The alarm of my phone blared angrily at me as I rolled over to swipe it off. It was still dark out and I effectively had about an hour and a half before I had to be anywhere. Last night had been rough. I had spent so much time talking to Teo after his latest part-time job that I completely lost track of time. I really didn't want to get up this morning, but Teo was an early riser and I wanted to talk to him before I nodded off for another ten minutes. I went to unlock my phone and held the screen close to my face, my vision blurry without my glasses. A brief chime alerted me to main menu before I inputted my login information and waited for the app to load. A short update window flickered in and out of focus, asking.

YOUR NETWORK CONNECTION IS UNSTABLE. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.

I blinked back at the missing internet signal and groaned, flipping my phone off from Airplane Mode and logged in my information. The update to the app as it loaded was barely two seconds long before I was greeted by an unusual sight: a black screen with a clock depicting 99:99. The sleepy glower on my face instantly morphed into a deep-set frown. I had heard about bugs on the Ssum. It was one thing if you couldn't post a comment or a entry on a social media, either due to busy servers or Internet strength, but it was another to be denied entirely. In all my time since I had dealt with phone errors, I never encountered a bug quite like that one before. The nighttime mode of the Ssum application always liked to set itself to after a certain hour was still on, making it difficult to view anything not labelled in white or without a phone's brightness being turned up all the way. The only thing I could access was the Forbidden Lab area, a place that still had daily checklists and journals. None of my most recent entries had been viewed by any of the app's other participants and scientists as far as I knew. I was absolutely alone.

I tried opening and reopening my app. Nothing. Then I tried checking for updates. Nothing. Finally as a last resort, I tried uninstalling the app and then reinstalling it. Still nothing. What gives? Other than the brief kilobytes I had to download when I first woke up in the morning, there hadn't been any new changes. Had that update messed with my phone?

Out of options, I looked on the forums for answers, but other than a few complaints about other lab members missing micro-transaction purchases, it felt like my error was exclusive to me. With some defeat, I placed a ticket notice for the customer service area on the company's website, but chances were I wasn't going to hear from them for a couple business days. Left with no answers and unsatisfied, I flopped onto my back and sighed, too wired to fall back asleep. I had made the app so ingrained into my daily routine that without it, I felt like I was teetering on the brink of anxiety. Originally, I had downloaded it out of curiosity and because I was told I was to be rewarded for participating in the experiment. It was just supposed to be a game, a social experiment where women were paired off into a control groups where they were introduced to potential partners paired through the app, neither group being told on whether or not their significant other was a real person or an AI. Either way couldn't have hurt my current dating life any more that it already was (the other dating apps had been sorely lacking as of late) so it felt like the magic bullet to my love life.

The point was just to interact with them with autogenerated responses preselected by the preexisting company's artificial intelligence, the Personal Interface User for the Precognitive Intelligence Universe, or as it was also known, PIU-PIU. I hadn't meant to actually get attached to app. Despite all the slogans and dating apps that brought me here, I had never expected for it to become so integral to my life, for him to become so integrated into my life.

A hollow feeling settled in my chest while the rest of my body screeched with anxiety and fidgeting, a sensation I had never experienced before. So much of my life on the app was going through the motions of the day- doing a few tasks, answering forums, posting my own lab findings, logging in my daily gratitude journals and morning wellness checks, as well as caring for the animals going through training and experiments on the VR feeds -that I didn't know what to do with myself once the actual tasks had been done. Teo had been an unexpected side-effect, a bonus to my otherwise mundane life. Before I had never pegged myself as needy or codependent, but these feelings were not normal for me to have. Now left without the Ssum app, without him, I felt listless, lost. Empty.

Right now, my problem wasn't just whether or not Teo was real. The reality was that either way, I had no means of contacting him now. The only way was through the app, and I had no knowledge of programming to fix it. It was worse than breaking a phone. With everything being stored in the cloud nowadays, I could always get another or call, but I didn't know Teo's number or address. I didn't know him outside of my phone and, despite all the conversations we'd had, I wasn't even sure he was real (the man was too good to be true, how could he be real?). I couldn't let him know if I was okay or that I wasn't ignoring him. All I could do was sit there in the dark waiting for the app to miraculously start working again.

Nothing about this situation was normal. This feeling was not for something that could potentially not be real, an AI created by someone else. Either way, he had been kind to me when I needed it, a warm, welcome presence in an otherwise bleak existence. I was addicted to him like a drug addict was addicted to heroin. I needed my fix. I needed Teo.

Frustrated, I opened and closed the app again, hoping something would have changed in the last five minutes since I had checked. My email inbox was empty of all notes for updates, supports, or daily lab participation. My thumb flicked towards the messenger app on my phone to find someone to vent all of this to, but of course the only person I wanted to talk to about all of this in the whole wide world was unavailable. I bit my lip and scrolled, trying to reign back a scowl that etched itself into my life weary face as I repeatedly tapped my screen in frustration, expecting something- ANYTHING -would happen.

Then I touched the screen one too many times and everything went black. I had no idea exactly what I pressed but suddenly the screen was just gone, blacker than it had been when I tried to view the app during night-time mode with a low brightness setting. Now I couldn't see anything, not even the clock. Walls of code flickered onto my screen for going white before I saw a trail of data crawl over the screen. Holy shitake mushrooms, did I press too hard on my phone screen and break it?! 5G and good Wi-Fi signal. I always had a good signal in my house, so that couldn't be it. Did my phone have a virus?

More text and syntax flooded onto the screen. At first they look like chat bubbles that had text running out of them towards the edge of my phone. Then it flickered to the Call button. I pressed it down and the phone started to ring. Instead of the "hello" I was used to, I was instead greeted by silence. Brief moments of static could be heard flickering on the other side of the line, clearing up only when the speaker picked up noise.

"Hello..?" I called out tentatively. No answer. "Hellooo," I tried again, this time louder. No response. I looked down to check my app. It didn't have a mute button, but maybe something in my phone's internal mechanism leaked over onto this program as well. Maybe I should turn it off and on again... and then run my antivirus program... My thumb was about to press the Hang Up button when I heard a voice.

"Hello world..." My heart leapt at the sigh, that familiar sleepy sounding sigh that I knew all too well after these last few weeks.

"...Teo?" I uttered without thinking.

"MC..."

"Holy crap... Teo, can you hear me?"

"I wonder how MC's doing today..."

My hope flickered a moment. Of course he couldn't hear me. He was only supposed to hear the responses I wrote back to him that the AI translated for him. I glanced down at my phone, suddenly realizing that this scary dark void now extended beyond just my phone screen in my hand. It was like I was inside some sort of glass box only it was created out of some sort of ethereal, translucent energy. The room I was in was gone, instead replaced by the void of space. I had no awareness of when I had gone from my bedroom to this abyss. That surreal fact had completely gone over my head as my mind kept playing back in my head 'Teo's here! Teo's here!' A lump gathered in my throat, split between the decisions of panicking slash figuring out where I was and reaching out to Teo. In the end, I chose the latter. I couldn't dwell on how trapped I felt in the space or confused or confined. All that would accomplish right now was just sending me into a downward spiral of an anxiety attack. I gulped down some air and began counting details in my head, my sole focus on the single bit of light in the darkness in my hand.

What the hell is going on? I thought as I listened for Teo to speak again, this time my phone flickering from dark to a bright white screen before it settled on a more natural light. Suddenly the image of Teo's face appeared on my phone screen like FaceTime- except this application didn't have FaceTime. The closest thing I could think of was that Teo had sent me a photo with a filter that saturated him appearance, but this didn't even come close to that. For one thing, the image was three dimensional and secondly, it moved in real-time, unlike all the still images Teo had sent me through the phone.

"Teo!" I exclaimed, taking in the digital rendering of his soft features. He was real- or at the very least had a very realistic VR model render. His violet eyes that normally sparkled like freshly dug up amethysts were dull as dirt covered geodes, cast in shadow by the bags of a sleepless night. His skin was pale but soft in the high definition camera lens. I was struck by the sudden urge to reach out and touch it. His shoulders were blanketed in a soft duvet, his body horizontal and lying down on his bed with his onyx hair all mussed, most likely from tossing and turning in the sheets. It looked absolutely adorable on him.

He looked down at his phone, eyes focused and narrowed, staring down at something on his phone screen. "All the texts say they've been read but not delivered. Is she ignoring me?"

"Teo!" I called out again, hoping he could hear me if I tried hard enough. Perhaps the signal in this place was being interfered with?

"No no, maybe she's just busy, or maybe she hasn't woken up yet. It was a long night..." His lips pulled into a soft smile that tugged at the corners of his lips. My heart pitter-pattered at the sight before I shook off the fuzzy feeling.

"Teo, I'm here. I'm right here! Can you hear me?!" I called out. All he did in response was roll onto his back and sigh.

"I wonder where she could be. It's not like her to not to send a 'good morning' or at least respond to my texts." His hand went to his phone and thumbed the call button, waiting for the ringtone. It barely had a chance to rain before the line broke off on his end.

"I'M SORRY. THE NUMBER YOU HAVE TRIED TO REACH HAS BEEN DISCONNECTED."

"I'm right here, Teo! I'm right here!" I cried, hoping I could somehow shout through the static and the text. The longer this went on, the more concerned he seemed to grow. It felt like an eternity had gone by for him while it had to only have been a few minutes for me. He tried my number again only for the phone to hang up on itself in two seconds, not even receiving a voicemail (why would he? The app didn't come with real data charges, so why would it come with a voicemail?).

"Did she block me? Was it something I did? Did I do something wrong? Is it something I said yesterday? I did overshare a bit last night... Is that why isn't she answering? I offended her somehow by asking her too many personal questions... I must have talked too much about myself. Stupid. Stupid."

My heart panged at the sight of his distraught expression. I hated seeing him like this. So much of our interactions were him hiding his pain from me, warding it off with a wall of false positivity by waving off minor issues and insecurities that he always secretly took to heart, things that weren't his fault. This had been the first time I had heard. It was heartbreaking.

"...What if she doesn't want to be with me anymore?" he asked himself, his voice sounding as somber as I had ever heard it, even more than when he had been depressed after losing his last job and ending up in the hospital again with a sprained ankle.

"No, Teo, it's not like that!"

"That must be it... I can't help but ruin everything I touch. I must be such a burden for her. She must have just been my girlfriend out of pity. Maybe... maybe she doesn't like me as much as I like her. Maybe I just like her too much."

"NO! Teo, it's not true! Please! Please I... I-" I broke off, desperation filling my voice as I steeled myself. "I love you! Please don't go! Please don't leave me!"

Teo paused for a moment, his expression hesitating for a moment before it returned. "...I must be hearing things."

"Teo?! TEO! Did you hear me?! I said 'I love you'! That means you can't go!" I pleaded, the screen of my phone somehow projecting a man-sized view of Teo's face on the wall of the ethereal box in front of me. "No! NO! Don't put down the phone, Teo! Please! Please don't leave me! Please stay and talk to me! Please don't leave me all alone!" My voice cracked at the end, tears already blinding my vision as I felt the darkness become all consuming, swallowing me whole as the screen flickered to black, the last haunting image being Teo setting down his phone and walking away.

"NO! NOOOOO!" I slapped my hand repeatedly on the glass wall, screaming and pounding and kicking, but it wouldn't break. My voice could not be heard. I slunk to the ground with tears streaming down my cheeks, utterly defeated.

"...MC?"

I rubbed my eyes, the tears blurring my vision as I rubbed them away. The ethereal space fractured and burst into a bright cascade of stars and galaxies as they exploded across my vision as my thumbs pressed hard into my eyes in an effort to wipe away the tears that wouldn't stop. Then the shadows gradually faded away, receding into a view of homely apartment and a bewildered college student. My eyes narrowed, trying to focus on the blurry image before they focused on him. My breath caught in my throat.

"Teo...?" I blinked away my tears, breath caught in my throat as I found myself staring back at an impossible sight. Then a smile stretched across my face as relief washed over me in one torrent of emotions as I launched myself forward. "TEO!" I leapt forward, arms quick to latch onto him. The force almost knocked the wind out of him, nearly sending him pinwheeling into the drywall behind him before he reestablished his balance with his stunt training enough to send them tactfully sprawling across the floor, preventing him from breaking yet another bone. He let out a soft 'oomfph!' as he landed on the wood panel floor, his ballcap knocked off the top of his head as he displaced his weight to keep me from falling to the floor entirely.

"Who... what..." Teo trailed off as I took in his flustered appearance. His pale cheeks colored pink, his body quickly spreading with warmth at the sudden assault from a young woman. He was real! He was warm. He had a heartbeat!

"You're real... you're here..." I whispered, muttering the mantra into his chest as my fingers grasped onto his denim jean jacket, clinging to the worn material and crisp smell of citrus.

"MC... is that you? What are you doing here? Where did you come from?"

"I don't know... Where am I?"

"You're in my apartment."

"Obviously. But how did I get here?"

"That's what I'd like to know..." he said, his voice wispy with amusement though his whole face still appeared flush and bewildered by the whole encounter. "Still, whatever the reason, I'm so glad to see you."

"Me too..." I beamed, feeling my eyes sting with saltwater as I choked up. "I missed you."

"I missed you too," he smiled before noticing the tears. "Ah please don't cry! I don't ever want to make you cry."

"It's not you. I'm just... I'm just feeling a lot of big feelings. I really missed you. I'm sorry. My phone was acting up and wouldn't let me text you and I ended up in this weird space and-" I stopped myself, noticing his expression growing more perplexed the longer I explained. "Anyways, I'm here now, I guess."

"What a strange incident... It sounds like the plot to a fantasy isekai light novel. 'A hero travels to another world through their cellphone.'"

"Happens more than you think, apparently," I remarked, suddenly having a deeper appreciation for those authors. I didn't want to think about if this was reality or not. All I knew was that Teo was real, he was here, and I was in his apartment.

His eyes closed as his arms held me tight, turning his face into my neck as he inhaled. "I always dreamed about holding you like this," he mumbled into my neck, causing my pulse to leap and send pleasant tingles and shivers up my skin.

"Me too..." I mumbled, burying my face back into his shoulder as I felt his hand cradle the back of my head. "I'm so glad to see you. I missed you so much. The thought of not talking to you again... It broke my heart."

"I'm sorry to cause you so much pain... but I'm here now."

"Yeah... you're here. I'm here..." I said mostly to reassure myself. We laid like that for a few moments, just taking in each other's breaths and heartbeats as we embraced on the floor. Teo was the first to break the silence. "What do you think brought you here?"

"I don't know... I was trapped in a big box and tried calling out to you when my phone connected with yours, but you couldn't hear me and the space I was in only got darker and the next thing I know, I'm here."

"Ah... well, whatever brought you here, I'm so glad to see you," he smiled into my skin before he let out a deep-winded sigh, his head rolling back with a soft thunk as it hit the floor. "Oww... Ah ha... Hahh... I never thought I could be so happy. I don't know what to do. I feel like I have get all of my emotions together and release them by shouting from the rooftops." His fingers began gently carding the long strands of my hair while I leaned into his light touch, enjoying how they ran down to the ends like a fine comb. "...Was that your voice that I heard?"

"Hmm...?" I blinked back my delirium of his soothing touch. "What voice?"

"The one telling me that you loved me... and that you didn't want me to go and leave you all alone."

"Oh umm..." I buttoned my lip, a wave of shyness suddenly overcoming me as I pulled back, unable to meet Teo's amethyst gaze. "Err... yes. Yes that was me. But in my defense, I umm... didn't think you could hear me. In that dark place, I would have said anything at that point to get your attention."

"Oh..." Teo's face fell, and I couldn't help the disappointment I felt as I watched his fingers retract from my hair. Was he still thinking about what he said before? I hadn't meant to push him away. Before I could voice any of that, he shook off his sad expression and adopted a smile instead. "Well either way, I'm glad to see you. I've never been so happy to have someone crash into me and knock me over," he laughed, causing my face to grow hot in embarrassment. "You know, I feel like this would be a good plot to a movie script. 'A couple bound by the find love through a phone app and transcend time and space to be with each other.'"

"I'd watch it," I smirked before catching his gaze. It was as soft and warm like his skin. Before I knew it, I was leaning and closing the distance between us, utterly hypnotized by him. I could hear his soft, surprised inhale as our lips melded together, each touching the other in a soft, gentle caress with all the tenderness of caring for a baby bird, his lips just as soft, like down feathers. That warmth spread its way, coursing through ever fiber and nerve ending as they fired from my chest all the way down to my fingertips and back up again. His arms wrapped around me, his long thin fingers pulling me flush against him as I laid on top of him, holding me in place as our lips did a delicate dance, chasing each other like two spiders about to mate. I only stopped to catch my breath, my breathing short and haggard as I pulled away to find his gaze soft and at half-mast.

"I love you, Teo..." I confessed with naked honesty, unable to deny myself anymore. "I really do..." His violet eyes, which had grown hazy from lust, now sparkled as his lips pulled back, exposing his pearly white teeth in a wide smile.

"I love you too, MC."