Quinton was sitting in his messy room, clothing all over the floor alongside month old food wrappers, plastic bottles, and towels.
Thick glasses covering his face as he was hunched over. His nose was nearly touching his computer screen as he typed away on a old school keyboard that clicked with every button press.
Walls of code that extended as high and wide as the Great Wall of China scrolled past him as he continued to type away.
He stopped, then suddenly scrolled up very quickly.
He seemed to stop at a random point, and clicked on a specific line. He added a single character, then went back to the bottom to type more.
“Quinton, your dinner is getting cold!” A woman shouted from another part of the house.
Quinton ignored her, just continuing to type away.
He continued to type, but the further and further he typed the stranger the symbols began to look.
Quinton leaned back.
No longer were their letters or numbers or normal characters.
These strange symbols that Quinton had ever seen before.
He reached out and pressed a button on the keyboard, a random symbol that he had never seen before.
“The Hell?” He whispered to himself.
He continued to type a few symbols, unsure of their meaning.
“Let’s see what happens.” He whispered again before pressing enter.
His computer suddenly went pitch black.
Quinton looked confused, but it quickly turned to panic as he slapped the side of his old monitor.
The black was suddenly replaced with a blinding white light, burning into his eyes as he stared.
The light didn’t hurt.
It felt more inviting than anything else.
Quinton could feel a burning in his eyes, except it wasn't at the front.
It was a deep burning at the back of his eyes, as if burning through and scorching his brain.
Quinton leaned back, his chair immediately tilting and causing him to tumble backwards and onto the messy floor.
He grabbed the back of his head, rubbing it while groaning.
“Quinton? Are you okay?” The woman shouted as she could be heard racing up the stairs.
Quinton groaned as he waved his hand.
Everything on the floor had faded into green shapes of code.
Quinton was still shutting his eyes, unable to see what he had just done.
He got to his feet and waved his hand out blindly, looking for his chair.
All of the code suddenly compacted into a single stack of code and flew across the room wherever he was pointing.
He grabbed the chair, which just so happened to be the same direction as his trash can.
Everything went inside, a small ball of green floating inside the trash can.
Quinton opened his eyes and stood his chair up at the same time his bedroom door flung open.
The lights came on quickly as Quinton shut his eyes and pointed out.
The light turned green, but quickly began to go dimmer and dimmer.
Quinton opened his eyes again as the green hue disappeared.
Everything was washed with a warm but dim orange and yellow light from the ceiling.
“What happened? Are you okay?” She asked.
She was wearing rather relaxed pajama-like clothing as she ran over, feeling the back of his head.
“I’m fine Mom. Just…hit my head.” Quinton said as he looked at his computer monitor.
It was still pitch black, but it quickly flickered back to the old coding screen.
He stared at it, the strange symbols all gone, like they were never there in the first place.
Quinton could feel his body being dragged, his legs and feet eventually moving to walk alongside his Mother out of the room and down the nearby stairway.
They went to the kitchen and she quickly grabbed a black rag, soaking it with warm water and putting it to the back of his head.
Quinton groaned as he shut his eyes tightly.
The water almost instantly went from warm to ice cold, making his Mother jump back and drop it onto the floor.
“What was that?” She asked as she quickly grabbed it.
It was still ice cold, too cold for her to hold.
She sighed and grabbed another rag.
Quinton looked down at the rag, his eyes staring at the fabric slowly turning into something else.
Quinton moved closer to it.
Quinton’s eyes were rapidly darting with a faint green light directly in the center of his pupil.
Quinton could see the atoms making up the rag.
But the longer he stared, the atoms were changing.
The small spheres suddenly turn into shapes.
Numbers, letters, and symbols of green.
The atoms were turning into code.
Quinton kept staring at the code making up the rag.
He reached out, but as he read over it, he began to think.
Parts of the code were suddenly changed.
He was altering the makeup of the rag.
He looked over it and tried to think of how to finalize it.
He thought about pressing the enter key.
And the code disappeared.
Now, the rag sat completely dry and colored white.
Quinton reached down and grabbed it.
The fabric felt soft, almost like velvet as he lifted it off of the ground.
He kept feeling it all over, confused and curious before placing it on the counter.
His Mother was still soaking another rag, but also focusing on the large pan full of food.
Quinton stared at the pan, which also began to visibly change.
He saw a wall of code, random symbols next to each other, but he could read them.
He could tell exactly what every ingredient was. Every seasoning. He knew the exact temperature of the flame as well as the food. He could see it all in the wall of code.
His brain began to move around wildly.
Numbers and letters and symbols being replaced or moved around.
Once he thought about the enter button again, the stove was off.
The flame was gone while the heat remained in the food, keeping it warm.
The pan was gone, and the piles of food were spread beautifully on two different plates.
A bed of rice and vegetables with tofu piled on top.
Quinton looked at it again, but he noticed something.
The temperature of the food was rather low.
He changed it, making the food instantly hot without any sort of heat or flame.
The food suddenly began to emit steam from thin air, as if teleporting into place.
His Mother brought the rag over and put it to the back of his head.
“Keep this here sweetie. I’m just going to…” She turned and saw the food.
Finished and prepared and plated.
“I…what…did I…” She stuttered, unable to think of anything to say or think.
“You already plated it Mom. You’re just being forgetful.” Quinton said as he looked at the food.
She looked confused, like she was beginning to feel insane.
She looked down at her shaking hands.
“Alright. Thank you sweetie. I think we should eat and then…we have some shopping to do.” She said.
“What do we need Mom?” Quinton asked.
“Just some groceries.” She replied.
Quinton looked around the kitchen as his Mother went to grab the two plates full of food.
Quinton could see her purse.
As the fabric began to turn into green code, he was able to see inside.
He began to look at all of the objects inside, able to see the code of each of them individually.
He could see the piece of paper with a grocery list written down.
He squinted as he looked over the code.
A long section of the code was suddenly highlighted, as if selected by a mouse. He kept thinking before looking over at the refrigerator.
He looked at the code, and the code from the list was suddenly pasted into the rest.
“I just need to double check that I didn’t forget anything.” She said as she opened the door to the refrigerator.
The normally empty machine was packed tightly with food and drink, making her jump and scream.
“I…did I go…” She started to say.
“You can just go relax Mom. I think you already did everything you need to do.” Quinton said with a loving smile.
She seemed to have a mad look in her eye, like her sanity was slipping.
“I…I don’t…” She stumbled over her words.
“Mom? Are you okay?” Quinton asked.
She limped to the counter that held the two plates, but then collapsed and gripped a hold of whatever she could.
“Mom?” Quinton shouted as he ran over to her.
“Are you okay?” He asked, beginning to cry.
“I…I don’t…I don’t know…what’s happening…where I am…I’m going mad!” She screamed out, bursting into her own tears as she covered her face.
Quinton hugged her tightly as she continued to cry.
“Mom, it’s okay. It’s okay.” Quinton panicked as he looked at his Mom.
As he watched her crying, her body suddenly became green code.
Quinton looked over everything, yet it was the most complicated code that he had ever seen.
He didn’t understand what was what.
“Um…here…I’ll just…” He thought as code began to move around.
“What? What are you doing?” She asked.
Quinton kept looking as the code wildly moved around before suddenly disappearing.
His Mom was still and silent, staring with blank eyes.
Quinton slowly stood up, looking over her frozen body.
“M…Mom?” He stuttered as he cried more.
Her body suddenly tipped over and sprawled across the floor, no thought or feeling inside.
Quinton jumped and covered his face.
“Mom! What happened?” He screamed at the top of his lungs.
She was unresponsive, laying on the floor.
It was like she was a corpse.
Unmoving.
Unthinking.
Quinton kept looking over her body, making it back to code.
But he was wildly throwing the lines around without any thought or care, since he had no idea what he was doing.
He continued to cry and fill his eyes with water, making all of the lines become blurry messes of green.
“Please…” He whispered softly.
He thought hard and the code disappeared.
But so did his Mother.
The floor was now empty.
Completely cold and empty.
Quinton’s sadness had frozen.
He stood still and silent as he stared at the tile floor.
His eyes were growing wider as his heart was beating very slow with every beat like a shotgun blast.
Over and over inside his chest, hurting more and more.
He only cried more as he fell to his knees.
“Mom?”

© All Rights Reserved