Dark Fantasy · Horror · The Plot Calls Anthology · 06 août, 2025

The Plot Calls #19 : "Stimulation and Simulacra"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination and/or Ai-assisted-content-generation. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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Connor Bell didn’t glutton for food. He gluttoned for stimulation—the fast, shallow drip of newness. Clicks. Scrolls. Ragebait. Algorithms spoon-feeding outrage, desire, cheap dopamine. His fridge was empty. His counters cluttered with takeout wrappers and unopened packages. His eyes—bloodshot from late-night meme threads, esports marathons, and endless influencer drama—barely closed anymore.

He wasn’t alone. Everyone scrolled. Everyone consumed. But Connor… Connor needed it. He needed it more than he needed his friends, family, and his girlfriend.

Farcebook. YouView. InstantGrat. TimeBomb. NetworkNarcissists. heX. The feeds pulsed like veins across his screen—debates, memes, scandals, envy loops of sculpted bodies and curated lives. Even his video games lost their fun unless they came with quick kills and flashy unlocks. Long-form anything? Unbearable. Silence? Unthinkable. Stillness? Hell.

But the more he consumed, the less it satisfied.

The world outside dulled. His reflection blurred. His thoughts looped like recycled TimeBombs. Then came the insomnia. And with it—the whispers.

Not through his phone. Not through his speakers. In his apartment.

They began in the vents. Beneath the walls. A low, voiceless hunger curling at the edges of his overstimulated mind.

One night, after another midnight gaming binge, Connor noticed something wrong near his desk. The laminate floor rippled. Distorted—like heat over asphalt. A faint, unnatural shimmer pulsed along the surface.

He didn’t question it. The hunger… it recognized him.

Without thinking, Connor offered what he had—his sleek, noise-canceling Bluetooth headphones. The ones that blocked out the world. The ones that made every notification, every angry streamer, every whispered “Win more, grind harder, consume faster” feel closer, louder, necessary. The soil accepted.

The next morning, everything hit harder. He forget about his girlfriend, Eden. He ignored her calls. Ignored her texts.

His feed was curated perfection. Content bled directly into his skull—clips autoplayed in his head even when his phone was off. He crushed leaderboards. Memes refreshed before he could blink. Outrage cycled seamlessly into awe, into horniness, into envy, into… nothing. The cycle never stopped. He never stopped.

But reality dulled. His skin thinned. His eyes sunken. His dopamine tolerance fried. His reflection? Fuzzy. His presence? Hollow.

The soil called again. This time, he offered more—old game consoles, his collector's edition controller, a hard drive full of “trophies,” videos, music, everything that once made the consumption feel like his own. It all sank into the plot. Neither satisfying Connor nor the thing calling to be fed.

The hunger never ended. But the man did.

Eventually, Connor had only one thing left to offer, and so he did.

He didn't answer calls, texts, emails, or DMs. Connor always had his phone him. He played the respond later game sometimes, but he usually responded to teh dopamine hit of his notifications —sound always on, every tap giving him haptic feedback.

Concerned, his parents and friends went to check on him. When Connor didn't answer the door, they called the police.

The apartment was empty. Officer Gunn, the lead officer, paused. Horrified. He turned to his partner, Officer Alvarez.

“It’s like Evelyn Bainbridge… The widow with the son and daughter,” Gunn said, chills running down his spine.

“What do you mean, Gunn?” Alvarez asked.

Terrified, Gunn shook his head. He looked around at the empty apartment, and then back at his partner—trying to make sense of what he instinctively understood, but couldn’t explain.

Alvarez looked at Gunn. Waiting. Expecting. Anything, but idle.

Officer Gunn paused. He took a deep breath—composing himself. Gunn shook his head, exhaled, then said: