Inktober 2022

[This is a fictive story; any correlations with actual places, people or events are unintentional.]

Riven opened his eyes, taking in his surroundings. He was sitting on a bench in a park he didn’t recognize, a black bag by the side of his foot. It was cloudy and the sun barely peered over the clouds, it was perhaps around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, and he felt a bit cold in his thin jacket. He immediately reached for his right back pocket, where he usually puts his phone, but found nothing there. After patting himself down, he finally pulled his phone out of his right inner jacket pocket. Riven quickly tried to swipe open his phone, finding that it had been shut off. After a few seconds to restart it, the screen finally lit up. Staring at the date on his lock screen, Riven was horrified. It was the 26th of October, Wednesday. There was a two-day gap between now and his last memory of falling asleep on his couch. It happened again.

He quickly swiped open his phone to try and find some clues about where he was and what had happened. His eyes immediately realized the absence of many of his most used social media apps. They were gone from his home screen, erased, and he found that most of his dearest contacts were gone, either blocked or deleted as well. Riven couldn’t believe it. More and more questions flooded into his head as Riven spiralled into a mess of thoughts. This kind of thing had happened before a few times, but never like this.

Riven would sometimes wake up to find himself somewhere different than where he had fallen asleep, wearing different clothes and having talked to different people. He’d find weird texts at times too, which he thought might’ve been just drunk or confused texting. However, for prior times, it had always been just a few hours, a little shy of a day at most. Not two entire days. Riven scratched at his scalp with his free hand, trying to remember something, anything, but drawing nothing but a blank.

With a sigh, he dragged his finger down over the screen to check the time. Instead what greeted him was two large chunks of text with a distinct yellow triangle in its notification bubble; alerts, issued yesterday. Riven read them quickly, a horrifying feeling of realization washing over him. What on Earth was happening?

EMERGENCY ALERT

Regional Police are investigating a suspect in the Coast area, armed and possibly violent. Suspect is male, around 6 ft 10 in. Please call 911 if suspect is seen and stay away from the area.

EMERGENCY ALERT

UPDATE: Suspect has been confirmed as Riven Gideon, currently around Coast Line Park. Male, 5 ft 9 in, brown hair, wearing jeans and a black jacket, carrying a black bag. Stay away from area and call 911 if suspect is seen. DO NOT INTERACT.