A Brief View

“Here,” Emi said, handing Orion the brand-new smartphone still in its box.

Here they stood just outside the phone store, the glass doors sliding shut behind them with a mechanical chime. With the sky slowly turning gold with the late afternoon sun, and the buzz of people around them seemed to blur in the background as Orion stared down at the device like it might explode.

He opened the box slowly, peeling back the plastic seal with the same precision he might use when unsealing an ancient scroll. The moment his fingers brushed the sleek black surface of the phone, his face stiffened up.

“A… black… brick,” he murmured.

“Don’t worry, it won’t bite,” Emi said, trying not to laugh. “It runs on electricity, since we don’t live in the stone age anymore.”

She stepped closer, tapping the power button. The screen lit up, and Orion immediately jerked his hand back.

“It glows,” he blurted out. “This artifact holds a soul?”

“No, no. That’s just the screen. It’s not alive. Probably.”

He narrowed his eyes.

“Then what is its source of power?”

“Mostly lithium,” Emi said. “And capitalism.”

Orion blinked:

“What... is a lithium?”

“Okay, slow down, we’ll get to that. Just... let me show you.”

She reached for the device, brushing his fingers as she guided his thumb to swipe. The phone unlocked, revealing a field of colorful icons. Orion’s expression turned from caution to quiet awe.

“These sigils... they move. Are they illusions? Traps?”

“They’re called apps. You tap them, and they open ‘portals’ to distraction and misery. And sometimes food delivery.”

Orion gently tapped one of the apps and opened up a weather forecast. He stared at it for a long moment – before finally saying:

“This device... it knows the future?”

“It tries its best,” Emi shrugged.

“Hmm… quite the subpar prophet you have here.”

Emi laughed, clearly already regretting doing all this.

“Just don’t text anyone weird stuff, okay? Matter of fact, give it here. I’ll add my number to your phone for emergencies.”

The two of them had barely turned the corner when a group of older boys came swaggering out from the alley next to the convenience store. Striding along with loud laughter and their hands stuffed in their pockets, with the leader of the bunch in front – his hair bleached in rebellion and bandages covering his cheeks. All five of them – just the classic high school delinquents with too much time and not enough supervision.

“Well, well, what do we have here?” one of them grinned, stepping forward and eyeing Emi. “Little lady’s walking her pretty-boy boyfriend home?”

Rolling her eyes, Emi said:

“Wow. Five whole brain cells between you and that’s the best you can come up with?”

“Oho, feisty ain’t ya,” another cracked his knuckles.

Orion did not move, he simply stood there staring at them with his usual unreadable expression. His new phone now still in his hand.

The leader stepped closer, clearly unimpressed with how short Orion was.

“Yo, what’s with the scarf, little man? You cold or something?”

“‘Tis a garb of exquisite royalty.”

One of the punks snorted, “bro, this ain’t no video game. Your LARPing is cringe.”

“Actually,” Emi cut in, “he’s the final boss. You idiots wanna get curb-stomped in the prologue?”

The delinquents laughed it off, but somehow… that wavered quickly.

Their leader stepped forth, trying to intimidate Orion with his height, saying:

“Come on, man, say something. Or are you too chicken to stand up for yourself?”

And then – the instant their eyes met, the air shifted. Just for a moment no longer than a single heartbeat, the world blurred, humming inside the punk’s ears with a strange weight.

And then – he saw it. He saw him.

Behind the stillness in Orion’s black eyes, there was something else.

A shape.

A silhouette.

Something wrong. Something impossible.

Eight feet tall. Shoulders like obsidian slabs. Skin made out of stone, weighing as much as a mountain. And his eyes – they were burning of a vicious bloody purple that he could not explain.

And just as quickly as the vision appeared, it was out of his mind. Like a dream he could barely remember after waking up.

His bravado was instantly snapped like a twig, shaking his head to anchor himself back down to earth. He called out to his boys:

“We’re done here. Let’s go.”

And so, they shuffled off in a hurry, none of them even daring to look back.

With a silence now filling the air, Emi did not have the patience to even wait for those boys to turn the corner before she tugged at Orion’s arm.

“What on earth was that?”

He simply shrugged.

“I – am.”

Blinking, she said:

“Okay, weirdo.”

As they started walking again, the tension slowly faded – but not completely. Because a tingling feeling was still stirring deep inside of Emi. Something uneasy about this fantasy character that was – heavy. With goosebumps skating on and off her arms and the back of her neck, even though the wind had died down.

She could not explain it, but it felt as if something was emanating from inside of Orion.