Sorry, but your friend has been offline for 198 days.

Back in school, years ago, they’d been really close. They’d always eat lunch together. One of them would rent a video game from Blockbuster and that’s how they’d spend their Saturdays. But, since then, they’d grown apart. Distant even. They’d chime in with a customary “happy birthday” message when Facebook gave them the reminder — because there’s no other way to remember everyone’s birthdays at this point — but that’s about it.

Isolated, alone in his one-bedroom apartment for the past three months under “shelter in place” restrictions, Randy was growing increasingly depressed and detached. He was never an especially social person, mostly keeping to himself at the office where he worked as an account manager, at least until everyone was told to stay home. But now, three months later, he really started to miss that human contact and connection after not seeing or speaking to another human for so long.

And that’s when he thought about finding his old friend.

Now that the government was slowly lifting restrictions, maybe they could get together to catch up over coffee. Or a beer. But, logging into Messenger, he sees the message: Sorry, but your friend has been offline for 198 days.

“198 days? That’s more than six months,” Randy thinks to himself. That’s odd. It wasn’t like Simon to just disappear off the web like that. Simon, unlike Randy, was always outwardly extroverted. He was always the life of the party, enthusiastically sharing his adventures on social. Randy opens Instagram on his phone and, sure enough, nothing from Simon in over six months. Same with Twitter. That’s just… weird. What happened?

Suddenly, there’s a knock at the door. Ordinarily, that wouldn’t be alarming. It could be the food delivery guy. Or Randy’s neighbor who kept getting his mail for some reason. But this door, this door is to a closet.

“This is how horror movies start,” Randy ponders reflexively. “But one-bedroom apartments are never haunted. It’s always the prim and proper suburban house with a mysterious past. Or a cabin in the woods. Never an apartment in Crosstown.”

Randy knows it’s a bad idea. No good can possibly come from this. And yet, he really has no choice. He creeps closer and closer to the closet door as the knocking gets louder, more aggressive. Then, just as suddenly as the knocking had started, it stops the moment Randy opens the door.

Nothing. Just his same black t-shirts as always, and the random bag of clutter on the floor. Randy wipes a bead of sweat from his brow. Then, he notices that the bag had tipped over. “Weird.” Randy bends over to pick it up when his ratty, old childhood teddy bear starts Walking. Over. To. Him.

Randy topples over and quickly scoots backwards on his bum, a look of abject terror on his face. The teddy bear — complete with discolored yellow ribbon and a bit of stuffing coming out from a broken stitch on its left armpit — continues walking toward him. Slowly. Cautiously. With arms outstretched. When Randy slides all the way until his back is up against the opposite wall, the bear gestures toward its tummy, over the heart-shaped “press here” button.

“This isn’t happening. This isn’t real,” Randy exclaims. “You can’t be real.”

The bear continues gesturing toward the heart-shaped button. Press here, it beckons.

“This is a bad idea, definitely a bad idea.” And yet, he does it anyway. Of course, he does. Randy inches forward, never taking his eyes off the black-as-death beady eyes of the teddy bear, reaches over, presses the button, and lunges his way backwards again. Even if his future self could have warned him what was to come, he never would have believed it.

“Hello, Randy. It’s been a long time. And I know this isn’t exactly what I had in mind for when we might see one another again.”

“Simon?”

It sounded like Simon, sort of, but almost otherworldly. Like when you recover an old cassette tape and try to transfer or re-encode it into an MP3 file, but the conversion doesn’t work out quite right. This voice sounds hollow and distorted, but it is undeniably Simon.

“Yes, Randy,” replies the scruffy old teddy bear. “I’d explain, but there’s no time for that. Right now, I need you to do something for me.”

It was an odd request, one he wouldn’t necessarily entertain, but that was before. Now, he felt like he had no choice…

…. to be continued?

For more short stories, enjoy Comparison and Maybe Later. Thank you for reading.