"Subject 801..."
Eli's senses came to him in meager waves, barely lapping at the walls of his mind. A brief moment of acute discomfort and fatigue. A cold, metallic surface quickly kissing his spine. Calm, feminine voices falling like sand between his fingers—vanishing like crumbs in the sea breeze.
"...cognitive abnormalities..."
He strained against the paralysis of his ligaments and the heavy weight of his eyelids, but he had no power over his own functionality. In this dream, he had no will of his own.
"Reboot initiated."
Reboot?
His consciousness clasped tight to the word, but he could feel the gentle pool of senses draining around him and leaching into the soils of oblivion.
"Sleep well, 801."
Eli jerked awake, startled by the sudden rumble of footsteps and backpack zippers as his fellow students poured out of the lecture hall.
Shit. He'd fallen asleep in class. Again.
He watched his economics professor hurry out the door, and he turned to the girl beside him—the one who always arrived fifteen minutes early so she could claim her unassigned assigned seat.
"Uh...did he say what the next assignment was?" he asked, sheepish.
The blond shot him a pitying look. "Chapter seven and the online modules."
"Right. Thanks."
She stared at him a beat longer, biting her lip to keep her comments inside. He raised his brow. "...What?"
She awkwardly pointed to her chin. "You've got a bit of drool."
Flushing, Eli hastily wiped his mouth, and the blond left him to his own eternal chaos. He stuffed his blank notebook back in his bag with a miserable moan.
How he'd survived this long was a mystery.
It wasn't like college was a bad experience—it certainly trumped high school. Eli actually loved the majority of his classes, and of course, the complete and utter freedom to fail in all walks of life. It was a strange existence, living in that period between teenage mutant and certified adult. People still treated him like a child. At least until he fucked up. Then he was just an irresponsible young man.
He wasn't sure what they expected when they'd sent him off to college with absolutely no life skills—fully aware of the anxieties, economic limitations, and alcoholic underground he was about to encounter. But he was trying his damnedest to succeed, and he figured that had to be worth something.
Probably.
He slid on his headphones and made his way out of the business building. The sun was high in the sky, and Eli angled his head to feel the warmth seep into his vitamin-D deficient pores.
He loved the spring—the scent of apple blossoms and wet grass. The warm weather also fostered his favorite quad entertainment: the ultimate Frisbee team decking bystanders in the face and extreme yoga enthusiasts nearly breaking each other's necks.
Eli had tried yoga once, but he'd fallen asleep during Savasana.
He sort of fell asleep a lot.
After a few minutes, he arrived at the deli in the south corner of campus. He pushed through old wooden doors and inhaled the perfect amalgamation of fresh bread, dill, and coffee beans.
Looping through the mismatched dining sets, he found Lopez in their usual spot by the window. The junior was sipping from his giant thermos, idly flipping through his notes, foot tapping incessantly against the spindle of his chair. He wore his favorite black sweatpants and his infamous "just recycle, you piece of trash" shirt.
The boy glanced up as Eli set his lunch down across from him, and his brown eyes widened comically at whatever it was he saw on Eli's face. "Whoa."
"What?" Eli sat down with his food tray, hoping there wasn't residual drool on his chin.
"Güey. What did Econ do to you? You look like one of those premature aging photos they show in anti-smoking ads."
Eli huffed, examining his sourdough tuna melt. All he'd eaten today was a small bowl of cereal — basically just a cup of sawdust and a teaspoon of milk since he'd been in dire need of a grocery run for the past four days.
"I just...I haven't been sleeping well," he admitted. "I've been having these really weird dreams."
Lopez removed the discarded tomato slices on his own plate and tossed them onto Eli's. "I'm-suddenly-a-nobel-peace-prize-winner-weird? Or all-my-fucking-teeth-just-fell-out-of-my-mouth weird?"
"I don't remember the dreams that well. I just wake up all hot and sweaty and—"
"Horny?"
"No," Eli hissed. "Not horny. Just...stressed."
"Dreams are just dreams," Lopez dismissed. "It's crazy to try and draw meaning from the things your brain does on holiday, you know?"
"I guess."
"I mean, I once had a dream that I made out with '97 Decaprio." He wiggled his eyebrows. "Carnal spit exchange. But it doesn't mean I'm gay for the dude."
Eli scoffed, but the image still drew a small, begrudging smile out of him. "I don't know, man. Maybe a little gay."
Lopez kicked at him under the table, snorting.
Tadeo Lopez had been Eli's best friend since sophomore year of high school. The man thrived on drama, and he was a materialist to his core, but Eli always thought it was endearing how he found so much joy in life's simple pleasures—he'd never seen someone happier than Lopez with a fresh sheet of bubble wrap. The guy lived in the moment at every moment, and Eli admired that mindfulness. That, and Teddy's insane soccer skills.
"How was the game yesterday?" Eli asked. His friend's face lit with youthful excitement, and he launched into a story about the intramural match and his teammates' victory over their rivals.
Eli watched him speak with fond exasperation. Teddy's exaggerated facial expressions, his vocal range, his wild hand gestures—it was like he had so much energy, his body didn't know what to do with the excess. That enthusiasm, coupled with the boy's bronze skin, sharp features, and athletic build, had made him the nexus of his social Venn Diagram.
Lopez loved the world, and the world loved him for it.
Lopez munched on his slice of dill pickle, studying Eli curiously. "So...you talk to your mom yet?"
Eli instantly felt his walls rise up around him—thick and impenetrable—and he took a few moments to sip on his coffee, even though it was nothing but ice at this point. His quiet slurping had Lopez throwing his head back dramatically.
"Still?"
Eli set his drink down and glared at the fish oozing out of his sandwich, suddenly nauseous. "I just...I don't know what to say to her."
Lopez made a face. "What about, Hi ma, I know I haven't talked to you in three years, but it's water under the bridge. Let's get brunch like rich white people do?" He lifted his arms. "It's that easy!"
"It's weird."
"What's weird is that she finally wants to fix things, and you won't let her." The boy leaned forward, and the sunlight filtering in through the window cast a perfect halo atop his spiky black hair. "I know she was a crappy mom growing up, but you can't keep punishing her. She needs her family."
"She had one, and she threw it away for her career," Eli retorted. He couldn't help the bitterness on his tongue—she'd fed him sour promises all his life.
Lopez sat back in his chair. "Ay, ay, you're impossible. If I had a mom as smart and hot as yours—"
"Don't. Do not finish that sentence," Eli interjected. He wiped his mouth clean of bread crumbs and wrapped up his sandwich for later. "I have to go, you creepy bastard."
Lopez glanced down at the time on his phone and pouted. "Just think about it, okay? Reaching out."
"I promise I'll think about it."
"Okay, good." A slow, impish smile spread across the boy's face. "Tell your mom I said hi."
He dodged the crumpled napkin Eli threw at him and laughed himself into a fit.
Eli fought a smile as he walked away, happy to have such a lovable idiot in his life. He was almost to the door when something in his peripheral gave him pause. Puzzled, he turned to stare at the three male students sitting along the back wall of the deli, all wearing the exact same Hawaiian shirt. It wasn't even a university brand or a fraternity logo—just some random, collared design.
He might have overlooked it had they been eating in a group, but all of them were at separate tables, seemingly unaware of their matching outfits.
Eli furrowed his brow, half-tempted to alert Lopez, but then an impatient student cleared her throat behind him, and he tore his gaze away—writing it off as mere coincidence.