12 year-old Tommy shivered, his body boxed in a corner of his room. It took his older brother and sister, and Mom. Now it wanted it him. Scanned for him. Couldn’t just live with three, but wanted the whole fucking family. Tommy failed to think of a plan, of a way to beat it, so he just sat in his room, like he always did when Mom and Dad argued on the phone, crying, nervous, frightened. But a bright light warmed his heart. They went before him; he had something they didn’t have: knowledge of what happened. The example of what happened to them. He could change things, alter his future, keep from dying. He closed his wet eyes and began to think, of the day it came.
He was playing the old system, the S-Hex, on Black Friday, when his Mom came home. A creased forehead and hateful grimace overshadowed the thin nose, large, fluttery-blue eyes, and thick and full dirty-blonde hair she displayed for the rest of the world, but he didn’t care about that, only the box in her hands with the words “S-Hex Prime” written in big, bold black. He snatched the box like he hadn’t eaten for days and tore it apart.
“Oh! You bought me the S-Hex Prime! Thanks Mom!”
She walked with clenched fists to a chair and fell, her fingers nails etching claw marks into her forehead. “Your 'father' dropped it by the post office. Of course, you know this means he's not coming by like he promised. Probably bought that bitch's kids one too.” She stomped her foot. Fear sped his heart, stopped his greedy hands. “Let your grades slip a letter for this thing, Tommy, and I'll smash it.” Right on schedule, his brother and sister came home. This time his brother had a black eye. Better than a busted lip or a broken arm, he supposed. His brother took Mom and Dad's divorce harder than anyone: He was Dad's favorite, and Mom won full custody. He always acted-out in school and left home every opportunity he got. Mom loved to hit him the hardest too.
“Mom,” said his sister, “Alec called me a slut so my boyfriend punched him. Please, pleaaassse don't call the police on him.”
“Did not!” said Alec, holding his swollen eye. “He made a joke about my dick size being why I can’t get a girl so I said he got girls only ’cause he dated sluts, not counting my sister.”
“You didn’t say you weren’t counting me then!”
“I didn’t mean it like that… MOM!”
“MOM!” His siblings continued to argue. Then the phone rang, his Dad's name, Jonas Henbane, on the caller id. The youngest focused all his attention on the box, the black console inside it, the auxiliary cables, the two-piece power chord, controller, and a camera on a rotating platform. The sensor camera, a dark square possessing two red eyes. Fiery, red eyes.
His mother clutched her skull, the phone ringing, his sister and brother pushing and shoving, ranting. “I can’t deal with this anymore. I just can’t. God, take me away from all this!” His brother and sister were determined to yell their throats sore, as usual, so their Mom responded by yelling, flipping the furniture, and whipping Alec, as usual. Tommy took the opportunity to sneak upstairs before she remembered his bad grades, settling for dreaming about the S-Hex Prime instead.
The next day, he ran home from school to play the new system, but his brother sat zoned in front of the television, playing some zombie game, his face a zombie itself, eyes bearing no emotion, wide, red-veined, as red as the crimson eyes of the sensor camera staring down on him. His brother probably stayed home again, acting like he left for school only to return minutes later.
“Alec, what’s it do?”
“Huh?”
“That camera thingy that came with the S-Hex Prime. What’s it do?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Infrared scans the body to make gaming avatar resemble you. Creepy ass voice says 'Good morning' and asks what games you want to play .”
“Cool! Let me try.” Alec grabbed his arm and shoved him back, almost ripping his shoulder from the socket.
“NO! IT’S MY TURN!” Spit flew from his mouth, saliva dripped absently down his chin. His brother resembled a man possessed. Tommy wanted to cry from the pain, the mark on his arm and ache in his shoulder, but his brother’s ferocity froze his blood, chilled his skin.
“W...Whatever. Looks boring, anyway.” The weaker sibling scoffed, then carried the old console to his room upstairs, unwilling to give his brother a complete win.
At three a.m., he returned downstairs when the shotguns and screaming zombies stopped. He saw no sign of Alec. The living room lay bare, except for the game controller, the dark T.V. screen, the burning eyes of the scanner-camera.
“Alec! Alec, you there…” White noise flooded the living’s abysmal silence. The television displayed a scene from the game, several zombies chasing, catching, and eating a victim alive. The zombie-meal's scream sounded familiar, the echoes bouncing off his memory. The child approached the screen, saw a sprite resembling his brother, more than twenty walking corpses with guts open, faces ripped by lacerations and convulsions, hanging flesh, reached for the sprite that seemed eerily similar to Alec. Alec fought, punched and kicked, but they just swarmed him.
“HELP ME TOMMY!”
“Alec?” He blinked twice. This couldn't be real. They ripped his brother's limbs, nose, ears off by brute force. Tore away his throat and and Achilles' heel with teeth. Then the screen returned to black. Icy sweat, terror, and disbelief erupted inside Tommy. Something felt wrong. The hellish eyes turned for him; he shot upstairs, locked the door, huddled under his Adventure Time blankets. He knew, but didn't know, he had to remain from the camera's sights.
His Mom knocked later that morning. “Hey, Tommy, where's Alec? He’s going to be late for school.”
His eyes were light bulbs, dry tears and bags hanging under them. “M…Mom! You have to help him. The game got ‘im.” No noise. The silence before the hurricane.
“Is he in there with you?” She tried opening the door, nearly shaking the knob from the frame. “Open the goddamn door! You in there Alec?! Miss another goddamn school day and I'll beat you like a man! ”
“But Mom, it got ‘im. Mom, please.” Two kicks and the door flew open. He leaped from the bed, standing at-attention to his mother. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“I…Uhhh…” She slapped him, stinging fresh tears from his eyes.
“Hurry up and get dressed!” He rushed some clothes on, grabbed his bookbag, then headed downstairs with his mom crushing his wrist. Next to his room, she banged on his sister’s door. Mom must of got another phone call about Alec's absences. “The fuck’s wrong with this house? Open up, Sylvie! Bus’ll be here in five minutes.”
“I’m not going to school today,” said Sylvie from the other side before faking two coughs. “I feel sick.” He raised his gaze over the balcony. The S-Hex Prime wasn’t downstairs. His hands grew clammy, his face pale.
“You’re not staying home so you can ride your boyfriend‘s dick all day. Now open this door!”
“You’re always so mean to us,” said his sister through muffled cries. “You hit us, don’t respect our privacy, and just order us around. You act like such a bitch to us.”
“Don’t curse at me you fucking slut!”
Tommy nudged her arm. “Mom, please, don’t let her stay. Get her out. Get her out…”
She slapped him. “SHUT UP!”
“I’ve never even slept with anyone, I HATE YOU!”
“I’m calling the police if you don’t open this door.”
“AND I’LL KILL MYSELF!”
“MOM!” She snatched his arm as she headed downstairs.
“I don’t have time for this. I have to get to work to earn food for you ungrateful shits.” They left the house, his mother driving her car while Tommy waited for the school bus. All he could was look back, up at his sister’s window.
He arrived home on the afterschool bus, the clouds overcasting what little sun remained. No lights on in the pitch black house. He heard no game system, no crickets, no birds, no sister. Nothing. He flicked on a light, but the absence of noise still created a void. Sis should be chatting on her phone, swooning over MTV, or screaming at the new game system. If she's not running her mouth... He walked upstairs.
“Sylvie?” Her door lay open, cracked with no light, a doorway to the abyss. He walked past the doorway, eyes forward, hoping oblivion would keep him safe. His sister’s scream tripped his reflexes. A light flared through the crack. He ran, swung upon her pink door, saw the system at her television, the blaze-eyed camera focused on the ground. The screen showed a familiar first-person shooter, several military non-player characters aiming at someone tied to a stake, his sister. She struggled, shaking her head off, body jolting, sobbing.
“Somebody help me!”
“SYLVIE!” The NPCs opened fire. Bullets riddled his sister’s body. She fell limp against the stake, and the screen blacked-out. The demonic eyes, the camera’s eyes rose, scanning. Tommy leaped from infrared piercing the doorway and crawled back to his room. His mind grew as cold as his skin. He didn’t know what do it. It was killing his family, but how could he fight it?
He heard, felt his Mom’s entry as he always did, but his fear for the murdering machine in his sister’s room overpowered the awareness of his mother.
“Alec, Sylvie, is anyone home? Why are the damn lights out?” The lights flicked, her footsteps stomped, the door hit the wall, all while his eyes were shaded by the comforter. Lights flicked again, and his mother lifted the covers, a scowl ruining her beautiful features. “Where’s your brother and sister?”
Through reflex, his heart and skin warmed, eyes enlarged. “Mom! Help them! The game took them!”
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him until his head felt dizzy, while she said, “Don’t keep fuckin’ around so damn much!” Her finger nails cut his skin; he cried. “I work two jobs, work all damn day to provide for you three children that don’t give a fuck about me, while your bum-ass dad runs from child support while fucking a red-headed whore! So don’t give me this shit! I’M TOO GODDAMN TIRED OF IT!”
“Mom… I’m sorry…” She smacks him.
“Where are they!” And again. “Where are they!” And again “Where are they!” His nose bled, salt water mixed with blood. Her cell phone rang with Jonas Henbane on the caller id. She screamed and broke the phone on the floor, stomping it repeatedly. The sound of explosions, shooting, and monstrous roars echoed from downstairs. Why downstairs? She released him, her eyes wide with insanity. “So that’s what you meant? She’s downstairs, playing that goddamn game. You’re all always playing that goddamn game. Running to it.” She went out the door.
“MOM DON’T!” He grabbed her leg; she instinctively jolted her foot, kicking him the face.
Her eyes smiled into sickles, her grinning teeth daggers. “You just sit there and be a good boy. Mommy’s going to handle everything.” She headed downstairs; he followed her to the balcony and watched. She confronted the S-Hex Prime, picked up the console and slammed to the ground several times, smashing it to pieces. Her head leaned as she cackled, drool absently running down her lips. “I feel so much better now. Huh?” Hands as black as darkness, formed by the room’s shadows, swarmed over the console’s intestines and reformed them, replacing it’s skin and casing over the innards. Her hot sweat ran cold. Her fiery passion of triumph transformed into the Arctic terror of confronting the unknown. The hellfire camera-eyes beamed on her the infrared, located above a television displaying several virtually rendered characters firing upon a towering monster with scales, two legs, a large head, no eyes with thousands of salivating teeth. Her body quaked, yet she walked to the console, and the controller. “What the hell? I can’t… I must… try it.” She grabs the boomerang-shaped controller in both hands. She screams; her face, then body get sucked into the television as debris getting dragged into a blackhole. From the balcony, he sees his mom on-screen, the other sprites done shooting, the monster looking down on her. In a wet rainstorm, she looks up, feels the snarl, the fear.
“What the fuck? Oh Jesus!” She spots an automatic rifle in the muddy earth, leaps for it, and aims. A sniper shot knocks it from her hands. The recoil burning her wrists, she wails and looks at other sprites. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKIN AT?!!” The monster chomps her upper body, swings her around and swallows the rest, her life staining its teeth, the drool, and the ground. The child screeched and ran back to his room, his hands smothering his eyes.
He strained his brain back where he started, shivering, fearful of death. He didn’t see his brother or sister get taken, but he saw his Mom, saw her die. How? As he suspected, it was the infrared, made you unable to resist the lure so you’d be prey, like the Venus flytrap a classmate brought for show-and-tell. But his Mom only got sucked-in after touching the controller. So, if the hell-window saw him, he would have to touch the controller, but could he do something before then? Get close enough… To destroy it? No, his Mom tried that, and got mauled. Then… Tommy slammed his eyes. It would never work. He knew he’d die in some horrific way and join his family. But as he closed his eyes, he realized the conversations about his sister’s failed hook-ups were gone, his brother would never hand him a controller to co-op a tough boss again, his Mom wouldn’t take him on vacations, congratulate him when he improved his good grades, or cook him the best food in the world. Tears burnt like brimstone against his face. Anger, hatred replaced fear. He wiped the blood under his nose, the tears from his eyes, and grabbed a thick dictionary off his bookshelf. He marched downstairs, confronting the demonic system, the crimson eyes' burning arrows aimed.
“Hey, fuck-face! Try me!” The camera activated the infrared on the child. As he predicted, the pull to the controller was irresistible, instinctual. His legs moved forward yet he could still think, still control his body, just had to touch the controller. He flung the dictionary, knocking the S-Hex Sensor to the floor. As he anticipated, the camera immediately tried to regain focus, yet his foot smashed the sensor before it realigned. The shadow hands appeared, reforming the wired veins and circuit guts. Tommy seized the opportunity to snatch the power chord from the wall. The dark hands quivered, shook, distorted as if put through a blender, the shrill scream of a lion resonated and shook the house, breaking the windows, knocking over furniture, making doors fly off hinges. The storm passed, the boy’s body shook uncontrollably. His old tears were replaced with those of joy. He saw it, still, from the corner of his eye, the S-Hex Prime that took his family, the camera half-complete, broken, but still there. Using what energy remained, he tossed every piece out the window, the system, camera, controller and all.
He was playing the old system, the S-Hex, on Black Friday, when his Mom came home. A creased forehead and hateful grimace overshadowed the thin nose, large, fluttery-blue eyes, and thick and full dirty-blonde hair she displayed for the rest of the world, but he didn’t care about that, only the box in her hands with the words “S-Hex Prime” written in big, bold black. He snatched the box like he hadn’t eaten for days and tore it apart.
“Oh! You bought me the S-Hex Prime! Thanks Mom!”
She walked with clenched fists to a chair and fell, her fingers nails etching claw marks into her forehead. “Your 'father' dropped it by the post office. Of course, you know this means he's not coming by like he promised. Probably bought that bitch's kids one too.” She stomped her foot. Fear sped his heart, stopped his greedy hands. “Let your grades slip a letter for this thing, Tommy, and I'll smash it.” Right on schedule, his brother and sister came home. This time his brother had a black eye. Better than a busted lip or a broken arm, he supposed. His brother took Mom and Dad's divorce harder than anyone: He was Dad's favorite, and Mom won full custody. He always acted-out in school and left home every opportunity he got. Mom loved to hit him the hardest too.
“Mom,” said his sister, “Alec called me a slut so my boyfriend punched him. Please, pleaaassse don't call the police on him.”
“Did not!” said Alec, holding his swollen eye. “He made a joke about my dick size being why I can’t get a girl so I said he got girls only ’cause he dated sluts, not counting my sister.”
“You didn’t say you weren’t counting me then!”
“I didn’t mean it like that… MOM!”
“MOM!” His siblings continued to argue. Then the phone rang, his Dad's name, Jonas Henbane, on the caller id. The youngest focused all his attention on the box, the black console inside it, the auxiliary cables, the two-piece power chord, controller, and a camera on a rotating platform. The sensor camera, a dark square possessing two red eyes. Fiery, red eyes.
His mother clutched her skull, the phone ringing, his sister and brother pushing and shoving, ranting. “I can’t deal with this anymore. I just can’t. God, take me away from all this!” His brother and sister were determined to yell their throats sore, as usual, so their Mom responded by yelling, flipping the furniture, and whipping Alec, as usual. Tommy took the opportunity to sneak upstairs before she remembered his bad grades, settling for dreaming about the S-Hex Prime instead.
The next day, he ran home from school to play the new system, but his brother sat zoned in front of the television, playing some zombie game, his face a zombie itself, eyes bearing no emotion, wide, red-veined, as red as the crimson eyes of the sensor camera staring down on him. His brother probably stayed home again, acting like he left for school only to return minutes later.
“Alec, what’s it do?”
“Huh?”
“That camera thingy that came with the S-Hex Prime. What’s it do?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. Infrared scans the body to make gaming avatar resemble you. Creepy ass voice says 'Good morning' and asks what games you want to play .”
“Cool! Let me try.” Alec grabbed his arm and shoved him back, almost ripping his shoulder from the socket.
“NO! IT’S MY TURN!” Spit flew from his mouth, saliva dripped absently down his chin. His brother resembled a man possessed. Tommy wanted to cry from the pain, the mark on his arm and ache in his shoulder, but his brother’s ferocity froze his blood, chilled his skin.
“W...Whatever. Looks boring, anyway.” The weaker sibling scoffed, then carried the old console to his room upstairs, unwilling to give his brother a complete win.
At three a.m., he returned downstairs when the shotguns and screaming zombies stopped. He saw no sign of Alec. The living room lay bare, except for the game controller, the dark T.V. screen, the burning eyes of the scanner-camera.
“Alec! Alec, you there…” White noise flooded the living’s abysmal silence. The television displayed a scene from the game, several zombies chasing, catching, and eating a victim alive. The zombie-meal's scream sounded familiar, the echoes bouncing off his memory. The child approached the screen, saw a sprite resembling his brother, more than twenty walking corpses with guts open, faces ripped by lacerations and convulsions, hanging flesh, reached for the sprite that seemed eerily similar to Alec. Alec fought, punched and kicked, but they just swarmed him.
“HELP ME TOMMY!”
“Alec?” He blinked twice. This couldn't be real. They ripped his brother's limbs, nose, ears off by brute force. Tore away his throat and and Achilles' heel with teeth. Then the screen returned to black. Icy sweat, terror, and disbelief erupted inside Tommy. Something felt wrong. The hellish eyes turned for him; he shot upstairs, locked the door, huddled under his Adventure Time blankets. He knew, but didn't know, he had to remain from the camera's sights.
His Mom knocked later that morning. “Hey, Tommy, where's Alec? He’s going to be late for school.”
His eyes were light bulbs, dry tears and bags hanging under them. “M…Mom! You have to help him. The game got ‘im.” No noise. The silence before the hurricane.
“Is he in there with you?” She tried opening the door, nearly shaking the knob from the frame. “Open the goddamn door! You in there Alec?! Miss another goddamn school day and I'll beat you like a man! ”
“But Mom, it got ‘im. Mom, please.” Two kicks and the door flew open. He leaped from the bed, standing at-attention to his mother. “Why aren’t you dressed?”
“I…Uhhh…” She slapped him, stinging fresh tears from his eyes.
“Hurry up and get dressed!” He rushed some clothes on, grabbed his bookbag, then headed downstairs with his mom crushing his wrist. Next to his room, she banged on his sister’s door. Mom must of got another phone call about Alec's absences. “The fuck’s wrong with this house? Open up, Sylvie! Bus’ll be here in five minutes.”
“I’m not going to school today,” said Sylvie from the other side before faking two coughs. “I feel sick.” He raised his gaze over the balcony. The S-Hex Prime wasn’t downstairs. His hands grew clammy, his face pale.
“You’re not staying home so you can ride your boyfriend‘s dick all day. Now open this door!”
“You’re always so mean to us,” said his sister through muffled cries. “You hit us, don’t respect our privacy, and just order us around. You act like such a bitch to us.”
“Don’t curse at me you fucking slut!”
Tommy nudged her arm. “Mom, please, don’t let her stay. Get her out. Get her out…”
She slapped him. “SHUT UP!”
“I’ve never even slept with anyone, I HATE YOU!”
“I’m calling the police if you don’t open this door.”
“AND I’LL KILL MYSELF!”
“MOM!” She snatched his arm as she headed downstairs.
“I don’t have time for this. I have to get to work to earn food for you ungrateful shits.” They left the house, his mother driving her car while Tommy waited for the school bus. All he could was look back, up at his sister’s window.
He arrived home on the afterschool bus, the clouds overcasting what little sun remained. No lights on in the pitch black house. He heard no game system, no crickets, no birds, no sister. Nothing. He flicked on a light, but the absence of noise still created a void. Sis should be chatting on her phone, swooning over MTV, or screaming at the new game system. If she's not running her mouth... He walked upstairs.
“Sylvie?” Her door lay open, cracked with no light, a doorway to the abyss. He walked past the doorway, eyes forward, hoping oblivion would keep him safe. His sister’s scream tripped his reflexes. A light flared through the crack. He ran, swung upon her pink door, saw the system at her television, the blaze-eyed camera focused on the ground. The screen showed a familiar first-person shooter, several military non-player characters aiming at someone tied to a stake, his sister. She struggled, shaking her head off, body jolting, sobbing.
“Somebody help me!”
“SYLVIE!” The NPCs opened fire. Bullets riddled his sister’s body. She fell limp against the stake, and the screen blacked-out. The demonic eyes, the camera’s eyes rose, scanning. Tommy leaped from infrared piercing the doorway and crawled back to his room. His mind grew as cold as his skin. He didn’t know what do it. It was killing his family, but how could he fight it?
He heard, felt his Mom’s entry as he always did, but his fear for the murdering machine in his sister’s room overpowered the awareness of his mother.
“Alec, Sylvie, is anyone home? Why are the damn lights out?” The lights flicked, her footsteps stomped, the door hit the wall, all while his eyes were shaded by the comforter. Lights flicked again, and his mother lifted the covers, a scowl ruining her beautiful features. “Where’s your brother and sister?”
Through reflex, his heart and skin warmed, eyes enlarged. “Mom! Help them! The game took them!”
She grabbed his shoulders and shook him until his head felt dizzy, while she said, “Don’t keep fuckin’ around so damn much!” Her finger nails cut his skin; he cried. “I work two jobs, work all damn day to provide for you three children that don’t give a fuck about me, while your bum-ass dad runs from child support while fucking a red-headed whore! So don’t give me this shit! I’M TOO GODDAMN TIRED OF IT!”
“Mom… I’m sorry…” She smacks him.
“Where are they!” And again. “Where are they!” And again “Where are they!” His nose bled, salt water mixed with blood. Her cell phone rang with Jonas Henbane on the caller id. She screamed and broke the phone on the floor, stomping it repeatedly. The sound of explosions, shooting, and monstrous roars echoed from downstairs. Why downstairs? She released him, her eyes wide with insanity. “So that’s what you meant? She’s downstairs, playing that goddamn game. You’re all always playing that goddamn game. Running to it.” She went out the door.
“MOM DON’T!” He grabbed her leg; she instinctively jolted her foot, kicking him the face.
Her eyes smiled into sickles, her grinning teeth daggers. “You just sit there and be a good boy. Mommy’s going to handle everything.” She headed downstairs; he followed her to the balcony and watched. She confronted the S-Hex Prime, picked up the console and slammed to the ground several times, smashing it to pieces. Her head leaned as she cackled, drool absently running down her lips. “I feel so much better now. Huh?” Hands as black as darkness, formed by the room’s shadows, swarmed over the console’s intestines and reformed them, replacing it’s skin and casing over the innards. Her hot sweat ran cold. Her fiery passion of triumph transformed into the Arctic terror of confronting the unknown. The hellfire camera-eyes beamed on her the infrared, located above a television displaying several virtually rendered characters firing upon a towering monster with scales, two legs, a large head, no eyes with thousands of salivating teeth. Her body quaked, yet she walked to the console, and the controller. “What the hell? I can’t… I must… try it.” She grabs the boomerang-shaped controller in both hands. She screams; her face, then body get sucked into the television as debris getting dragged into a blackhole. From the balcony, he sees his mom on-screen, the other sprites done shooting, the monster looking down on her. In a wet rainstorm, she looks up, feels the snarl, the fear.
“What the fuck? Oh Jesus!” She spots an automatic rifle in the muddy earth, leaps for it, and aims. A sniper shot knocks it from her hands. The recoil burning her wrists, she wails and looks at other sprites. “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKIN AT?!!” The monster chomps her upper body, swings her around and swallows the rest, her life staining its teeth, the drool, and the ground. The child screeched and ran back to his room, his hands smothering his eyes.
He strained his brain back where he started, shivering, fearful of death. He didn’t see his brother or sister get taken, but he saw his Mom, saw her die. How? As he suspected, it was the infrared, made you unable to resist the lure so you’d be prey, like the Venus flytrap a classmate brought for show-and-tell. But his Mom only got sucked-in after touching the controller. So, if the hell-window saw him, he would have to touch the controller, but could he do something before then? Get close enough… To destroy it? No, his Mom tried that, and got mauled. Then… Tommy slammed his eyes. It would never work. He knew he’d die in some horrific way and join his family. But as he closed his eyes, he realized the conversations about his sister’s failed hook-ups were gone, his brother would never hand him a controller to co-op a tough boss again, his Mom wouldn’t take him on vacations, congratulate him when he improved his good grades, or cook him the best food in the world. Tears burnt like brimstone against his face. Anger, hatred replaced fear. He wiped the blood under his nose, the tears from his eyes, and grabbed a thick dictionary off his bookshelf. He marched downstairs, confronting the demonic system, the crimson eyes' burning arrows aimed.
“Hey, fuck-face! Try me!” The camera activated the infrared on the child. As he predicted, the pull to the controller was irresistible, instinctual. His legs moved forward yet he could still think, still control his body, just had to touch the controller. He flung the dictionary, knocking the S-Hex Sensor to the floor. As he anticipated, the camera immediately tried to regain focus, yet his foot smashed the sensor before it realigned. The shadow hands appeared, reforming the wired veins and circuit guts. Tommy seized the opportunity to snatch the power chord from the wall. The dark hands quivered, shook, distorted as if put through a blender, the shrill scream of a lion resonated and shook the house, breaking the windows, knocking over furniture, making doors fly off hinges. The storm passed, the boy’s body shook uncontrollably. His old tears were replaced with those of joy. He saw it, still, from the corner of his eye, the S-Hex Prime that took his family, the camera half-complete, broken, but still there. Using what energy remained, he tossed every piece out the window, the system, camera, controller and all.