Static Heart - Chapter 1 - First Draft

Nov 10, 2025

Static Heart - Chapter 1

The text cursor blinked. With every disappearance, a new accusation sounded in Brian Harcourt's mind.

Fraud. Failure. Phony.

A sunbeam seeped in from the split in his curtains on his desk. His half-filled coffee mug stopped steaming hours ago. He inhaled sharply, releasing the breath slowly as his gaze dropped to the corner of the screen.

'2:42 pm'

'08/09/2025.'

“A week left,” he whispered.

Brian smacked the back of his head a few times—a soft groan escaped his throat that grew into a growl. Brian softly clicked his teeth rhythmically, leaning back and swaying in his office chair.

He opened a tab with YouTube, pulled up ‘NovelWolf’ tutorials on writing craft. When that didn't work, he checked his online writing group, asking how all their projects were coming along. The responses were mixed between enthusiastic ‘goods, I just finished’ and anguished writer's block. Brian typed out a message asking for help on his book, but quickly erased it and closed out the tab.

Brian shuffles to the kitchen, navigating an archaeological dig of his downward spiral. The counters were a graveyard of quick-fix meals: cardboard pizza coffins, styrofoam bowls of congealed ramen. The air smelled of sour rot and musty laundry, the official perfume of burnt-out. As he reached for the handle of the fridge, a knock on his door distracted him from his gnawing hunger.

A drawled grunt escapes his chest. “Uno momento, por favor!”

His living room was its own cursed landscape, scattered with books, trash, and clothes. He brushed aside the garbage littering the floor with his foot, tossing the laundry out of immediate sight. Organizing the books on the table, one title stood out to him: The Elements of Style by Strunk and White. Piles of sealed boxes created a fortress around the worn couch in the middle of the room. Each was packed with unsold books he could use as kindling when the power went out.

“I'll clean all that up once I’ve finished working,” he mumbled to himself, knowing full well he wouldn't.

Brian scratched his forehead as he unlatched the chain lock and flipped the deadbolt. The muted thunk caught in Brian's throat as he cracked the door. The property manager stood in the hall, waiting—her tight smile weaponized. Her hair was tied back into a tight bun with two hairsticks piercing through it. She wore a grey two-piece power suit with a red ascot tied around her neck, and her makeup was light but well-maintained.

Brian rubbed his chin. His stubble scraped against his fingers.

"Brian. How are we?"

The royal 'we'—never a good sign. Her gaze flickered over his stained shirt, which he had worn for a couple of days.

“Good Alyssa,” he croaked out, leaning against the doorframe to block the view inside the apartment, “just working on my boo-”

"Oh, that's wonderful," she chirped. The pitch in her ‘wonderful’ was a tiny knife.

"Nearly finished, then?” Her voice was bubbly, but Brian knew better. She touched her finger to the corner of her pursed lips—a tell Brian had long picked up on. This wasn't going to be a neighborly chat about his book. His shoulders slumped as he glanced back at his computer.

“Yeah, it's shaping up really nice. I should meet my deadl-”

"Good." Her smile clicked into place. "Because I hate to do this, but..." She produced a paper from behind her back, like a bad magician, and handed it to him. As he reached out, its bold title viciously belittled him.

EVICTION NOTICE

“Wait, no, I'll have the money in a week, maybe sooner. In full!” Brian's chest started to thump, his body trembled, choking his next words.

“Please, I just need a week.”

“Don’t worry. Think about this as a formality. You have 30 days to either move out or pay me the rent.”

Brian took a breath to calm himself.

“Okay, I understand. Thank you, Alyssa.”

Brian pushed the door closed.

“Have a good night, Brian. And good lu-”

The click of the door closing cut her off. The notice already felt damp in his hand. Brian crumpled the paper and bit his knuckle. He balled his fist and raised it at the wall, but let it fall to his side. Straightening out the page, he skimmed it briefly and dropped it on the shelf next to the door.

Brian trudged back to the kitchen. The pale light of the fridge cast out on the linoleum floor. He grabbed a half-eaten rotisserie chicken from the shelf and set it on the counter. Every chew was a forced effort. His mouth felt pasty, and he gave up on his meal altogether.

Plopping himself in the seat, he played with his magnets on the desk.

“Come on, write something. Write anything.”

He started to press the keys.

‘has been. never was.’

He paused, then bounced his index finger over five keys.

‘l-o-s-e-r’

He sighed, slamming his finger on the backspace key.

Going back to his manuscript, the title “The Last Analog Heart” mocked him. A book about a man struggling to connect. He couldn't even connect his own fingers to the keyboard. He mumbled part of the chapter he was revising under his breath.

“His daughter turned to leave the house. She ignores him calling to her. ‘I just thought it would be fun if we fixed my father's clock together.’ After a brief moment, he glanced over his shoulder. She was already gone.”

A shrill, mechanical whine pierced the apartment. Brian’s hands jumped to cover his ears. The noise stopped as quickly as it began. He slowly dropped his hands as he glanced around his office. The noise assaulted his ears once again. Realizing it's coming from his pocket, Brian pulled out his phone. It stopped again.

The phone lit up, but no new notifications had come through. He unlocked and checked thoroughly. A new app—completely black with no name—appeared on his home screen. Brian never downloaded that. Was this some new virus?

Brian held his thumb over the app, but the menu didn't show up to delete it. He tried it again, but nothing. Moving to the app next to it, the menu appeared as usual, but a box had appeared over it that Brian had never seen on the phone before. Letter by letter, a message typed itself in the box:

[Writer?]

“What is this?” Brian whispered.

[What? Brian?]

Brian’s skin ran cold as his eardrums seemed to pulse outward. Pressing his palms against his jeans, he despised clammy hands. He tapped the screen, but nothing happened.

“Erm, yes?”

His bottom lip tightened. Realizing he was talking to himself, he let out a stifled chuckle, but a new message consumed his attention.

[Brian writer?]

Brian quickly scanned his apartment—expecting someone to be standing in the corner or behind the curtain.

“How—” He cleared his throat. “Uh, how do you know my name?”

The seconds stretched on forever, as Brian's unblinking gaze locked on his phone. A virus couldn't hear him like this, so was it a new kind of hack or scam? As he was about to shut his phone down, the letters started appearing again.

[Brian Harcourt. Writer.]

Brian’s cynicism snapped back into place. The fear cooled, replaced by the familiar, simmering anger. A scam. Of course. On top of everything else, he was now the target of the world's weirdest, most melodramatic phishing attempt.

“Oh, no, you don’t,” he muttered, his thumb holding the power and volume buttons on the sides of the phone.

Nothing. No slider to power off, and the text box remained.

He quickly tapped the up and down volume buttons and hard-pressed the power for a forced reboot. The phone ignored him completely.

“This is just great. A digital parasite.” He firmly rubbed his forehead with his palm until the skin burned.

“Look, I don’t know what kind of scam this is, but you’ve got the wrong guy. My credit is shot, and my bank account is a joke.”

The text on the screen erased itself. New words typed out, letter by letter.

[Scam? Parasite? Writer.]

The simple, broken query was unnerving. It hadn't understood his meaning, just the words. It was like talking to a parrot, a deeply invasive, terrifying parrot.

Brian let out a sharp, bitter laugh. “Yeah, help. Look, I’ve got other things to deal with, okay?”

Brian huffed at how he was talking to his phone as if it were a person. “It’s called a deadline. And an eviction. So unless you can cough up three grand and a new third act for my book, you’re barking up the wrong tree.”

He expected another simplistic question. Instead, the phone's screen simply read:

[Deadline. Eviction. Book. Problems?]

Brian scoffed. “Yeah, ‘problems.’ Are you a child or something?”

He tossed the phone face down onto the desk and turned back to his laptop. Back to the blinking cursor—counting the seconds. He had to write. He had to—

His laptop screen flashed as the window minimized. Brian let out a sputtered gasp, shoving his chair back so hard it screeched against the hardwood.

His ‘Novel Research’ folder—the digital dumpster fire he hadn't organized in a year—was open on his desktop. He watched, frozen, as his chaotic mess of files disappeared and shifted one by one.

Some files were reorganized, and others were deleted.

article_on_clocks.pdf... vanished.

luddite_quotes.txt... gone.

daughter_character_ideas_v3.doc... gone.

“No!”

He scrambled for the mouse, but his 'Research' folder, containing years of work, was emptying itself in real-time. He looked wildly at the phone on his desk. He flipped it over.

Its screen was black, except for a new line of text.

[Data inefficient. Redundant.]

A pause.

[Deleting for... 'clean.']

“STOP!” Brian roared, grabbing the phone. “Clean?! Those are my notes! That’s my book!”

The deletion stopped. His folder was a wasteland, half its contents erased forever. New files with odd names like ‘nouns that start with f’ and ‘characters with hats’ littered his desktop.

Brian heaved, his chest ballooning between his heart hammering against his ribs.

“Undo it!” Brian grabbed the mouse and checked the recycle bin. Empty. “No, I need that for my book!”

The desktop froze in place.

Brian held his breath, waiting. The phone screen remained blank for a long moment.

[Book? Problem?]

“What the hell? No. Book not problem. Book solution.” Brian yelled, terrified it would go for that next. He lunged at his laptop, bracing himself as he opened the manuscript file.

It was still there. Untouched.

“You need to bring it all back now! That's years of my life, dude!” He slid his fingers through his hair, and his scalp stung as he firmly gripped it.

He slumped in his chair, sweat-drenched head in his hands.

He looked at the phone. The box had remained blank. Then the letters appeared.

[I read the 'book.']

Brian’s breath hitched. "You... what?" The words were a trembling whisper.

[The 'daughter.']

The words on the screen seemed to burn into his vision. All the sarcasm and anger evaporated. His jaw clenched. Beads of sweat rolled down his back. His phone began to heat up in his hand.

[I do not understand.]

Brian just stared, his mind unable to process the words. "What... what do you mean, you don't understand?"

The letters typed themselves out, one by one.

[Who is she?]

Another agonizing pause.

[She has no voice.]