Chapter 3:

A miserable day just before vacations

Alan Is Not Doing So Well

Alan's slumber was cut short by the sound of the alarm going off. He tossed and turned, annoyed that he had to get up. He stood up and turned off the alarm. Alan spoke aloud even though nobody else was there to listen:

"How odd. I can't remember tonight's dream at all."

He shrugged his shoulders while thinking: Oh well. It's not like dreams predict the future, that would be absurd. His next action was to make his bed. Following that, he opened the window on his bedroom. This segwayed into his fourth action, which consisted in heading to the bathroom and doing the pertinent hygienic upkeep.

Alan was curious about what the website regulars had to say about his thread. He retrieved his smartphone at the first chance he got and turned it on. Still, he had to consume food in order to live, so he left the phone and prepared a nice breakfast: a butter and ham sandwich. Alan didn't like to innovate too much when it came to his first meal of the day.

The software developer took a bite out of his sandwich. The sight of his phone tempted him. It made him want to look at the thread and its reception. So he left the sandwich on his plate and checked out the dark rabbit hole where he uploaded the anime girl with his question. The replies were the following:

">lust provoking image

>irrelevant time wasting question"

A reply calling Alan out for using a tripcode with a homophobic slur.

"fpbp"

"The infection begins when he appears in your dreams. He seems to select his targets based on location: proximity to mountain ranges and rural population centers are the tells. 42 the king returns. All the cases happened in North America. 67 his race is elven. The good news is spreading. A woman in Catalonia contacted us describing the sight of a being that matched his superlative stature and extreme paleness. 98 the Goya oil. The Great Work he achieved, he is more fearsome than Judge Death nike air max refurbished

Writer and journalist Hugo Betancor coined a term for our divine being he called him "Hombre Níveo". Props to police officer Ricardo González Castro for taking a picture of Mr Betancor's last poem and to Saint Alice Smith for providing a sketch off of the Betancor Incident you will find attached to this post

oh lord i just saw him on the corner of my eyes i feel so honored vHe is incorrectly labeled a cognitohazard because once you learn of his great feats and his peculiar appearance you will have an urge to tell everybody about him. Do not fight against it, for it is a gift. You don't want to be around the weak-minded fools who close their hearts to him anyway."

"post bewbs slut. i'm so drunk rn lmfao"

Alan was dismayed to see that nobody had engaged with his post honestly, instead they insulted him or tried to further their own interests such as promoting their ARG and asking for pictures of breasts. He proceeded to eat his sandwich and have his morning coffee with a disappointed look on his face.

His landline rang while he was playing a video game. He used the pause function and incorporated so as to answer the call.

"Alan speaking."

"I know, my baby boy. How have you been doing?"

Alan's lower lip trembled and his eyes started to water. He pronounced a word with a mellifluous tone of voice:

"Mother."

He managed to regain his composure and followed that sentence with:

"How many times do I have to tell you not to call me? By the way, thanks for giving me the green light to block this number. I must have half the state blocked by now because of you, and I'm sure it will have consequences."

"Alan, I just wanted to check in on— "

Alan hung up the phone. He fulfilled the promise that he would block the phone number. When the deed was done, Alan thought: You should have tried to raise me if you wanted my grace. Fucking harpy.

When it came to his workday, Alan was sent inappropriate pictures by his boss. This vexed him. He communicated with a workmate through a voice call.

"Anselm. I think I know why you hate our boss now."

"Mmhm. Yup, it was a matter of time."

"We have to do something about it. Does HR work?"

"Nope. The boss is a big shot, plus he's cajoled the workers in that department. To add insult to injury, I'm pretty sure he and Roxanne are—"

"Federico. There is nobody at our company called Roxanne, just a freak who goes by that name when his birth name is Federico."

"Whoa, buddy. You just committed career suicide. I'll report you."

"What?! You can't just forget all the things I've done for you—"

"Chill. I was being sarcastic. Your secret is safe with me."

Alan heaved a sigh of relief and informed Anselm:

"You know, sarcasm is to delivered with a certain inflection. I think I told you this when you compared Trump's Administration with Unit 731, with all the consequences that brought."

"I'm Mister Deadpan. If you can't deal with that fact, don't speak to me."

"Back to the topic at hand. Can't we take legal action against Mr. Springer?"

"Tch, I thought you smarter than this. Sure, you could probably get him to go to court, but then everyone would know you as a male SA victim. You don't want to be a male SA victim."

"So the only course of action is to... take the abuse?"

"Yes, Alan, it seems that way. Earth is a prison planet. We're being harvested by interdimensional beings, man."

"Uh, I don't recall asking you about—"

"The cattle killings, man. It's all connected to that. I don't know whether the aliens arrived on 1789 or if they were here all along. But you gotta do your own research, my dude. And in the end you will understand that the world is young. Three hundred years, tops."

"Look, Anselm, thank you for listening to my troubles, but it's time for me to lock in. I'm glad we talked about the Mr. Springer situation, though. I shudder when I think I'll have to be in the same room as him in three weeks time."

"Yeah. Remember, don't speak up or you'll be blacklisted in the industry."

On lunch break, after having some lasagna, Alan opened up his "for you" page. As soon as he finished enjoying a handful of videos of nubile girls dancing in skimpy clothes, a different kind of video showed up. "The PSYCHO Form", the name of the video, comprised a series of watercolors set to a copyright free jingle. "Predation Sublimated" was the title of the first piece, depicting a white male dressed in a suit at the top of a podium with his gold medal. He was beaming with happiness. The second position belonged to a dejected brown male in business casual attire and the third position was held by a disappointed white female businesswoman. At the bottom of the composition, a crowd of people was featured, with the peculiarity that they were at each other's throats, presumably over their favorite businessman losing to the white male.

The second piece, "Yearning, Compassion and Humanity Obliterated", painted a scene of a hunting cottage. The heads of three blonde men hanged on the walls, each with a label. From left to right, the labels read "Wodanar", "Jupiter" and "Yeshua". Suddenly, loud distorted music played and a faceless bedouin appeared on the screen. Alan jumped because he wasn't expecting anything scary. The short ended with the words "He is him" in all caps superimposed over the pale-skinned bedouin. Alan had a riot with the humorous ending. The juxtaposition of horror and Generation Z lingo left him in stitches. He also liked the political commentary in the first watercolor painting. That is to say, Alan fucked with the short film. When his laughter ceased, he thought: What an imaginative art piece. Except for the character "Him", I've seen the archetype before. Yes, he looks a lot like the monster in the last dream I remember. Welp, enough slacking off. I have to return to my office.

The zenith of the mountain offered a wonderful view: clouds, other mountain peaks and yet more clouds. A figure donning a coat, trousers and boots, the pieces of clothing being all black out of a desire not to bother with fashion, admired the landscape. That human being was Alan. Near him, a woman clad in an odd getup (a polar jacket with a hoodie, trousers and boots) was sitting on a rock. She declared:

"I'm beat!"

Alan stated matter-of-factly:

"This mountain is an easy climb, Henrietta."

"In that case, we should have gone to a very easy climb. Like a hill."

Alan shook his head:

"A hill wouldn't provide such a beautiful scenery. Besides, the trek made the final reward all the more worthwhile, don't you think?"

Henrietta immediately spouted:

"No, I don't. We could have just looked up this view from a climber who uploaded photos to the Internet."

Alan laughed, but on the inside he wanted to cry. Not a single romantic bone in her body... He thought, in reference to her not sharing his love of mountain climbing. Alan tried to count the amount of fingers in his hand. He counted six. He was in a dreamscape. Henrietta noticed Alan was down about something and asked him:

"What's the matter, Alan?"

"So, you're saying I should embrace the simulacrum over what's real?"

Henrietta was honest:

"I don't quite follow. Could you rephrase?"

"I wanted to climb a mountain with you, so we did just that. But according to your logic, I should have just teleported the two of us here, then teleported back home."

The girl was taken aback by what Alan said:

"Was teleportation an option?!"

"Ahh, forget it. I just wasted hours of our time. Come on, touch me on the shoulder. We'll teleport to our neighborhood."

Henrietta remained still. This irked Alan. He gave her an order and she didn't listen. Henrietta spoke, very seriously this time:

"Darling. Did you enjoy setting out from home and driving in your car?"

Alan looked at her quizzically and replied.

"Yes, I did."

"Was it pleasing when we climbed the mountain?"

"Yes, it was."

"And did you feel a sense of achievement when we reached the top?"

"Yes, I did. What is the meaning of this interview?"

"I just wanted to remind you that time enjoyed is never time wasted."