alone. white room. white table. white chair.

white laptop. not mine? i sit.

There’s no logo on the laptop. It’s white. An array of dots aligned in a matrix on the cover gives the laptop its online defining characteristic.

who does this belong to? i lift the lid. the laptop was asleep.

an empty desktop with a green rolling hill. a familiar chime.

a single program pops up.

mIRC.

This is an unregistered copy of mIRC. You have 24 days left.

The client connects to a room – #hello.

“hello?” I type in the room named #hello.

butterflyB@stard: hello

am I butterflyB@stard?

AzureDiamond: there you are, we’ve been waiting for you
BlackAdder: you’re finally here! what took you so long?

butterflyB@stard: i woke up in this white room with this laptop.
AzureDiamond: yeah, we all did. now it’s your turn.

butterflyB@stard: my turn to do what?
BlackAdder: to see the truth. do you have DCC enabled?

butterflyB@stard: no, what’s that?

AzureDiamond: nvm, send them the youtube version
BlackAdder: Okay, here's the truth kid. We all got woke up to it. And now?