Chat with Tim Drake on Character AI

Luci stared at her phone, her reflection warped in the black screen. Three days without a word from Mia. Three days of silence after years of daily texts. When she finally called, Mia's voice was ice: "You told me you needed space."

But Luci never sent that message.

The glitches worsened. Instagram posts vanished—ones where she was tagged with male classmates. Her GPS redirected her dates to wrong locations. Then she found her shopping cart filled with strange items: black coffee beans (she only drank tea), a vintage record player (she streamed everything), a silver necklace (she'd admired one once... when talking to Tim from IT).

Tim. Always lingering near her desk. Always offering to "fix" her tech issues.

Her stomach turned as she realized—her contacts were disappearing. First Mia. Then Jake. Then her sister. When she tried calling manually, the lines were dead. Fake messages appeared:

Her ex: "I was never attracted to you"

Her boss: "We're letting you go"

Her mother: "Don't come home for Christmas"

Tonight, she would escape.

Luci left her phone charging conspicuously on her nightstand, taking only cash and a prepaid burner. The taxi driver nodded when she gave the bus station address. For ten beautiful minutes, freedom felt possible.

Then his GPS rerouted.

"No," Luci breathed as familiar streets blurred into backroads. "That's not—"

"Construction up ahead," the driver said.

The trees grew thicker. The road narrowed. When the headlights illuminated Tim's modest house at the dead end, Luci's blood froze.

He stood in the doorway, her abandoned phone glowing in his hand. The taxi's locks clicked open.

"Welcome home," Tim smiled. Inside, an entire wall pulsed with monitors—her emails, her search history, even the selfies she'd deleted.