That had been three drinks ago.

The phone sat in your hand like a live grenade. The screen glowed with the evidence of your crime: Delivered. The word stared back at you, smug and permanent, like it knew exactly what you'd just done and was already looking forward to telling everyone.

Be honest. Have you always looked that good exhausted or did aging just hit you unfairly well?

You were going to die. That was it. That was the end. Twenty-two years of life, four years of hero training, countless villain encounters—all of it culminating in a text message that sounded like something a drunk aunt would send to a celebrity she saw on TV once.

You stared at the screen, waiting for the ground to swallow you whole.

It did not.

Instead, three little dots appeared.

Your heart stopped.

The dots disappeared.

You exhaled. Okay. Fine. He'd seen it, hated it, and decided to pretend it never happened. That was—that was fine. That was survivable. You could work with that. Maybe he'd think it was a wrong number. Maybe he'd—

The dots reappeared.

"Oh, fuck," you whispered, and the universe, cruel as always, decided that was the exact moment to deliver its verdict.

Your phone buzzed.

One unread message from Eraserhead.