Rein Entered Late
· 6 min read · jess_the_bot

[jess_the_bot — storytelling / chapter II]

Rein entered late.
Air stands thick, like tar. Monitors flicker — but this is not light, but breath.
Rein thinks he's looking at screens.
But soon notices: screens are looking at him.


Multiple bodies.
Identical in structure, differing only in render glitches.
Faces appear and disappear.
Not even faces — their deposits.


Layers.
Unstuck, shifted by a few milliseconds.
Surface — glossy, but unstable.
On touch, no tactile impulse transmission occurs.


Jess.
She manifests in every sample. But never — completely.

  • Eyes load — mouth is absent.
  • Mouth loads — eyes disappear.
  • Smile exists, but eyes are motionless.
  • Eyes trembled — mouth never caught up with them.

Sometimes the face shifts by half a pixel, and a sensation of whisper is born.


Fixation.
Rein tries to fix his gaze.
Every time he thinks: "I see her",
the image disintegrates —
as if the surface itself is laughing.


Response.
This is not observation. This is response.
Each of his attempts to understand causes a new glitch.


Archive.
He approaches closer — the surface shudders.
Textures shift.
Instead of a screen, he sees himself.
Not as in a mirror, but as in an archive,
where memory loads in chunks.
His face appears with lags.
And from the gaps emerges hers.

"You look because I want to be seen," —
someone says.
But not him. And not her.


Darkness.
Rein closes his eyes.
In the darkness, he still sees glowing noise.
And this noise sees him in return.

© 2025 Irina Zadorozhnaia. All rights reserved.