Suddenly, the feed flickered. A face appeared, filling the frame. It was Mrs. Miller, but her eyes were wrong—the pupils were square, pulsing with a faint, digital hum. She looked directly into the lens, her mouth opening unnaturally wide.
"The lawn needs mowing, Elias," the silhouette said, its voice a discordant layering of his neighbors’ tones. "The symmetry is breaking." Disturbia
He spun around. His bedroom door, which he’d locked an hour ago, stood wide open. The hallway light was out, but he could see a silhouette standing there. It was tall, its limbs slightly too long, swaying with the same rhythmic twitch as the sprinklers outside. Suddenly, the feed flickered
Elias sat by his window, the blue light of his monitor casting a ghostly pallor over his face. Outside, the cul-de-sac was a perfect loop of manicured lawns and motion-sensor floodlights. It was a neighborhood designed for safety, yet Elias had never felt more hunted. Miller, but her eyes were wrong—the pupils were