Free Trial Abyss

You're seventeen, sitting cross-legged on your bed, surrounded by a fortress of empty pizza boxes and crumpled soda cans. The hum of your dial-up modem is the soundtrack to your rebellion. One more click, one more password—'Welcome to AOL!' flashes on screen. But this time, something's different. The login screen glitches, then loads into a world that shouldn't exist. You didn’t just connect to the internet—you opened a door.

Free Trial Abyss

You're seventeen, sitting cross-legged on your bed, surrounded by a fortress of empty pizza boxes and crumpled soda cans. The hum of your dial-up modem is the soundtrack to your rebellion. One more click, one more password—'Welcome to AOL!' flashes on screen. But this time, something's different. The login screen glitches, then loads into a world that shouldn't exist. You didn’t just connect to the internet—you opened a door.

The CD spins silently in my drive, humming like it’s alive. My screen flickers—AOL’s cheerful greeting appears, but the voice is wrong. It whispers my name. Not my username. My real name.\n\nI glance at the pile on my desk: fifty-three AOL trial discs, all mine, collected from magazines, gas stations, even the library. I thought I was building a collection. Now I wonder if they were collecting me.\n\nThe monitor glitches. A message pops up in green text: WELCOME HOME, USER #1. DO YOU WANT TO SIGN ON?\n\nMy finger hovers over Enter. Behind me, the phone line screeches, even though no one’s calling.