The 8 o’clock morning commute was always a silent, head-down affair. Packed like sardines in a can, no one made eye contact. Once settled down to a seat or a standing position, everyone was anchored to a glowing glass rectangle in their hands.
Val leaned back against the wall beside the doors, watching them from under a lowered brow.
He didn’t look at a screen. He never did on the train. Instead, he tracked the subtle movement of what was perched on top of the passengers.
Hunched over the shoulder of the teenage girl near the door was a frail, translucent creature. Its long, needles-for-fingers tapped rapidly on her phone screen, hungrily feeding on every notification badge and heart icon that flashed. A monster of Validation, thin and frantic.
A few meters away, a middle-aged man in a shirt and tie sat stiffly while a heavy, bloated entity wrapped its thick arms around his neck, forcing his eyes onto an endless stream of short video reels. That was Distraction—heavy, suffocating, keeping the man’s mind too numb to feel the weight of his day.
Further down the car, a woman gripped the handrail so hard her knuckles turned white. Perched on her chest was a jagged, twitching shadow with two burning coals as its eyes. It snapped its jaws every time she scrolled past a political headline or a comment section argument, swelling larger with every surge of adrenaline. That was Outrage—sharp, erratic, feeding on pure indignation.
Val kept his gaze strictly tilted downward whenever one of the entities shifted. He was careful never to lock eyes with them directly. If they realized he could see them, he didn’t want to find out what would happen. So, he observed from the periphery, keeping a poker face all the time.
He took a quiet, deliberate breath and smoothed the front of his jacket. He felt a deep sense of detachment. He had uninstalled many apps, turned off the notifications, and reclaimed his mind. Surely, he wasn’t like the other passengers in the train, like sheep being led to slaughter. He had discipline. He had control. He was awake while everyone else slept.
Across the aisle, a little boy sitting beside his mother dropped his plastic toy truck. The boy didn’t search for his toy on the floor. His eyes were wide, fixed entirely on the space just behind Val’s head.
The child shrank back into his seat, clutching his mother’s sleeve, his face pale with a sudden, quiet terror. He gasped. His immense fear did not allow him to release any noise.
Val glanced over, mistaking the child’s stare for simple curiosity. He offered the boy a faint, patronizing smile—a gentle gesture of pity for a child growing up in a world of distracted parents—before turning back toward the doors.
The little boy couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Towering over Val’s shoulders was a behemoth—far larger, darker, and more imposing than any of the flickering creatures feeding on the phones. Its chest rose and fell with a slow, heavy pulse. It didn’t need a screen to feed; it fed on the quiet conviction rising in Val’s chest. Its massive, clawed hands rested gently on Val’s shoulders, pinning his head upright, tilting his chin just a fraction higher than everyone else in the car.
The creature lowered its horned head close to Val’s ear; smoke escaped as its shadowy jaws widened into a silent grin as Val stepped off the train, entirely unaware of the weight he was carrying out onto the platform.
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