Chapter 1 Disillusion
The house was as colorless and underwhelming as the owner's life. Even though it was a bright, sunny day outside, not a single sunray reached Demise's tiny flat. The house was so empty that it looked like a hollow in the tree.
Demise stepped into his living room. There was an old TV, barely hanging on the wall and one window with thick curtains sincerely covering the only bridge between Demise's house and the outside world.
Every time Demise went into his living room, a sudden feeling of fury and anger took over his whole body. This house was the first signal to him of how alone he was. Demise had no will to take care of his house, to furnish and clean it. Each time Demise would grab a mop, his heart and mind would both simultaneously scream to him: "You are alone! Nobody cares if your house is clean or not!"
Demise sipped warm coffee from his mug and sighed.
"Maybe today you will succeed," he told himself with a more pessimistic than encouraging tone.
In front of the window, on the floor, there was Demise's laptop, fussing and disrupting the scary silence of Demise's household. The laptop shone its way to Demise's feet. The pathway of the laptop's illumination was the only hope for this lonely man.
Demise approached the laptop and sat in front of it. The old, wooden floor was cold as it had not been warmed by the sun in a long time now.
Demise's fingers started shaking as he pressed the "refresh" button on the top of the website window. A headache quickly made Demise dizzy; he pressed his thumb and index finger on his eyes and pressed it down to somehow stop the unbearable headache. Nervous sweats ran down on his forehead as the website was still refreshing, fighting the slow internet connection.
Demise hesitantly opened his one eye only to see the rotating 'refresh' symbol on the grey screen.
"Come on!" he impatiently shook the laptop screen, but, of course, it did not help the internet to speed up.
Demise looked around to find anything distracting from this endless wait; an old pack of cigarettes was thrown under the dusty couch. Demise, without moving his body too much, stretched his arm to reach the cigarette pack. Even though he barely touched his fingertips to the Marlboro pack, he still preferred struggling from one place, then standing up, walking to it, and calmly getting it.
Demise put the cigarette between his chapped lips. The moment before lighting up the cigarette was the most overwhelming for Demise, waiting for that first puff, knowing that in a second, the smoke would burn down his throat and lungs made him feel a little bit high.
The stench of the wrinkled poisonous stick became worse with time. Its toxins infiltrated everything Demise was in seconds, from a sickly yellow coating on his skin to the oxygen in his lungs. The tobacco smoke seemed to have a right to be next to Demise than anyone in the world.
Demise had his eyes closed, his elbow resting on his knees, holding a cigarette in his hand and letting all the smoke get as far into his body and mix up with space of his heart as possible. Suddenly, the laptop screen switched from lighting in a grey color to joyful pink and red.
Demise quickly opened his eyes as he heard the sound of notification reaching out from the laptop. There was a "1 message" sign right to his profile picture. Demise's eyes widened from surprise. He bent his neck and back; Demise took his face as close to the laptop screen as possible.
There was a message from some woman – she was an older, white woman, smiling friendly in her profile picture. Only 'Jenna,' written as the nickname, made it easy for Demise to understand that this woman was no ambitious, daring, or naughty. Demise smiled as his hand finally started shaking; the cigarette ashes fell right into his laptop, but the man did not care – he could not wait to reply to this boring woman.
"Hello, Demise!" the text from Jenna said.
"Hello, gorgeous!" Demise quickly typed and pressed the 'enter' button.
Jenna started typing immediately as well, but the three dots appeared and disappeared a couple of times.
"come on…" the agitated man started biting his lips from impatience.
"Tell me a little bit about yourself," the message bubble from Jenna finally appeared.
Demise chuckled. Boring, he thought to himself and started typing the response:
"I look like an average man, but I am telling you, I have a lot to offer," Demise sent and followed it with a wink-face emoji.
"Oh? Like, what?" Jenna instantly answered.
"Like, whole 8 inches," Demise somehow believed it was a good idea to start a conversation like this.
Naughty, naughty girl, Demise thought as he stared at the three dots re-appearing every couple of seconds.
"Send me some pics," Demise decided to make it easier for Jenna.
He thought that if the woman were so uninteresting, she would go along with everything Demise said.
Suddenly, the three dots finally disappeared.
"Where did you go?" Demise sent another text, thinking that the woman was taking pics for him.
Demise creased his brows from confusion after Jenna did not even view his text message. He stared at the screen and completely had forgotten about the cigarette that he was holding. The cigarette burnt down, and a pain Demise felt on his fingers added to the anger after seeing the notice in the chat with Jenna:
"You cannot contact this user anymore. We are looking further into why this account blocked you. Please, continue using the dating app – we are sure you'll eventually find the one here."
Demise's heart rate quickly increased; he breathed heavily, not knowing what to do from the rage that he felt getting larger and more prominent in his body.
Demise sat in the dark; the refreshing dating app browser illuminated only his face
