HW: Hey NightDream. I'm here. Let's talk.

ND: Now you want to talk? Are you sure? If you don't want to talk to me it's fine, I understand...

Meg sat in her familiar spot, her knees pulled to her chest as she typed. It was time to get this over with. They had to finally just get down to business. Be honest, Meg!

HW: NightDream, please don't blame yourself. Shit just really went down. I met CrystalFeather.

Claudette had given her permission to tell NightDream who she was before the trials had started today. Everything was about to come clean.

ND: You... met CrystalFeather? How? I thought we all didn't live near each other at all.

It was time.

HW: NightDream... who are you? Where are you right now?

ND: I don't want to tell you that.

HW: Why? You said you worked in an office. You said you had a house. Where is that? Was any of that even true?

ND: ...

HW: Please, tell me.

ND: No. None of that was true. I don't work in an office. I don't have a house.

HW: Who are you?

ND: I am the person you've been talking to. I haven't faked who I am. This is real. I just don't want you to know me.

HW: Why?

ND: You'd be disappointed.

HW: I'd never be disappointed.

Here it was.

HW: NightDream... I want to know more about the person I love.

There was radio silence for at least ten full minutes. Meg was getting extremely nervous.

ND: You love me?

HW: I do. Do you... feel the same?

No hesitation this time.

ND: Of course I do.

Meg's heart was racing.

HW: Don't you think the person you love deserves to know all of this?

ND: I don't want to tell you my name. I don't want to tell you where I live. Respect my wishes.

Meg was completely taken aback by his words. He was being extremely rude right now. Meg felt anger start to boil inside of her. He tells her that he loves her and then starts getting snappy with her for just wanted to know basics things she should already know? Without thinking her fingers began typing away on the keyboard furiously.

HW: What is your problem? These are all things I should already know! You can't just drop shit like this on me and not tell me who you are? How do I know you're not just lying about everything? Are you just leading me on to fuck me over?

ND: What are you talking about? No! I just don't want to tell you my name! It's not a big deal!

HW: It is a big deal! This is a huge deal! I don't even know who you are! What do you think is going to happen next?

ND: We can just keep talking like normal.

HW: But it's not normal anymore, ND! We love each other, and knowing that, how do we move forward here?

ND: We don't.

Meg stopped breathing. She felt a knot forming in her stomach and a lump forming in he throat. NightDream didn't want to have a relationship? It could be long distance. Well... really long distance... but it could work! It would be hard but god damn it they'd have each other and that's all that mattered!

HW: What do you mean? You don't want to get into a relationship?

ND: You have to know that this can't work. I love you, but I don't know anything about you either. We don't even live near each other.

Was that it? He didn't know anything about her? Was that the only problem?

HW: You want to know more about me? My name is Meg Thomas. I'm twenty five years old. I've played sports my whole life. My father left when I was young. My mother raised me the rest of my life, teaching me how to protect myself and how to be strong until one day I went for a run in the woods.

ND: I'm sorry, Meg. But it just can't work. Please understand and don't make this harder than it needs to be.

Meg's eyes started watering and nausea overtook her as she got desperate.

HW: Please, NightDream! We can make this work! We can have a long distance relationship. It can work!

ND: Please... You deserve better than me. There has to be someone in your life that you can be with that will make you happy. I can't be there with you.

So... that was it? He was insecure? He thinks that he doesn't deserve her?

HW: I don't want anyone else. We've known each other for a few months but these months have been the happiest ive had in god knows how long. My life is hell every single day, and you make the little bit of hell every day worth it. Just so I can talk to you. Please. Tell me your name.

ND: My name is NightDream.

HW: You know what I mean.

ND: Maybe this was a mistake. I should have never told you this. I've ruined everything.

HW: What? What was a mistake?

ND: Telling you that I loved you. I should have just shrugged it off. I should have just continued being your friend. Now to protect you, I have to do something I didn't want to do.

The reception on the cell phone dropped to two bars.

HW: Protect me? What are you talking about? What are you going to do?

ND: I have to block you. I'm sorry, I can't do this anymore.

HW: WHAT? No! Please don't! We don't have to be in a relationship, you don't have to tell me your name or anything! Tell me about Randy! Tell me how you guys get in fights all the time! Tell me about your day! Tell me how your grandmother used to cook for you and would bring you treats when your dad was at work all day and night! Just please, don't block me...

ND: Goodbye.

One bar.

HW: Please! I need you!
HW: I can't do this without you.
HW: I can't survive every day if I have nothing to survive for. I can get killed a thousand times if it means I come back every day to you. I'm begging you. Don't go.

ND: Goodbye.

HW: Please!

"ERROR! Send Message Failed. You Can No Longer Send Messages To This Contact."

Meg tightened the grip on her phone as her hands started shaking. She clenched her teeth and climbed to her feet. She growled and threw her phone as hard as she could against the tree. It shattered into several large pieces, landing on the pile of leaves that had been there since the beginning with soft thuds.

Meg didn't even know how to describe how she felt in that moment. She felt heart broken. She was angry. She felt betrayed. How could he tell her that he loved her just to leave? Just to leave like every one else?

It wasn't long until she could no longer bottle the emotions up anymore. Meg screamed, pulling on her hair and ripping it out of the braids. It stuck up everywhere wildly but she didn't care. She took a step and almost stumbled to the ground. She grabbed onto the tree to stop herself from falling, but her hand scraped against the bark and she lost her grip. She collapsed to the ground, blood now seeping out from the fresh scratches on her hand. She didn't even feel the pain. Tears started flowing from her eyes and she picked herself up off the ground before tripping and falling a second time. She coulnd't even hold herself up. She gave in and curled into a ball on the ground, leaves getting entangled in her messy hair and dirt clinging to her clothes.

Meg Thomas was heartbroken. She cried for hours. She cried until tears would no longer come and when they stopped she started hitting things. She punched the tree until her knuckles were bloody and when they were all but an open would she kicked it until she had blisters. She might have even broken one of her fingers. She didn't care. She didn't care about anything.

With her head pounding, she stared out into the forest, completely unfeeling. What would she do now? She had nobody. She wasn't worth fighting for. Nobody would miss her if she disappeared. Not NightDream. Not Claudette, or anyone else at the campfire. She was alone.

The wind picked up and whipped her hair around as she abandoned the clearing and trekked off into the woods, her hands clenched into fists at her side and her face blank, completely devoid of any feelings she'd just spent all that time crying away. She was done being played by people. Now, it would be her time. She would do what she wanted. The Entity could try to stop her. She dared it to.

So she walked.

In the empty clearing where a red-head used to visit often to escape from the world, there was a broken cell phone that sat with no user. The phone, frankly, could care less that it as broken. It wasn't a normal phone. This was a cell phone crafted by the hands of a god. It would take more than an angry survivor to break it, that's for sure.

The screen, uncaring that it had nothing to power it, lit up with a new message that had taken hours to go through with one bar. But it was a resilient little message that had bounced back and forth from both recipients for quite some time before finally finding a crack in the signal to slip through. It was too bad there was no user to read it.

"One New Message From NightDream!"

ND: Oh my god, I'm so sorry. I completely over reacted. Please respond. We can talk about this.

Though the message was resilient, the being responsible for creating the signal was not. It spited it's failed experiment. It craved the false hope of it's victims, but from Meg Thomas there was none. There was no hope. He had nothing to feed on from her anymore. Perhaps the god would give her a chance to prove herself again. Perhaps Meg Thomas and the other holders of cell phones could still be fed from. They were the least hopeful of all the others, after all. If this god was anything, it was creative. It may not understand human speech very well, but it had learned much from watching these creatures interact with each other. Bonding with one another. It had felt true hope from the three, and the being had gorged itself on it. Maybe there was hope after all. It could try something different this time. Perhaps a more direct approach would suffice.

The god did not need the cellular phones anymore, so it stopped providing reception. It's other pets would be confused and distraught by the sudden stop, but they would have to deal with it. They were in it's realm. They operated by it's rules.

Oh, did the old being love playing with it's pets! The trials brought it great joy, but this was something different! A new flavor! Unmarked territory!

The Entity was very excited to get started.

The single bar that had stayed strong at the top of the screen slowly but surely lost it's will, and it faded away until nothing but two small words sat in their new home where the reception had once been. They would always and forever reside here, and nothing else would ever hold that spot again for as long as this world still stood. Alone in the clearing, leaves flying gently around it as the wind picked them up and carried them around in the breeze, the screen of the phone crafted by a god read:

No Service.