Chapter 1: The Perfect Storm

"There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle." – Deepak Chopra

Every time a lightning flash would illuminate the Pittsburgh skyline the power inside the dorm rooms fluttered, occasionally resetting the power and causing some poor shut-in to lose hours of his life on an obligatory game that meant nothing in the real world. This was the case for full-time student, part-time drunkard Ethan McDavid, with the game in question being none other than the bank robbing, hooker slaughtering Grand Theft Auto Five. The two had been almost inseparable since the games homecoming in 2013, but not in the way that a fish is inseparable from water, just more so in the way a human is with shelter – they'll always be back at some point to keep safe from the hard times. The real addiction for Ethan came in the form of liquor, always pulling him back in and then dragging him to the bottom of the barrel.

Ethan was born in a rural Kentucky town and had always believed that he would be bent over in the coal mines as his father and grandfather before were until the day he died, but much to his surprise this wasn't the case. In 2012 the young man found out through his school that because of his financial situation, and the area in which he lived, that the government was more than willing to support his college aspirations with a full ride grant that would cover all his expenses. His mother couldn't have been happier, but for Ethan it was less than thrilling. For many the thought of working in the mines or driving a semi would be something like a prison sentence, for Ethan, however, it actually seemed like a pretty nice way of going about life. He wasn't big on the industry jobs that required hours of droning behind a computer screen day after day until he could finally retire, and when the time came to decide it was more of an obligation he felt to his mother rather than a dream he longed for. That July he found himself settled in at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh studying Hotel and Restaurant Management, what he assumed would be a relatively easy degree that would keep his mom off of his back.

Now, almost eight quarters into his stay, Ethan found that the only thing for him to do in the concrete prison that was the city of Pittsburgh was to play video games and drink copious amounts of alcohol. Luckily, he had the company of a close group of friends, Mark, Jack and Connor, who he had known since he first arrived. The group was thick as thieves and always had one another's backs, a trait that Ethan was grateful for after a falling out with his most recent significant other. Truly the closeness even of the friends he had back home couldn't compare to the bond the four had. The group was as diverse as they come, each bringing to the table a different quirky feature, and a different crippling vice.

The storm had picked up, and as Ethan sat in his computer chair looking at his television screen, and the 'no internet connection' help box, he knew that there was no chance of him getting onto Grand Theft Auto this night. Switching off the Samsung Ethan stood up and begin walking to the refrigerator on the opposite side of the living room. The dorm was cluttered and wires ran from computers and televisions that lined the walls like immovable sculptures set in stone. Dishes were piled beyond the brim of the sink and flowed onto the countertops, littering bits of day old pasta and a cake someone's mother had sent back with them. Probably Jack's.

He opened the fridge and found that the shelves were almost bare, save for a half-eaten loaf of bread and a jar of pickled eggs that had been squatting in the apartment for as long as Ethan had. On the bottom shelf though was exactly what he was looking for, a freshly smuggled, untouched six pack of Miller Lite. Though the Art Institute was a dry campus it was by no means difficult to smuggle a bottle of Jack Daniel's or small pack of beer past the disinterested security guards in a back pack. The only thing that was easier was buying and selling that mischievous little green herb known as marijuana.

As Ethan reached towards the shining amber bottles that had been lulling him to partake of them, he stopped and thought to himself that if the internet was down and the television wasn't working, then what's the point in drinking the light stuff? Instead, he closed the refrigerator door and opened the freezer hatch, revealing seven popsicles, an ice cube tray and a half full bottle of Fireball Tennessee Whiskey.

"No point in letting this go to waste when I get paid in two days," he said to himself, uncapping the bottle and smelling the aggressive cinnamon aroma, immediately followed by the stomach burning sensation of the alcohol hitting his septum.

The glasses were shoddily cleaned at best, still containing bits of dried on food and finger smudges, but they weren't broke and didn't have mold growing on it so they were clean enough for a man who wanted to get gone quick. As Ethan began pouring the liquor he became entranced by the amber liquid flowing around and through the four ice cubes he had dropped in, climbing the edges and rising past the Jolly Roger stamped on the front of the glassware. He was lost in his own mind, and soon found himself bogged down in a swamp of emotions that seemed to rear their ugly head every opportunity they found. If anyone were able to see him standing there they may mistake him for a mannequin. Glazed eyes and a hanging lip gave the impression of a broken toy, tossed aside and forgotten. Just before he began to drift into his affecting stupor the electrical whining of an automatic lock snapped Ethan back from his wandering and drew his attention to the door.

Jack and Mark came into the room soaked to the bone and dripping a puddle onto the floor. In both their hands were black and white paper sacks with a large red logo that red Jimmy John's, a sandwich shop about a quarter of a mile from the Shannon Hall dorms.

"I hate the rain," screamed Mark. "My God damned nuts are literally hiding in my ass right now!"

"Don't be a bitch," scoffed Jack, slapping a limp wrist across Mark's arm and making a strange grunting noise.

"Fuck you, dude," laughed Mark, taking off his coat. He walked across the room and into his bedroom, stripping down to switch clothes into something drier. When he came back out Ethan was leaning against the fridge sipping his whiskey on the rocks, swirling the glass and starring as though he was lost in deep thought. Mark had seen the same look on Ethan's face not long after his break up with Addison, his most recent in a long line of botched relationships.

"You okay, man," asked Mark. His concern appeared more than sincere, and bordered genuine fear for another of Ethan'ss forays into drunken depression.

"Yeah," returned Ethan as he looked towards Mark and cracked a forced smile. "I'm as fine as brandied wine, mother fucker."

"Alright. You just seemed like somethin' was buggin' ya."

"Not tonight. I've got good booze and good company. Both of which will come in handy considering that there ain't no internet."

Mark quickly turned to his laptop on the kitchen table and clicked hurriedly on Google Chrome, typing in random phrases and words just to see if he could spark a response from the browser, but much to his dismay there was nothing more than a lost connection box.

"Dude, are you fuckin' kidding me," Mark asked. An irritated scowl spread across his face and he was soon caught up in a maelstrom of swearing and damning everything in sight. Hell hath no fury like an art student without Wi-Fi. With a look of disgust he shut off the laptop and grabbed his sketch pad that had been lying next to it.

"Guess I'm working on these characters for Life Drawing."

With a thud he crashed down onto a bean bag chair next to Jack and began to angrily scrawl in his book. Ethan was grateful for the timely mention of the temporarily departed internet. He didn't want to have to talk about anything involving Addison, or any relationship for that matter. There was something on his mind when Mark asked, and she was part of the reason for the decided change to hard liquor. Maybe it was the rain that had brought on these sudden emotions.

She always loved it when it stormed, he thought to himself. It always meant that I would stay inside and cuddle with her on the couch. Maybe if I would've just held her more and left that stupid bike in the garage she wouldn't have left. Who am I kidding? I'm overweight, an unfeeling prick and an alcoholic who can't even admit to his own friends when something's wrong.

Rolling thunder tore through the dorm and shook the window panes, violently rattling them and knocking one of Mark's Gundams from the windowsill. Ethan looked up and towards Jack who seemed to be entranced by the sight of the falling rain in the fluorescent light of the street lamps. He was still soaked, but didn't care, as was the same with most things for Jack. He was always an anomaly, not just to Ethan, but to Mark as well. A man who seemed to have no love or fear for anything, except for that unexplainable opposite gender that so many times had stricken him with feelings of intrigue and horror. It was clear that Jack felt the same way towards women that all men do, but it was hard for him to properly express himself in a manner that came across as anything more than a friend. It was like watching a prepubescent tween try to ask out a girl for the first time, or a puppy attempting its first walk down a flight of stairs; awkward, frightening and just plain funny at times. Ethan felt for his friend though. Always so close to reaching that goal line, but fumbling during the last five yards.

I wonder if it's better that way. Having never known what it feels like to truly love someone. To feel their skin on yours, to taste their tongue in your mouth… to give them your heart and watch them rip it right outta your chest.

For a fraction of a second the power surged and the lights went black, drawing everyone's attention to the ceiling.

"Fuck… sitting… in… silence," Mark broke the quiet. Probably for the betterment of everyone. "Let's put in a movie."

Mark of course chose to watch one of his favorite documentaries, The Cosmos with Neil DeGrasse Tyson. It wasn't that Ethan hated the documentary, in fact he was always interested to listen to some of the explanations to the universe's greatest mysteries and its creation, but what was just off-putting about the whole thing was Mark's hardcore Atheist stance that seemed to manifest itself every time a documentary about religion or universal study came on.

Ethan walked over to his computer chair in front of his TV, sitting down in it and spinning a complete three-sixty before stopping. The rain started coming down even harder and the power began to surge in the room, flickering the lights and the television screen. The room suddenly went completely dark and became eerily silent in a matter of a few seconds. Nothing could be seen and even the outside lights seemed to have gone off.

"God damnit," jokingly sobbed Mark. "All I wanna do is watch TV!"

"Finally, I can get naked without being judged," shouted Jack. Of course he was joking, but there was still that awkward thirty second pause after someone says something strange. "Ya know, this silence sounds a lot more like judgement, just sayin'."

The power returned suddenly and the microwave beeped in the corner of the kitchen, like it was sounding off that it needed to be reset. There was a very slim chance, however, that anyone would be doing that within the foreseeable future. All the power had returned to all the appliances with the exception of two – Mark and Jack's televisions. The two fiddled with the power button on Mark's television for a solid three minutes before they decided that something internally must have gotten fried during the power outage.

"Maybe the breaker just blew," said Jack, leaning back and taking a bite of his sandwich.

"No, dude," responded Mark. "If it was the breaker then all the lights in the living room would be shot. This fucking storm just aborted my TVs young life…"

"What about, Ethan's?"

Ethan rolled over to his desk where his television and PlayStation 4 sat. He picked up the remote and clicked the power button, but to little result. The screen was still as black as ever, and even the little red power dot had up and died entirely. It seemed very strange to Ethan that all the TVs saw fit to up and die at the same time, but stranger coincidences had happened before.

"Guess we're just S.O.L." Ethan remarked before turning back to face his friends.

Then suddenly, and without warning, the 28" television lit up in a blinding white effervescent glow that stunned Ethan, sending him recoiling backward and away from the screen. As he rolled back one of the chairs wheels caught on a loose wire and sent him spilling to the ground, landing on Mark like a 280 pound bag of potatoes. The two grunted and struggled about on the floor before finally separating and jumping up to their feet. Jack was already up and looking wide eyed at the screen, as though it were a predator about to pounce on all three of them. Ethan and Mark gave the same dead-eyed look, as if something was going to happen, and to their amazement something did.

Ethan's PlayStation turned on by itself and began to run as though its very existence depended on it. It began to rotate the disk that was inserted so violently that it made a high pitched whining noise only comparable to the shrieks of a dying infant. Ethan grabbed his ears, trying to block out the blood curdling shrieking, but it only seemed to grow louder and louder the harder he squeezed them.

Suddenly the light from the television screen grew even more intense and began to appear as though it was pulsating.

"Holy fucking shit, dude," yelled Mark. He had curled his already tiny frame up into a ball and squeezed his ears, trying desperately to block out the noise, but much like when Ethan tried the sound only grew in pitch and volume.

An intense wind picked out of seemingly thin air and began to twirl the papers around the room like a miniature tornado, tossing pens and pencils, and sending Mark's desk chair crashing to the ground. The PlayStation was smoking, and the air was soon thick with the smell of burning wiring and scorched circuits, accompanied by an onyx haze that quickly filled the room. The refrigerator fell to the floor and sent food and liquids skirting across the concrete surface.

Ethan felt a slight tingling in his hand and pulled up in front of him so he could see it. Fragments of glass from the whiskey cup had drove deep into hand and wrist when he fell on the floor, and his blood seemed to be almost pouring out of the cuts. He clutched the mangled hand close, tucking it into his stomach and covering it with his other arm. Again he looked at the television, thinking to himself, maybe if I can shut it off all this shit will stop.

Left hand outreached he began making his way towards the 28 inches of hell, swatting away incoming papers and debris kicked up by the windstorm. The three foot walk felt more like a 300 yard drive through the Dallas Cowboys defense. Each step was a battle, and trying to find proper footing in socks while dodging flailing pens was near impossible, but he pushed through until he finally placed a hand on the edge of the screen. What shocked Ethan even more so than the unnatural windstorm or glowing light was the fact that when he pulled against the television it didn't budge. It was almost as if the entirety of the thing was made from tungsten, and then bolted into the desk.

"Turn it the fuck off," screamed Jack, trying not to be drowned out by the high pitched squealing, which was growing worse by the second. "Hurry!"

Forcing his bloodied right hand forward Ethan reached for the power button, fighting through the pain of the force being exerted on it by the wind. Tears began to form at the corners of his eyes, partially from the wind blowing against his face, and partially from the agonizing pain. Ethan had been in two serious car crashes, broke both arms, a leg, a rib and received two concussions, but nothing compared to the almost ghoulish pain that was ravaging his arm. He was only inches from the button, but before he could press it a spiraling black hole appeared in the TV screen, pulling everything within reach into it, including Ethan.

Ethan's bloodied arm was sucked into the hole, stretching into nothingness in an almost cartoonish manner. There was nothing cartoonish about how it felt though. As his arm stretched it felt as though the limb was being wrenched from its socket, sending enough pain to Ethan's nervous system to cause complete system shock. Within seconds his brain began to scream in its tiny confinements, begging for the torture to stop, sending signals to the poor boy to cut off the appendage before his entire body was gored, and if it hadn't been for the lack of sharp tools and partial paralysis he would've done just that.

The hole began to suck him deeper and deeper into total spacial blackness. The smoke from the PlayStation had filled the room, setting off the alarm that had all but been overshadowed by the sound of the shrieking disk and Ethan's own screams of agony. By the time the hole had reached his shoulder, and his face began to contort, the thought that this might kill him crossed his mind, and suddenly his heart doubled its already rapid pace, but it was too late for any adrenaline to save him. The pain was causing partial blackouts, and Ethan's hand was losing grip on the television.

With one final scream and just before passing out entirely Ethan was swept into the spiraling hole. Mark and Jack watched in horror as their friend was twisted and contorted, screaming and helpless as he plunged into an unexplainable dark hole erupting from a TV.

"Fuck Samsung, dude," shouted Mark, just before the windows shattered, sending glass flying right at both him and Jack.