Black mirror belongs to Netflix and not to me. (seriously though, is that all I need to do to not get in trouble?!)

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The monitor blinked white. Stefan turned his full attention to it.

#Netflix# blinked across the screen in bold text. Stefan stared in confusion, reading the word out loud.

"I, I don't understand." He said, slowly shaking his head. The screen blinked again. Black with white typing this time, which if possible unsettled him even further.

#Nevermind#

"what?"

#I think it's better if you don't know#

This made his skin crawl. Taking deep breaths of air (he couldn't seem to get enough to shake the sense of nausea he felt) he slowly sat back down in the chair while staring intently at the screen. His mind was racing. He didn't know what could be worse than not knowing - He was at the mercy of a potentially malevolent being who controlled his every move, and they wouldn't even tell him who they were! Did they expect him to just ignore the violation of his free will?!

#I expect you to trust me# flashed a set of new words on the screen.

Stefan stared at the words. Trust them? As if! He realized that this force knew his very thoughts, and that not only did it take it upon itself to evaluate what was better or not for him to know, but they expected him to be their mindless puppet - without any good reason to trust their intentions. The whole thing was severely screwed up.

Just then his dad walked in the door.

"Stefan? Are you talking to yourself?"

Stefan made to reply, turning back to look at the screen - blank. He stopped. "No, I just spilled my tea." He heard his voice say "I'll clean it up."

"Stefan, are you alright?" Asked his dad. "You said the game company gave you an extension for the weekend; I thought we were done with this project."

"I am, almost." His voice said, but it wasn't him. He wanted to tell his dad something, anything, about what was going on but could not. Each word felt foreign in his lips as the anonymous influence (Netflix?) forced it out of him. "I just have to finish Bandersnatch." He heard himself finish, and turned back to the blank screen. He heard his dad close the door and leave him to face his fate alone.

#It's probably better for him not to know either.# wrote his computer.

Stefan puked on the floor. He was hyperventilating- gasping for breath, Stefan curled himself into a ball on his office chair whispering brokenly, "I'm not in control." He looked up at his computer screen with desperation.

#No.# was all it said before rebooting and returning to the Bandersnatch start screen.

Stefan couldn't resist the order. He worked. He fixed the bug. He finished the game. Monday he turned it in and the game received a 3 star rating. It wasn't good enough.

Stefan gasped as he woke up from a horrible nightmare and sat upright in his bed. It was dark. What time was it? He gazed about his bedroom trying to catch his breath. Had it all been a dream? He thought back to the last thing he remembered- the computer? The force! It... had mind controlled him. No, that was ridiculous! He laughed brokenly, hugging his Knees while sitting in his bed. That experience hadn't been like any of the others; It was like he had become the mindless puppet he feared whereas all the other times he had at least been consciously enacting the decisions he hadn't made. Please, could it have just been a nightmare?

Across the room his monitor flickered on. He peered over at it in the darkness. #We'll try again# typed itself onto the screen. Stefan's heart sank to his toes - It wasn't a dream. It was real, All of it was real. He closed his eyes and rested his head on his knees; He wanted to scream, he wanted to run away, he wanted it all to stop, but nothing changed. He had to face the reality that time was a construct, that he was not in control, and that Bandersnatch still had to be finished. Miserably he peered back at the monitor. #I'm sorry.# it read.

"You're sorry?!" he spat, suddenly filled with resentment.

"You violate my freedom to the point of driving me from consciousness, and all you have to say is 'you're sorry?!'"

#I thought it would work.#

"That WHAT would work?!"

#Bandersnatch#

Stefan paused. He remembered being forced to finish Bandersnatch, each segment of code, each tap of the keyboard being extracted from him with him helpless to do anything else; working like a mindless, will-less robot. Even his emotions and thoughts had not been his own, but dictated by whatever was possessing his computer (not to mention himself). He shuddered as he remembered his own feelings at the time being utterly calm and indifferent to his situation as he worked like a slave. And it hadn't even been a nightmare.

#I tried to make the perfect game without your input. It didn't work.# typed his computer. He glared at it.

#So I'm trying something new.#

"Who are you!?" He shouted, but it came out as a strangled whisper. There was a long pause. Finally the words #It's complicated# formed on the monitor. Stefan got up from his bed and sat in the office chair in front of his computer expectantly. He noticed his broken tea cup was whole again and sitting on the desk and that last night's misplaced stomach contents were no longer splattered on the floor. He returned his gaze to the monitor.

#I was a viewer of your TV show.# typed his computer, #Actually, not the show, just your episode. It's a show from Netflix,#- "What is Netflix?" -#an online archive of TV shows and movies people can watch. It's from the 21st century. Your episode was special because it was Netflix's first attempt at a Choose Your Own Adventure episode. It's like your Bandersnatch game, but on TV; and you are the playable character.#

Stefan inhaled deeply. It was a lot to take in. "You're saying," he whispered " that I am under the control of someone from the future - for entertainment?"

#sort of.#

"What's that supposed to mean?"

#You're missing the part where it's a fictional TV show. Your reality doesn't actually exist.#

Stefan didn't know what to say to that. How do you react when you find that your whole reality is a lie?

#Don't puke again.# his monitor advised. He wasn't sure he could obey that one even if he was ordered to.

Swallowing hard and catching his breath, Stefan composed himself as best he could and asked the empty room, "What do you want?"

#Though it may be hard to believe after what I did in the last ending,# typed the words on the screen, #I just want you to be happy.#

Stefan snorted.

#Every single ending to your episode,# it continued, #was either mediocre (at best) or morbid and hopeless (at worst). I want to construct an ending where you live happily ever after.#

"And you tried to do that by suppressing my ability to think or feel?!" He hissed, clenching the hand on his desk into a fist.

#well, to be fair, you weren't handling the situation very well.#

Stefan got to his feet. This was too much. He couldn't do this. He wouldn't do any of this. He had to escape - away from this thing and its control of him, and he had to do it now. But where would he even go? Where could you run from something that controlled your every step? It wanted to help? Yeah right! It wanted to possess him like a parasite infected a host. It had done it before, what was to stop it from doing it again?

#Nothing.#

Stefan blinked. He was not looking at the monitor, The words were typed directly into his field of vision. He closed his eyes - and He could still see them. He let out a purely mortified cry and covered his head with his hands. There was no escape.

He found himself being forced back onto his bed. He couldn't move, not even to open his mouth to speak. His breathing was regulated for him, although his panic warranted both a quickened heart rate and breathing pattern. His eyes closed, though he fought with everything he had to keep them open. For a second, he could have sworn he was dying.

#Relax Stefan.# the being who controlled him typed into the darkness of his own head; But that was the last thing he was doing. Some sort of internal hell raged inside him as he fought against the prison of his own flesh, struggling to do anything by the power of his own will. But he could do nothing.

#We can keep doing this for as long as it takes, Stefan.# 'Leave me ALONE!' He screamed into the void of his mind.

#Not until you calm down enough to hear me out.#

He raved internally for a long time. Eventually he was reduced to internal sobbing. And then, finally, a sense of crushing defeat and miserable despair.

Ok, I know what you're thinking. This was supposed to be a fic with a (finally) happy ending, right? K, well it's coming, don't worry. I just had to get Stefan's reaction to being exposed to a truly vicious and voracious violation of volition out of my system. But now that that's done, we can get on with actually fixing this mess... in the next chapter. Apparently, there'll be three. Sorry this one's short, but it's late and I'm tired. So goodnight, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Vale!

-CrypticScribbles (there's really gotta be better users that haven't been taken yet.)

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