Offline – Chapter 1: The Quiet Screen

Lena didn’t like mornings, but her cat didn’t care. A paw to the cheek and the shrill meow were her daily alarms—far more consistent than any phone app. She rolled out of bed, fed the beast, and opened her laptop like she always did.

Her world lived on that screen.

Art commissions. Emails. Social DMs. The glow of it greeted her more warmly than most people ever had. She liked it that way. Safe. Predictable.

Until today.

Among the usual likes and follows was a new message:

@Kai.Shadows started following you.

The username was odd. The profile was beautiful. Stark black-and-white street shots, moody portraits, little poems in the captions. Not flashy. Real. Uncomfortably real.

She clicked Follow Back before she could talk herself out of it.

Five minutes later, a message arrived.

Kai:

Your last piece feels like loneliness with a heartbeat. I haven’t seen anything like it.

Her heart did a small, stupid flip.

She typed back. Erased it. Typed again.

Lena:

Thanks. That’s kind of the goal.

She hit send.

Somewhere in her gut, something shifted. Not quite excitement. Not quite fear.

Something like gravity.

---

Days blurred into nights, and Lena found herself waiting for Kai’s messages the way she used to wait for paint to dry—restless, focused, a little anxious.

He always sent something after midnight.

Sometimes just words.

> “Do you ever feel like you’re two people? The one you show, and the one who watches from inside?”

Other times, photos.

A cracked mirror. A subway station at 3 a.m. A shadow falling across pavement. Nothing fancy, but they carried a mood—his mood. She couldn’t explain it, but it pulled her in.

They talked about art. Fear. Loneliness. Silence. He never asked her too much, never pushed, just listened. And when she did open up, it felt… safe.

Until one night:

> “I dreamt of you last night. You were standing at the edge of a rooftop. But you weren’t scared. You jumped. You flew.”

She didn’t know what to say. No one had ever spoken about her like that—not in real life.

She stared at the message long after the screen dimmed. Part of her felt like she was falling too.

She stopped posting publicly. Her friends noticed. One messaged:

“You okay? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

She lied. Said she was working on something big.

In truth, her biggest canvas sat untouched in the corner. The only thing growing was her private chat with a man she still hadn’t seen without a camera in front of his face.

But it didn’t matter.

He saw her.

Or so she thought.

---

Days blurred into nights, and Lena found herself waiting for Kai’s messages the way she used to wait for paint to dry—restless, focused, a little anxious.

He always sent something after midnight.

Sometimes just words.

> “Do you ever feel like you’re two people? The one you show, and the one who watches from inside?”

Other times, photos.

A cracked mirror. A subway station at 3 a.m. A shadow falling across pavement. Nothing fancy, but they carried a mood—his mood. She couldn’t explain it, but it pulled her in.

They talked about art. Fear. Loneliness. Silence. He never asked her too much, never pushed, just listened. And when she did open up, it felt… safe.

Until one night:

> “I dreamt of you last night. You were standing at the edge of a rooftop. But you weren’t scared. You jumped. You flew.”

She didn’t know what to say. No one had ever spoken about her like that—not in real life.

She stared at the message long after the screen dimmed. Part of her felt like she was falling too.

She stopped posting publicly. Her friends noticed. One messaged:

“You okay? Haven’t seen you in a while.”

She lied. Said she was working on something big.

In truth, her biggest canvas sat untouched in the corner. The only thing growing was her private chat with a man she still hadn’t seen without a camera in front of his face.

But it didn’t matter.

He saw her.

Or so she thought.

---

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