“Hmm.” I wave my hand, and a display opens up with data about what we’re walking on. The resources seem meager around us. Not a lot of wood or food, but apparently limitless water.
Over the sounds of the game, I hear the familiar loud whine of the apartment door opening.
“Divya?” My mom’s back early. “Are you home?”
I mute the channel and call to her. “Streaming in my room, Mom. Just a second.”
“I need...” She trails off, and I unmute the channel. Sounds like someone brought home groceries.
“Hey streamers, I’ll be right back.” I remove my headset and shut off the VR, the stream routing back to my computer’s camera, the sound thundering back through my speakers. I wink and point at the camera. I get up to head out of my bedroom, ready to smile at my mom, show her what I’m working on, when the door swings open and she barrels in.
“Oh shit!” Rebekah shouts. “Turn it off! Turn off the video!”
I dart over and flick at the switch on my little HD camera, pulling it off the monitor just in case, and run over to my mom, who stumbles over to sit on my bed, her shoulders heaving with sobs. Her normally lustrous hair is a matted mess, caked with something that leaves a yellow tint in some places, clear in others. I wrap my arms around her while looking through her hair and at her clothes, finding bits of white everywhere.
“What happened?!” I ask, holding her tightly. “What is all this?”
She cries into my shoulder for several moments, then shudders and pulls away. The black eyeshadow and mascara that she likes to apply in thick lines is dripping down her cheeks, coloring in the wrinkle lines under her eyes and around her mouth.
“These...these boys,” she stammers. “They were waiting outside the library.”
I pluck a piece of the white something off her outfit.
It’s a shell.
An eggshell.
Some fucking assholes egged my mother.
“They just came after me, throwing the eggs.” She wipes at the mascara and the tears on her face. “I tried to run, but I slipped and fell by the library gardens, and...and they just kept throwing them, laughing, until they ran out and took off.”
“Oh my God, Mom, that’s awful!” I feel this heat bursting in my chest, this rage. It had to be some of those trolls. It just had to be. The ones who sent me that damn picture in the email.
“I couldn’t get a cab. My phone broke when I fell, and then the bus—” she sniffles “—they wouldn’t let me on looking like this. I had to walk all the way back. Everyone kept staring at me.”
Something chimes over by my desk, and she looks up at my computer, her eyes wide, horrified.
“Divya, darling...is your game still on? Is that...recording?”
I look back to the computer and see Rebekah in her little window, waving about frantically, her mouth open and shouting at me. My phone starts buzzing on my desk. A ton of chat requests and messages are pinging up on my screen, and I spot my little webcam.
It’s on my desk, on an awkward angle, pointing at us.
And it’s still on.
I see us on the screen, in the upper left corner. We’re off to the side somewhat, but still clear as day.
“Fuck!” I march over to the computer, bend down, and pull the plug out completely, the screen and tower going black quickly. I fight the rising urge to pick up the entire gaming rig and throw it out my window just to watch the machine shatter on the pavement below.
Instead, I pick up my phone. There are a bunch of chat messages from Aaron and Rebekah, but I flick them away and open the call screen.
“What...what are you doing?” my mom asks, leaning over to look at the phone.
“Making a call I should have made a while ago,” I say, shaking my head, thinking about that damn email, the trolls with my address, who clearly went out of their way to find out that my mom works at the library. Did they follow her? Have they been following me?
I search my room for Detective Watts’s business card and find it on my desk, right in the middle of all my hastily pushed aside stuff. I dial her number. My mind reels as I take a few deep breaths, trying to stay calm. Just how much did that camera capture—of my mom, of that discussion, of what happened? Did it make it to the stream? And if they figured out where my mom works, do they know where she’s going to school, too? I suppose once they knew where I lived, it couldn’t be that hard... But why target my mom instead of me? Why?
My phone chimes, and I pull it away from my ear to look at the screen. It’s a text from Rebekah, a screenshot of an email. There’s no subject, but the email has a single sentence inside.
Hi Rebekah. The Vox Populi send their regards.
“Detective Watts,” a voice on the other end says, all professional. I fumble with my phone and bring it back up to my ear.
“Hi. Detective?” I exhale, a sob lurking in my throat, and it’s taking everything in me to keep talking through it. “It’s Divya. Divya Sharma. My mother was attacked. They came after my family.”
I think about that email and the photo.
“And I need to show you something.”
Reclaim the Sun: Chat Application
AARON: Oh my God D1V.
AARON: Are you okay? What happened?
D1V: Can’t get into it right now.
D1V: At the police station.
D1V: Trolls figured out where my mom works, harassed her in person.
AARON: Fuck.
AARON: I’m so so sorry.
D1V: Not your fault.
AARON: I wish there was something I could do.
AARON: You let me know if you need anything, okay? Anything.
D1V: I took a screenshot of that.
D1V: I’ll save it for when I want to buy a car or a new gaming rig.
AARON: Can it be a remote-control car?
D1V: Sure.
AARON: And as for the gaming rig, will an old Game Boy Advance suffice?
D1V: That would be excellent.
AARON: Perfect.
D1V: Aaron?
AARON: Yes?
D1V: Don’t stop talking to me. Tell me a story. Tell me something good.
D1V: I hate being here. I hate the questions.
AARON: When I was a kid, my dad was playing this video game with me.
AARON: One of those games that took a photo of you and pasted your face on the body of your character.
AARON: One day I played the game by myself, used his character. And the character died.