“Whe-e-en is yo-ur —–?”
Distorting, warping images of Liam glitch across the screen, his deep blue eyes melting into his soulless sockets.
“I’m sorry, what?” Fiona asks, watching her boyfriend deform on her laptop screen
Her dorm walls: dripping in posters of her favourite bands, University merchandise hanging proudly, textbooks taking over her desk and piles of comics stacked and shoved inside her packed bookshelf. “I think your wifi’s acting up.” She adds, stuffing day-old popcorn in her mouth.
After a moment, Liam’s perfect face fits back together, his perfect white teeth, his perfect azure eyes, his perfect chestnut hair. It all falls into place again. “When is your flight?” he repeats.
“Uh, let me check,” Fiona fiddles with her phone, her fingers sticky from the honey she just drizzled on her popcorn. “Tomorrow, 3PM.” she announces, tossing it on her bed, sheets unchanged since last summer.
Flawlessly, the radiant sun hits Liam’s face in all the right places, generating an ethereal image planted on Fiona’s cracked laptop screen. The still painting of an unbreakable oak tree in the background, “Would you like me to set a reminder?”
She waves her hand, shaking her head “No, no, I got it.”
“I ca-an not wa–it to se-you,” His smile consistent, just for a moment before–
Fiona curses under her breath once her laptop died in her arms.
Fifteen minutes later, Fiona calls Liam back, “Sorry, my laptop died,”
“It’s okay, I missed you.” He responds, in the same position, the glowing painting of a brain staring into Fiona, like Liam’s piercing blue eyes.
– The next day, 11AM.
“Hello Fiona, have you packed yet?” Liam asks, wearing the same black shirt, sitting in the same position in the same location. A sparkling image of stars hanging on the wall, staring into Fiona. She could’ve sworn it was a hot balloon the other day.
“Yep,” she pans the phone camera to her duffel in the corner of her room.
“I can not wait to see you.” he notes, grinning.
“You’ve said that.” Rolling her eyes, chuckling, Fiona props her phone against her waterbottle, moving around the room lazily. Liam’s pupils scan the scene, noting the bands, comics, food, textbooks scattered in different places. Just for a split second, as Fiona glances at her screen, Liam appears uncanny in his toothy smile and unmoving eyes, lacking any warmth.
“Woah, Liam, stop doing that, you look freaky.” Fiona grimaces.
“Stop doing what?” he questions innocently, however, his mouth never seemed to open.
“It must be my wifi.” Fiona mutters.
On the same day, Fiona lands in Illinois, USA. As she rummages through her pocket, she opens her phone to message Liam, she notices he had sent her a message 2 hours ago, ‘sorry, this chatbot is under maintenance’. And that’s when it hit her. Clues began to click into place, he never slept, he never spoke about family, he never changed clothes. Liam was never Fiona’s boyfriend. Liam was never human.