Chapter 1

Matthew sighed quietly as the boredom that was his constant companion settled in again, his gaze fixed out the window at the old gravel driveway that had been laid a relatively short time after he'd taken up residence in the old house.

Taken up residence. That made it sound nice, as though he'd spent some time looking at different houses, mulling over the possibilities, even made it sound as though he could change his mind if he wanted, find another house to live in. Prisoner reflected his role in this house far better than the word resident, reflected how trapped and alone he felt, yet how at the same time privacy had become a privilege rather than a right, and all too often one that he couldn't afford.

The sound of a motor approaching the house caused Matthew's eyes to dart to the highway, settling quickly on the old truck that turned onto the short dirt road that led to the house. Alfred's here! He sat up in excitement, a large grin spreading across his cheeks. His eyes never left his twin as he stepped out of the truck, then strode to its bed, from which he picked up several bags before starting toward the door. Only when he was out of sight did Matthew leave the windowsill, his feet pounding on the wooden floors as he ran down the stairs and toward his brother.

"Mattie!" Alfred beamed the second he saw his twin, setting the bags in his hand on the counter. He opened his arms wide and Matthew ran to embrace him, hugging tightly to his loud and somewhat obnoxious brother, who, despite everything, was the only person on the planet that could see and hear him, the only one in the world that knew he existed.

For that was the nature of his curse.

Alfred pulled back from the hug, a large grin filling his face. "I got somethin' for ya," he beamed. "It's in the truck, I gotta go get it."

Matthew nodded, letting go of his brother and following him to the door. He couldn't help his own smile at his brother's excitement, and when Alfred was out the door, he pressed his nose to the invisible, concrete-like barrier that kept him in the house, which he'd bruised his hand against before but nobody else could feel. It was at every entrance and exit, every door and window in the house, blocking him from ever leaving the old place; he'd checked long ago.

Matthew heard Alfred slam the car door, then watched him walk back into sight, carrying some sort of carrying case, made out of cloth. Maybe it was for a book? Alfred had bought him some before that he thought he'd like; after all, it was his only source of entertainment when there wasn't anyone in the house, especially since the last owners, or as he preferred to see them "guests", had taken the television with them. Then again, it looked too tall and thin to be carrying a lot of books; maybe it was one very special book that had its own case?

Still puzzled, he stepped to the side when Alfred walked back to the door, then followed him to the table, his eyes glued to the strange case. Now that he was closer, he could see that it had a front pocket that had something… lumpy in it. Far too lumpy to be a book. What could it be?!

Alfred grinned at his brother's obvious curiosity. After a moment, however, his smile turned more mischievous. "Mattie. Dude." He jerked his thumb to the bags. "We gotta put away the groceries first! Don't want them to go bad while you drool over that thing."

Matthew reluctantly agreed, giving the case one final glance before grabbing some bags and carrying them to the kitchen. Following behind with the rest, Alfred chuckled slightly at his brother's eagerness to get to the bag. "Ohey, guess what?"

"Hmm?" Matthew's mind was admittedly elsewhere as he grabbed the milk and walked over to the refrigerator.

"You remember that old truck that had the busted motor, the one that I got my truck right after?" He didn't wait for confirmation, pausing only long enough to close the pantry. "I sold it for a few hundred."

"A few hundred?" Matthew echoed in wonder. "What're you gonna do with it?"

Alfred laughed. "Damn, your sense of money really is old, isn't it? A few hundred isn't that much, dude. But it was enough for that thing I got you," he added in a singsong voice.

"You mean you spent several hundred dollars?!" Matthew was incredulous.

"Dude, chill! It's not that much! Besides," Alfred grinned, "I got a discount."

"Oh? How?" Matthew grabbed several cans of spaghetti, then walked toward the pantry.

"Senior citizen discount."

Matthew almost dropped the spaghetti. "What? Alfred, you're not a senior citizen!"

"Sure I am!" Alfred beamed. "I did it online. All they wanted was the year I was born! Give 'em that and I'm a senior citizen!"

Matthew blinked. As crazy as it sounded, Alfred was telling the truth. Not very long after Matthew had gotten trapped in the house, they had discovered that they had both entirely stopped aging. Since Matthew had been under this curse, for lack of a better word, for coming up on fifty years now, that would make Alfred perfectly capable of getting a senior citizen discount online, where from what he understood they didn't look at your face.

The rest of the groceries were put away in a comfortable silence, Matthew's mind scrambling unsuccessfully to figure out what could possibly be in the case Alfred had brought. It took about twenty minutes to get it all put away, by which point Matthew had ruled out everything from a pet to one of those new music player things.

"Aright," Alfred grinned as he put the last of the cans of green beans into the pantry. "Let's go get that thing now, huh?" Matthew followed him into the hall, where he grabbed the case he'd put on the small decorative table and took it into the living room. Setting it on the table in front of a chair, Alfred laid a hand on it, standing behind the chair in question as he gestured for Matthew to sit.

"Before I open this up," he explained, "since you know like nothing about anything when it comes to new stuff, there's a couple of things I gotta tell you." He paused. "First, you can't get it wet. It'll like die if you get it wet."

Matthew began to quietly wonder if he'd been gotten some sort of strange alien pet.

"Also. It's made to be portable, but it's not made to take a lot of slamming around, so if I were you I'd find a nice place in the attic to put it or something where you're not gonna be pickin' it up all the time. Kay?"

Matthew nodded. Made to be portable. Definitely no pet then.

Alfred grinned, unzipping the front compartment first and pulling out… a cord? Yes, it was a cord of some sort, a good ten or eleven feet long. Well… that explained why it was lumpy… but what could Alfred have possibly gotten him that came with a cord?

Alfred paused before he opened the main compartment. "Hang on. These aren't like the same fifty year old plugs, are they? Cause I've heard that can be like dangerous."

Matthew shook his head. "No, somebody had them fixed, it was years ago. I stayed in the attic while they did it, it was easier to stay out of the way."

"Aright, good," Alfred grinned. "Here, you open this and I'll plug this in."

Matthew didn't need to be told twice. He pulled the zipper open as fast as he could, pushing the packaging off of the… rectangular object? Matthew looked it over, blinking in confusion. It opened up to reveal something with letters on the bottom and a screen on top, something he recognized from TV, as well as what seemed to be a power button and several holes along the sides, of different shapes and sizes.

Alfred came back with the other end of the power cord just as Matthew was debating whether to turn it on. He plugged the cord into a round hole on the top left-hand side of the laptop, causing an orange light to come on the front.

"That'll turn green when it's charged," Alfred explained. "Now let's get you set up, huh?" He pressed the power button, causing the screen to light up for a moment and then go black as text filtered on it. "Don't worry about that, that's just the boot-up screen. Aha, here we go!" Alfred beamed as he pulled up the desktop. "Now the first thing you're gonna want to do is get antivirus software…"

The two quickly became engrossed, one with setting up and teaching his brother how to use the computer, and the other simply with learning and being able to use the new technology. In fact, the two were so engrossed that they didn't hear the motor roaring outside.

They didn't hear the engine stop in the driveway.

They didn't hear the car door slammed, didn't hear the comments about someone's truck trespassing on someone else's property.

They didn't hear the key turn in the lock of the front door.

"Okay, you got your antivirus set up, you downloaded Firefox, now all you gotta do is—"

Alfred was interrupted when Matthew fell quite literally through the chair and landed with a solid thump on the floor. Panic rose in his chest when he realized what that meant and his gaze darted frantically about the room. "Alfred, look be—"

"What are you doing in my house?"