word. A police officer walked in right as I walked towards the exit.

I didn't know there were bars and codes hops inside the hotel that people could go to, so a dude wearing shorts waiting for hours in the lobby, looks crazy. If I'm honest it was probably the shorts why the officer got called. 

After that day, the windows started to break. The music would say one thing and then the feed would say another. 

I was left to build a picture in my head based on the music and the posts about who she really was. But they didn't seem to be on the same page.

The feed would build a woman in my head where I should be angry and stay away and the music would insist I went to the hotel. 

So I wrote angry things about what was going on and I went back the next day. 

It looked too crazy already for me to wait inside so I parked in front of the hotel and waited in my car. I had the music and I didn't have to pay for parking. 

But she never came down.

On a day when I was driving back to the hotel I understood that now the radio was not only on the game out there but they had made it inside. And another part of the story I didn't know about got told to me on the way there, apparently I was the sun. 

Like dominoes it all started to make sense, the profile pictures and the song that had been playing, that I knew meant something but I couldn't understand what it was " daughter of the sun".

I chuckled again and told the bartender that when the place wanted me dead I started to think who I would regret not talking to if I was to die. 

So I sent a dm to all the ghosts that had been in here from the start and I sent one to her, the woman now waiting at the hotel who I had borrowed for a story and had made her the moon. 

I told her that if I ever had a daughter I wanted to name her, Emma, Lily or Luna. 

That was when the song started to play but it didn't click in my head at all as I had no idea I was the sun.

As the days passed and that repetitive scene where something happens over and over and the music is hyped but every time it happens the character loses more and more interest and enthusiasm. I got good at understanding everywhere I was fucking up and I started to fix it. 

The shorts were a mistake, even though I wasn't dressing for her. So I wore fancy clothes. I would pack a bag and say I was going to the library because saying I was going to wait at a hotel for the moon was too crazy. 

I would go to the gas station to fill up and change in the car then head over to the hotel.

The car was a problem, it wasn't fancy enough. That I couldn't change but I could park it and wait inside. 

Then flowers, roses, then white roses were her favorite. 

The first day after getting it all right there was no different result. I waited inside in good clothes with the roses, before I knew they should've been white.

Before I understood all this, I stopped going, because I wasn't sure if there was someone up there or if I was being fucked with. 

No matter how long I waited I was always leaving too early, all I had to know if anyone was coming down or not was the music. 

In this confusion and paranoia, I confessed in my notes app to the woman that had been saving my life that I was not into her. 

There were signs the she liked me in the music and a song after I sent the dm about the daughter that said something like " I never saw that coming" 

I would later find out that she wasn't the only one that liked me that way. I didn't do it on purpose until the end when I was considering it, I also never said I didn't like her before even though I saw some signs. 

But she was in complete control and the fear that she was having her revenge gave her a reason to want to have one and she did. 

With the music app, she was the eyes, the ears, the map and everything as it was one of the only ways I knew anything about the other side. 

She changed the music one day so that I left the hotel, early as I understood on my drive back as the music changed to something like, "let me see your face" as I was angry and probably crying. 

I wrote on the notes app what had happened and then later I would hear on more music how I was a traitor.

The feed would tell me about the men and the music app would insist on me going. 

The friend, which maybe once but even then I doubt it, the bartender, the maybe not but maybe knock at the door and alcohol deleted from memory. 

But the music wouldn't change. 

The first time I brought roses I left them with a bellboy. He was very surprised to hear the name when I said who the flowers were for, but seeing my defeated body posture and the way I told him about it all he could say was I'll talk to my manager. 

I heard on the radio that they made it to the other side, it was the first hope that there might be a connection. It never happened but I'll get to that. 

Is blurry now about the timeline but I stopped going altogether. One of the hackers god had been diagnosed with cancer and it was terminal, or so I understood from the music. 

He was the one that wanted us together, when I found out about the diagnosis I went back. 

I couldn't understand why after everything, after knowing that the feed had been telling me I've been getting played. She would bring me to the hotel knowing she was not going to come down but he had a reason I thought. 

The second time I brought flowers I wrote three notes and put them inside them. 

I was not wearing the fancy clothes I did the first time so sending them up was a bit more complicated. When I approached to send the flowers up and explained I didn't know the room or the name. It was a whole different vibe, the flowers were cheap too, I didn't go to the place where I had bought them the first time and had to stop at a random one. 

The pink petals this time matched her dress, which I have no idea how I knew. 

I didn't know what to do with them so I put them over a garbage can outside of the hotel and wrote on the notes app where they were. 

These notes also made it through to the other side, a post later on referencing them let me know that she had gotten them.

Then it was the white flowers that I left inside a drawer. Eventually I got bored sitting in the lobby of the hotel and didn't want to spend money so I went up the stairs to more floors that were accessible. 

There were chairs and tables and in one of them there was a drawer. Like the night table kind except it was bigger. 

I didn't want to go through the whole thing without a room or a name so I put them inside it with a note and took a picture.

Then it was the pink roses. By this time the hours had gotten longer; a wait of four or five was the usual, almost expected.

Then, the last day that I was ever going to be there I decided to make it a game. I was going to hide three notes in the floors I could access and then not ever be back if that didn't work. 

My plan was to hide and watch her find them but I didn't know how long I was going to have to hide for her to find them, so I waited at the lobby and then the bar and then I left like I always did.

To the same routine, I left to be screamed at by the music on the way back. To listen to how she had been working so hard to make herself beautiful and I had left her again. 

I left her naked on the bathroom floor or looking pretty at a hotel bar or drunk screaming my name in the streets.

It was me, no one else to blame but me. At first I tried to not leave my room for every day that she was at the hotel, not only because it seemed fair but because it was expected that I would not go anywhere but to the hotel. 

After the first month, before most of the flowers I planned a trip, a ten hour drive so that I could wait for two at the hotel, the waiting time increased with the months. 

I wanted her to leave the hotel and for everything to be over but after the four days she was still there and I was expected again to go to the hotel after a ten hour drive back. 

Eventually I tried to live my life as if it wasn't happening because no matter what I did nothing changed. So I went out and went to the beach as I was expected to go to the hotel. 

But even then I couldn't escape it. It was in the music everywhere I went, her tiers, how could I've left her alone. 

Always in the music, I couldn't get to the other side but I couldn't live the life on this one either. 

The irony is that even on the trip, when I went to a club. The DJ had a shirt that said hacked, when they caught up to me he put on a hoodie and the music changed. 

The bartender looked up at the speakers again and paid attention to the music. " bring me higher love" and " I wish I knew you wanted me" I explained that the music also tells my side. 

The dinner came and went, and then came and went again. I missed it every time I would wake up in the middle of the night to check my phone and there it was all over the posts. 

The weekend before Halloween the most fucking incredible party where everyone would dress up as their most iconic characters happened. That night I woke up in the middle of it again and checked the feed and I saw the posts. 

I didn't understand what it was until the next day where I got another notification of a picture of an iconic character. Then I understood that everyone was there so I went back the next day, waited the usual five hours and came back home like usual.

At this point there was another woman waiting at the hotel. She posted a picture that was so cool and interesting that I wrote her a story. She made herself a character in that picture and she even took a nickname I wrote after a poem when I thought it was better not to use names. 

Although I never see her as anything else but a friend , I had watched an interview and in it she talked about her boyfriend and how important he was to her. 

So I never had my hopes up until I figured out that she was waiting instead of the moon. In that picture she was golding the moon in her hands and captioned it as la Luna, which means the moon in Spanish.

Somewhere in between both women the bets started. Would I go to the hotel or would I stay at the house?

I started to have breakdowns when I came back from the hotel, I could understand why I would ask how long I was supposed to wait and no one would say anything, or reply to dms or call. 

But the music always said it was my fault. It was an hour and a half of listening about how I left her being pretty and crying and alone. 

So I went back to the cuts and started again every time I came back from the hotel I would cut. It didn't start from the first day but when it started it went up in un even numbers. So one, then three, then five like up to that number so adding two every time almost. 

Then I got to fifteen and the next cool number was twenty one so I started over because that would've been too many cuts at once. 

On the feed I saw when they made money, eventually it would show up that some people lost millions betting if I would go. 

Staying home wasn't any better, I couldn't leave because I would listen to the radio or music and it would follow me reminding me I was not at the only place I should be. But staying hoke meant I was going to stay in my room to not have to lie or explain what I was doing with my life as I myself had no fucking idea. 

At home when I wasn't going to the hotel I was to be bettering myself. Taking courses and learning from the people inside. 

The best of the best at everything and at every step it felt like I was to be at their level in those six months. I had no idea about any of the things I was supposed to do or even if I was supposed to do them. 

I'm still not sure about this part but as I understood they sent money over with a cousin, it just never reached me. 

The most confusing part was the company thing. The posts started to show up as referencing me as the boss and I was very confused because I didn't know what I was supposed to be the boss of or why I was being an asshole as a post said once. 

Later on I understood there was a whole system of companies set up under each other with employees and investors and clients. 

Somehow everything built from the hack on my phone. Somehow the center but a last part to get paid. 

I should probably mention that both women brought with them presents that were supposed to be forme. A million dollars each, that eventually because I left them waiting, got split in half or spent in the rooms. 

The radio would talk about "take that money watch it burn sink into the river the lessons I learn" as I filled up my credit cards and drained my savings. 

The bartender looked at the flowers and asked if there was any sign she was coming down. I told him that a couple songs ago one of the guys that wanted her played on the speakers, so she was going to be busy that night. 

By September I had no savings and was still expected to go to the hotel. One day on my way back to the car I texted the job I left in April to see if they needed help and they did. Then, the whole company came in. 

Here and there a post would show up; it was mostly songs about boundaries and not saving anyone. So it continued the stalemate for I'm not going to the hotel but nothing else is an option. 

I went back by the way for the second woman. I didn't know what the rules were for her if I needed the clothes or the flowers so I got them both and waited, but as luck would have it I would be waiting again as there was another man upstairs. 

The pressure of becoming and then managing an imaginary company plus what ever the fuck those relationships were. 

It was too much so I broke down piece by piece until I was not what I was before. There were posts saying that people don't change but I think I prove they do, it just didn't work out for the better. 

I stopped buying courses because I got to the limit of what it could spend but then I couldn't just give up on the future that was coming. 

So the game changed for me, at this point the weather on the computer was a guide. Before it was a mood ring, sun good clouds not that good. 

Eventually depending on the courses that would pop up the weather would signal a raise in the market or a drop in the market if I didn't watch the live course or the training. 

The raise and fall started to become a sign that would showyp more often in the feed depending if I had done good or fucked up the night before. 

Eventually I started to assume absolutely everythingnint he computer was some sort of signal. The weather, the little icon in the search bar to the right of the windows key, the screen saver when the computer locked. 

But it was always enough information to know that I should go to the hotel. A moon or a castle would be somewhere in some form. 

There were always timers on the emails about the courses, that's how I understood that on the other side there was also a timer and I was supposed to do something, I never knew clearly what I was out of all the things I was supposed to do but probably also a system for the betts. 

Eventually I had enough and I decided to play my game, I could never escape it no matter what I did and the mirror would never break. 

There was not a thing in the world I care about more but there was not a person in the world who I could talk about it with because they were all part of the game, they were on the other side. 

It would've been like many before a conversation full of references and I was tired of it. 

There was no big show or timer or demands or threats this time, just the assurance that I was not going to live like this anymore.

But even then it wasn't enough, I never could put the pressure in the right places or understand without seeing all the parts that I was missing. 

All I knew was that I didn't want to live that way anymore, constantly in-between never being anywhere everywhere I went. 

Only partially understanding or getting it too late with the expectation that I had all the information when I was supposed to use it. 

I noticed the big clock on the wall, it was almost eleven, I told the bartender that the new rule was that I was to wait until midnight but I had waited enough and I couldn't even see the numbers. 

He remarked that I had missed the event that I was supposed to go to. 

Through the conversation the music had told me that it was not the dinner so it was probably OK for me to miss it as long as I kept waiting. 

The bartender looked up at the speakers again and then back at me. 

I shrugged my shoulders and explained I didn't know how I was able to do it, practice I guess it's been a long time I said finishing the drink at the bar. 

As I got up I told the bartender it was the last time I came to the bar or the hotel. I left the flowers behind and made my way out, the bartender was still sitting looking at me wondering if there was anything he could do. 

I remembered I promised I could prove it, so I followed him on one of the social media apps and started to walk away. When I was at the top of the stairs to head down into the main entrance I looked back and saw the reaction as he got inside the game. 

It had only been a couple of times that I was able to see the reaction live but there it was, he looked up from the phone at me pale and way too drunk to handle this much information. 

I smiled and went down the stairs, opened the glass door and walked the sidewalk one last time, crossed the lights that headed to the underground parking lot, walked through the green door and found the car.