Neline watched the small raindrops slide across her window til the rushing wind whisked them away. The gray skies above reflected her mood after her last day at basketball tryouts was cut short. She had a genuine chance at making it into the team; she might as well have been in it already. But her mother had to step in and pull her as she was in the middle of the final shooting drills.
“You told me you would hang out with a friend, not go to the basketball tryouts.” her mother had snapped at her daughter at the gym parking lot earlier.
The young teen shrugged as she crossed her arms. “I mean, I did hang out with my friend Jasmine. At the basketball tryouts.”
And that was how Neline got herself confined to the house for the entire weekend.
Both mother and daughter barely talked for the rest of the trip home. As they pulled into the driveway, Neline rushed inside, threw her jersey into the laundry bin, tripped up the stairs, and slammed the bedroom door. She dropped herself on her messy bed, threw her bed sheets on herself, and curled up.
And there it goes, she thought to herself. The one dream I wanted for myself. Gone in a flash.
Neline blinked, then stared blankly into the dark corner of her room. Normally, the afternoon light lit her room from corner to corner brilliantly, shining off the fuchsia-painted walls. This was not the case today, with everything from the top down washed in a dreary, sickening purple.
For the first time, she had no tears or screams to offer; only an ear-ringing silence remained. For once, she felt numb to the unreasonable demands and indirect insults of her mother. She shook her head, trying to throw out all the thoughts in her head, not wanting to think about anything. But she could not stop the waves of anger, frustration, and loss from invading her mind. The young teen was reduced to nothing more than a hopeless mess.
A hopeless mess? Neline frowned, disappointed with herself. That was the first time she had ever had such a thought. Was her situation so hopeless that she let these depressing thoughts dominate her mind?
No, she should not surrender too easily to her mother's demands. Neline scanned around her room for ideas, a solution to get her back into basketball. Her eyes then settled on the laptop, on the table opposite her bed. She shrugged; there was a mostly foolproof solution in it, but it was also the most frustrating.
She snatched the laptop from the tabletop and flicked it open. Her eyes squinted, trying to adjust to the screen's bright light. A document appeared, covered with thousands of words, photographs, numbers, and statistics. The first page of the document showed the title in bold capital letters: “A Thorough Study on the Study of Socioeconomic Impacts of Left-Handed Rats on Right-Handed Public Workers in Restrooms.”
This paper was originally a simple summer school assignment; a research paper discussing a local economic issue of her choice. It was going to be a breeze, taking three days to complete. Until her mother learned about it and pushed her to take it more seriously. Now, because of her mother’s persuasions, she had to alter the topic to accommodate the section for rats (to make it sound more complex). To make it worse, she also needed it printed and submitted to the mayor’s office in three weeks.
“You’ll be serving the community,” Neline repeated her mother’s words. “Also, you could be rich and famous on the side. Sure, like anyone cares about left-handed rats.”
Regrettably, this was the best solution Neline could think of on short notice. The sooner she finished the paper and had it squared away on the mayor’s desk, the earlier she could be freed from this horrid assignment. But more importantly, she could use it as leverage to convince her mother to get back into basketball. As much as she hated the thought, there was no other alternative.
And so that is what Neline did. She lost herself in the repetitive cycle of researching rats online, jotting her notes, and typing the results in the document. Now and then she would take a tiny nibble at the half-melted chocolate she kept hidden in her pockets, but never once did she look away from the screen. Her whole future hinged on this research paper.
Over time, she slowly felt her eyes straining from behind their sockets. She noticed also a persisting ringing in her ears and her lips had begun to dry and crack. The strange symptoms only grew more intense the longer she kept working, now accompanied by feeling lightheaded and seeing spirals.
But no, she could not succumb now! Neline shook her head and kept typing, using every bit of energy she had left in her body, pounding each key on her laptop. Whatever it took, she needed to finish as much as she could before evening. Now was the time to show her mother what she could do!
Her anger and grit certainly gave her the boost she needed, her body fully awakened. She felt a hundred-ton load lifted off her back. Neline felt more focused on the screen, getting closer to it till the white light filled her vision - as if she was in the screen itself! The world around her was filled with bright light and spiraling black letters, spinning faster than her eyes could keep up with.
There was something in the whirlwind of light, trying to grab her. Neline was blinded, but she felt something large and cold grab her from the back of her skull. Suddenly she was yanked forward and pulled closer and deeper into the freezing light.
Neline then shot up, her forehead covered in a cold sweat and her breathing heavy. She rubbed her eyes and looked around; she was back in her dark bedroom. It was only a fever dream—perhaps all the writing and worrying fatigued her more than she thought.
The paper! Neline furiously smashed the on button of her laptop and opened the document. She scanned each line carefully, hoping that nothing was ruined while she fell asleep. Thankfully, the autosave feature saved her this time. Everything is still in its proper place.
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
But wait, there was still something wrong. Sitting back up, she glanced at the tiny number that indicated how many pages she had, about forty-three. She shoved her palms into her face, frustrated. In the time spent writing, she only completed a third of the required amount of pages.
***
Around this time, the sun had almost completely set, indicating that dinner was halfway through. Neline barely made it downstairs before her mother decided to put the food away. She sat at the opposite end of the table from her mother, looking down at the sticky, lukewarm macaroni. The two did not speak a word, though an aura of disdain and resentment circled the dining area.
Neline then returned upstairs for a quick bath, jumped into her pajamas, and again flopped on her bed. She stared upwards at her white ceiling, unable to sleep. Her mind still wandered to the overbearing weight of the research paper, unable to shake it off. At this rate, there would be no time and strength for any personal activities.
She might as well give up on the basketball dream. Thanks a lot, Mom.
There was nothing she could do about it right now. She began to distract herself and think about other things, such as that cute boy from school, the results of the basketball tryouts, and what her friends Rennard and Reisender were up to. Of course, there was that strange dream she had earlier. Thinking about it brought back the spine-tingling cold that made her headache. If it were not for that disgusting paper of hers, she would not be stressing so much that it would give her nightmares. Perhaps that is why she could not sleep; she was afraid of having to think about her work.
Neline sat up in bed, resting her chin on her knees. “There’s no way I’m going to sleep like this.” She then glanced at her laptop. “There’s no way either that I’m continuing that paper the way I am.”
She grabbed her laptop and opened the document one more time, staring at the painfully endless lines of words. There had to be a better way of writing this besides cheating. What she needed was a way to find and organize information faster.
There may be a solution online. Neline typed the keywords “something to help me find and organize information faster” on the search bar, and began scrolling through the results. Unfortunately, between the self-help articles and AI-generating tools, there was not much to go on.
“This is ridiculous,” sighed Neline. She slammed her head down on the keyboard, typing a long line of F's on the search bar.
Just as the laptop reached its 117th F, it let out a notification bell chime. A small red dot appeared in her email. Neline tilted her head, perplexed. Why would someone email her this late at night?
She clicked on the small envelope symbol, opening the mail she had received. It was from Bright Minds Initiatives, a company she had never heard of before. The letter, though technically an advertisement, seemed mysteriously personalized to her:
“Dear Neline:
Hello! Have you ever had difficulties with your schoolwork? Are you looking for something to help you find and organize information faster? Look no further!
Our latest tool, Ardmas, is a browser extension that helps you locate resources for your project! Just type in your research topic and Ardmas will automatically search and suggest any closely related information 97.55555% faster and more accurately than any existing search engine.
With a premium subscription, you can also put down your notes and Ardmas will assist in keeping all your content tidy and organized, all at the push of a button.
Try premium with a 28-day free trial! We hope you become astonished and absorbed by our product!
Sincerely,
The Bright Minds Team”
Below the letter was an installation link, highlighted within an embossed orange rectangle.
Neline narrowed her eyes, reading the email again for the third time. “Right, totally not suspicious. these search engine corporations really need to stop spying on user data for better suggestions. Nevertheless, it’s an interesting suggestion…”
She clicked on the link, which immediately redirected her to the website, and installed the extension on her web browser. Afterward, she opened the document containing her paper, unsure what to expect next. But nothing occurred on the document; no changes, alterations, or fancy technical stuff. In hindsight, she may have hit that install button too enthusiastically. She should have thought it through a bit more; the tool might be a scam or malware.
As soon as this thought entered her mind, a small white chatbox appeared on the right of her screen. There was a tiny icon of an anthropomorphic lightbulb on the top right of the box. A cartoony speech bubble floated above the lightbulb, saying “Hello, I am Ardmas! What are we searching for today?”
Neline lightly tilted her head to the right again in curiosity. “Well, since we made it this far, we might as well try it out.”
To test, she typed down a single line into the chatbox: “Looking for research papers related to left-handed rats”. She then hit enter, and sat back, watching the throbber spiral as potential results loaded in. However, in her mind, she knew that there was no logical way this was going to work. Besides, who would want to do a research paper on left-handed rats anyway?
Proving her wrong again, the chatbox opened to a window that displayed hundreds of documents related to left-handed rats. The documents at the top were organized to be the most relevant to the research paper topic. Each also had a textbox under it that contained individual quick summaries and information about how relevant it was to the research.
Neline was at a complete loss for words, dumbfounded why someone would want to research left-handed rats. But also, she was surprised that she found them at all, complete with summaries and notes. This was too good to be true. All the information she ever needed now lay before her like magic. Hundreds of hours intended for needless research were saved by Ardmas in mere seconds. The only thing left now was to organize and write all the information into her paper, and it would be wrapped in a pretty box on the mayor’s desk in no time. It was nothing short of a miracle.
Returning to her document, Neline began listing the names and summaries so that she could begin researching and writing down the information. She laughed to herself, thinking about all that had happened. Sure, there was no denying the absurdity of the tool suspiciously catered to her, but all she wanted right now was to get this dumb project over with and get back into basketball. She would show her mother who would trump this time around.
***
Having been able to get a large amount of work completed smoothly, Neline was able to retire for the night peacefully with a light smile on her face. A long, frustrating day came to a somewhat happy ending. There were no strange dreams this time of cold light and monsters. She was finally able to rest and recover for the big day tomorrow. But for now, Neline snuggled deep under her blanket, enjoying the dark, quiet night.
Her laptop was squared away on her desk, still warm from all the work Neline put into it earlier. Its black screen reflected the rising and falling of the blanket and the mumblings of its owner as she slowly drifted off to sleep. Just like her, it could finally be laid to rest and cool off for the night. Its fans quieted, and its systems began shutting themselves off.
Though for another, the night was not over quite yet. The laptop’s fans quietly whirred again, bringing it back to life. Its monitor flashed on, displaying blinking red and white colors on all thousands of pixels. The white pixels grew and clawed across the screen, spreading like a virus. It continued to spread till it covered everything, bursting intense blinding light across the room. The laptop was completely out of control, as the squealing whirr of the fans pierced the thick air. The keys typed themselves; black-green letters scrawled across the screen, with the words “research paper” “left-handed rats” and “public workers”.
Just as quickly as the laptop came to life, its fans suddenly stopped dead and its monitor closed. It shut down completely, filling the room with darkness and silence. Neline was unbothered as she turned over in her sleep, having the sweetest of dreams.