Aiden Graham

Sucking at talking and sucking at listening very quickly closed in around Aiden's life when she was little. She was a girl who found herself in the Internet, speaking her woes and her dreams into the pixel void, to get away from suburban banality and daddy's regular beatings of her and mommy. They didn't stop her when she smuggled cigarettes and booze into her bedroom as a teen, so long as she plugged the bottom of her door with a towel.

It turned out she was good at making herself known through the written word, especially where speaking them failed. She dedicated time, energy, and even a bit of cash into her little collection of blogs, steadily building herself up to being a popular voice. When she went to school, she picked up skills in creative writing and investigative journalism, bringing these new abilities to raise her blogs to legitimacy.

But then there was a day where she traveled alone out of suburbia. It was a beautiful, warm, green day, and there was a field of flowers she wanted to spend time in. She was a young adult at this time, just about to finish up school, and it felt like... it felt like for once, her future could be bright.

But there was a point where the flowers gave way. She came to dirt, and then a pit, and then bodies. A pile of bodies with dented heads. The flowers tore and scratched at her as she sprinted through them to get away.

She had to let people know this happened. To blog about it was a decision that was one part strategic, one part flailing madness, but it would ultimately be the decision that cost her her life.

Someone found the draft of the post before she could publish it. She panicked and floundered as the draft was erased, programs were remotely installed, and someone began to talk to her. It was the most horrifying, fascinating thing, this world blossoming before her, this person who entered her life in order to threaten it. She wasn't allowed to talk about this, to tell a fucking soul, or else they'd come to her house and brutalize her until she died. But they liked her, they said. They liked her moxie. So she'd be getting a pass.

From there, Aiden found her world dimming and warping. She found the thrill of this new contact, this half stalker half pen pal, to be alluring. They wouldn't explain to her what happened, but they'd drop her things: coordinates, links, pictures-- a fucking ARG was unfolding before her: a game just for her. Her parents didn't question her intense seclusion at this point, attributing it to depression after graduating and a lack of job prospects. But hey, they let her stick around without paying rent!

She couldn't piece it together at the time, but she was being groomed by a Nosferatu. They liked her style, they liked her sick curiosity, and they wanted to get her into tip-top shape before bringing her onto the team.

But then there was a night where she traveled alone again. She went alone, took the bus, didn't bring her phone. Her mind had degraded from all of the isolation, the obsession, the work demanded to keep her blogs together-- so vanilla activity wasn't gonna cut it. She wasn't a girl who would sit in bars or watch a show. She was feeling different, dangerous, and so she picked a spot to go get lit the fuck up.

She pushed it. Several hundred dollars of alcohol, cocaine, some K, and a few hickeys later, and she was looking rough. Another woman there, an employee, must've thought she looked so pitiful. Another lost, drugged up beauty that's been ruined by the world.

When Aiden woke up again, she was cold, but she wasn't alone. The woman was with her. And it was all about to start making sense.