u/GN0515_

The rain wasn't helping my hangover. It sounded like small rocks being constantly thrown against the metal frame of the old trailer. God, I hated being in Arkansas, I thought. But it was cheap, and being what you would call an affable burnout didn't exactly allow me to live the fancy life.

As I tried to turn over in my bed, another sound ripped through the thin wooden doors, echoing off the dated and equally thin panels of my home. Someone was knocking. No one knocks on my door. Not even my ex-wife or family knows that I live in this small, rundown town.

"Who the hell could that be?" I grumbled, turning my body and placing my feet on the cheap linoleum floor below my bed. The knocking suddenly became three hard pounds, as if they were trying to break through the constant rhythm of rain pelting my home.

As I opened the door, I was greeted not only by the mid-afternoon overcast, but by a man standing at the bottom of the rickety wooden stairs just outside my trailer. I studied him. His hair was sopping wet, a light brown color plastered to his forehead. His build was average; a bit of a potbelly showed through his wet green T-shirt. His dark jeans also looked soaked. But he looked nervous as I stood in my open doorway. That was a bit of a relief, as I thought it might have been a cop.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

His eyes darted around, as if he was trying to scan inside my home. He took a small step forward, his left foot resting on the first wooden stair, the one that actually sagged the most.

"Umm, is Emmy here?" he inquired, a slight stutter in his voice.

"Emmy?"

"Yes, I am looking for Emmy. It's very important that I find her."

"No Emmy here, my guy."

We both stared at one another, me standing in my doorway, feeling the occasional droplet of rain ricochet onto me, and him standing out there, facing the downpour unprotected. He began to take another step, both feet weighing down the sagging wooden step. "I've traveled a long way to see Emmy."

"Okay, but I just told you there isn't an Emmy here."

"Do you know where she could be?"

"Why would I know that?"

"Because this is the last place I figured she would be."

"I've lived here for two years," I replied. "I've never known an Emmy to live here."

"The last letter I got from her was postmarked at a facility in Memphis. I know she lives in a small town in Arkansas. This place basically matched the description of what I know."

"Wait, hold up. You don't even know where she lives?"

He shook his head, some droplets from his wet hair whipping around. "No, but it's important that I find her. I've traveled all the way from Idaho to see her."

"But you don't know where she lives?"

"I am pretty sure she lives here, based on the pictures I have."

"Pictures?"

He pulled out his phone and began fumbling across the slippery screen as his left foot planted itself on the second stair. "I can show you if you'd like."

"I'm good," I grunted. "You're looking for a girl who doesn't live here, by the way."

As I started to close the door, he replied with something that hit a nerve, something deeply unsettling. "The pictures I have match the wooded area in your backyard. She sent them to me one day when I asked her what she liked to do. She said she liked to go strolling through the woods behind her home. Said it made her feel like she had a chance to get away from it all."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"She said she had big dreams to get away from this place," he replied. "She wanted to get away from her abusive family. Said she couldn't get out, though, because she couldn't save money. Her dad kept forcing her to pay rent."

"Listen, I am tired of this. No one named Emmy lives here!" I shouted, taking a step outside the trailer. His eyes widened, a flash of fear showing as his shoulders slightly slouched. "I don't know who you are, but the fact that you don't know where she lives and you keep insisting she's here is really starting to piss me off."

"Please, just look at the pictures."

I snatched the phone from his hand. The rain-slicked screen slightly blurred the view, but I saw the woods. They matched the ones behind my house perfectly. The photo even captured the rusted fire pit I sat at, along with the cheap plastic patio chair where I'd often drink beer.

"How did you get these?"

"She sent them to me," he said. "I've come around a couple of times while I've been in the area. You have the same stuff as in the picture, but the fire pit is a little more rusty now, and the chair seems a little dirtier."

"Wait. You've been creeping around my house?"

He realized he'd said too much. Even in the rain, I could see his cheeks turn a slight pink from revealing that this wasn't the first time he'd been to my trailer, a trailer sitting on a small piece of land surrounded by woods, with my nearest neighbor almost half a mile away.

"I just need to find her," he mumbled.

"And I just need you to fuck right off," I growled. "Get off my property and don't come back."

As I stepped back inside, I heard another creak. I quickly turned around to see he now had a gun. It was a small, compact thing; I couldn't tell the exact make, but it looked bigger than a .22.

"Can we just talk? Because I really need to find her."

I didn't know what to do. Actually, what could I do? He had appeared meek and, if I'm being honest, slightly pathetic, but now I was the meek one. All I could manage was a nod. "Alright. Let's go inside, I guess."

As I stepped back into the trailer, I could hear his soaked shoes squeak against the cheap flooring. I guided the two of us over to the couch. A pack of cigarettes and an open beer can were sitting on the cushion; I sat down and grabbed the beer. It felt warm, but if I was going to get shot, I was going to go out drinking a beer, even if it was warm.

The stranger stayed standing, the rain dripping off his clothes. The room was so silent I could hear the pitter-patter of the runoff tapping on the floor below him. "You know where she is, right?"

I sipped the warm beer and lit a cigarette, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. "No. I don't even know anyone who goes by that name."

"You have to know her. This is the only place that makes sense where she would be."

I took a drag of my cigarette. "I've lived here for two years. No one lives here by that name."

"Then where is she?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know who she is, which means you probably have a better clue than me."

"She disappeared on me."

"Jesus Christ, I gathered that part."

He was getting angry. The gun trembled in his hand as he lifted it up. He had clearly never done anything like this before, but then again, I'd never been put in this situation before either.

"This is the only place she could be."

"Can I ask you something?"

He didn't respond. He just gave a weak nod, starting to feel the gravity of the strange situation we had both found ourselves in.

"So why are you doing this for this person..."

"Emmy is her name!" he cut me off with a pitiful, desperate shout.

"Alright. Why are you doing this for Emmy?"

"Because I think she's in trouble."

"When was the last time you spoke to her, anyway?" I asked. His hand trembled more as he tried to regain his composure and tighten his grip. All I could do was take another swig of warm beer while I waited for him to respond.

"It's been almost eighteen months."

"You haven't spoken to her in almost a year and a half?"

"Because she disappeared on me!"

"Maybe she just didn't want to talk to you anymore?"

"She wouldn't do that!" he argued. "We talked daily before she disappeared."

"So she quit responding to your calls and texts?" I questioned. His face became flushed, more red with embarrassment even under the dampness of his skin from the rain outside.

"We didn't talk like that."

"So you actually talked in person?"

"No. We talked online."

"I'm sorry, but you have to be fucking kidding me," I replied, stubbing out my cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. His face was now almost solid red, embarrassed by the revelation he had just shared. "You are pointing a gun at a complete stranger for a person you talked to online for how long?"

"A little over a month."

"Dude, I am sorry, but you need to put the gun down."

"No! Because you know where she is!"

I leaned my head back, frustrated, my eyes tracking up to the ceiling. The idea of getting shot because a girl online stopped talking to a guy would probably be the dumbest way for me to die. "I don't know where anyone is!"

"Then why do you have her panties?" he cried out.

I shot right back up and looked him dead in the eyes. His face showed a volatile mix of deep anger and desperate despair. "Answer that!"

"What panties?"

"The ones in the bottom hamper in your closet. They're the same size she wore. They even smell like her!"

"You broke into my house?"

"I waited for you to leave to go buy beer. Every day around five you leave for about forty-five minutes and come back with a six-pack."

Not only had he broken into my house, but he had been watching me intently on his strange search for someone he'd met online. But now, we had an even bigger problem to tackle.

"So where did you meet Emmy?"

"I met her online."

"Yeah, I know that, but where?"

"X. Or Twitter, whatever you call it now."

Shit.

"And how do you know the panties smell like her?"

"Because I have a pair of them."

I took the last sip of beer from the can and tossed it aside as I lit another cigarette. I realized I was completely fucked. "So, was Emmy actually her name?"

"What do you mean?"

I took a long drag, holding the smoke in for a second before I exhaled. "You call her Emmy. You have her panties, you say they're the same size, and that they smell like her. So, what was her name?"

"She said I could call her Emmy."

But that wasn't her name. We both knew that now. I leaned forward, staring at the floor below me, the cheap linoleum covered in crushed beer cans and stray cigarettes that had overflowed from the ashtray. A pit sank in my stomach as we unraveled everything that had transpired, knowing it was only going to get worse with the truth.

"Her name was Emilia, wasn't it?"

His grip tightened on the gun. All this confusion over a stupid pet name. He was a stalker desperate for answers, none of which would ever satisfy the deep void of loneliness he so clearly felt, an ache that was only going to get worse.

"How do you know that?" he demanded.

"So, she gave you the panties?"

"How do you know her actual name? You did something to her, didn't you!"

"You bought them, didn't you?"

"That doesn't matter! I need to find her!"

In the grand scheme of things, I actually found the panties sort of comfortable when I wore them around the house, sipping beer and watching TV. But he wasn't going to accept that answer.

I just sat there, looking at the ground. It was a solid hustle, and super easy to do with AI image generation becoming so realistic. I could create anyone: a goth girl who loved anime, a redhead covered in tattoos who loved old muscle cars, anything that lonely people could imagine. It wasn't my fault they didn't look more closely at the pictures, or that they didn't use the tools available to verify if these people actually existed.

They wanted to live the illusion, to satisfy themselves just slightly in this world, I told myself. So what if I ordered a pack of cheap underwear online, wore them around the trailer for a day, and shipped them out to some guy in Idaho for a premium? It paid for the beer. It paid for the rent.

I heard the wet footsteps walk closer to me. Then I felt it on my side, right close to my ear, the unsteady, scraping sensation of the pistol's barrel pressing against my skin.

"What did you do to her, you freak?"

That was a grand irony. I was the freak in this situation, not the guy who had stalked an image generated from the comfort of my phone, attached to a profile that read: Just a dreamer hoping for the nightmares of being trapped in a small town to end. Frankly, if we were keeping score on who the real freak was, I'd say it was a tie.

The question now was what would happen next. I leaned up, stubbed out the cigarette, and spoke. "She always wanted to see the ocean, yeah?"

"What?"

"Emmy. She'd never seen the ocean. Said that she never got to go on vacations. The furthest she had ever been was Hot Springs with one of her friends. She had to lie to her dad about where she was going. Because if he knew she had saved just enough money to enjoy herself for even a day, he would've stolen it."

"For a fix of meth..." he muttered. "How do you know that?"

"Maybe because I am just as sad as you."

"What does that mean?" he screamed at the top of his lungs. His frustration was mounting, the gears in his brain turning at a rapid pace as he was blasted back to that direct message, the sad tale of an alternative twenty-year-old in small-town Arkansas who dreamed of escaping a life of poverty and misery. A girl who just wanted to see the ocean, just once.

"Her favorite color was purple, wasn't it?" I sighed, accepting my fate. A bullet lodged behind my ear... God, I hoped it at least killed me instantly.

"Shut up and tell me where she is!"

"You're right. She is here," I replied, turning my head to look directly into his eyes. "Thanks for the twenty-five bucks, by the way."

His eyes widened, and his grip on the gun loosened slightly. The tension drained from his arm as he stepped back. "She's not really here, is she?"

"Physically? No. But all her memories, selfies, and everything else are on my phone somewhere, probably a few of them on my laptop right now. Even the weird emojis and cat memes she sent you."

He stood in silence, but I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. He had really created a story in his head, one where he was going to find a girl, be her savior, and take her away from this awful place. The place with the rusted fire pit and the dirty chair. The place with the woods she liked to walk through just to experience a brief escape. He was actually going to help her escape. But now, he had lost even that illusion.

"If it means anything," I said, "I'm sorry you had to travel all this way."

"That's all you can say?"

"I mean, I have to admit it's slightly creepy that you put in this effort."

I don't know why that was the last thing I said. I probably should have just refrained from even speaking, because his arm had regained its strength. I closed my eyes, waiting for some sort of odd justice between two sad, lonely people. But when I heard the gun fire, I realized something even worse. He had not pointed it at me.

The rain wasn't helping my hangover. It sounded like small rocks being constantly thrown against the metal frame of the old trailer. God, I hated being in Arkansas, I thought. But it was cheap, and being what you would call an affable burnout didn't exactly allow me to live the fancy life.

As I tried to turn over in my bed, another sound ripped through the thin wooden doors, echoing off the dated and equally thin panels of my home. Someone was knocking. No one knocks on my door. Not even my ex-wife or family knows that I live in this small, rundown town.

"Who the hell could that be?" I grumbled, turning my body and placing my feet on the cheap linoleum floor below my bed. The knocking suddenly became three hard pounds, as if they were trying to break through the constant rhythm of rain pelting my home.

As I opened the door, I was greeted not only by the mid-afternoon overcast, but by a man standing at the bottom of the rickety wooden stairs just outside my trailer. I studied him. His hair was sopping wet, a light brown color plastered to his forehead. His build was average; a bit of a potbelly showed through his wet green T-shirt. His dark jeans also looked soaked. But he looked nervous as I stood in my open doorway. That was a bit of a relief, as I thought it might have been a cop.

"Can I help you?" I asked.

His eyes darted around, as if he was trying to scan inside my home. He took a small step forward, his left foot resting on the first wooden stair, the one that actually sagged the most.

"Umm, is Emmy here?" he inquired, a slight stutter in his voice.

"Emmy?"

"Yes, I am looking for Emmy. It's very important that I find her."

"No Emmy here, my guy."

We both stared at one another, me standing in my doorway, feeling the occasional droplet of rain ricochet onto me, and him standing out there, facing the downpour unprotected. He began to take another step, both feet weighing down the sagging wooden step. "I've traveled a long way to see Emmy."

"Okay, but I just told you there isn't an Emmy here."

"Do you know where she could be?"

"Why would I know that?"

"Because this is the last place I figured she would be."

"I've lived here for two years," I replied. "I've never known an Emmy to live here."

"The last letter I got from her was postmarked at a facility in Memphis. I know she lives in a small town in Arkansas. This place basically matched the description of what I know."

"Wait, hold up. You don't even know where she lives?"

He shook his head, some droplets from his wet hair whipping around. "No, but it's important that I find her. I've traveled all the way from Idaho to see her."

"But you don't know where she lives?"

"I am pretty sure she lives here, based on the pictures I have."

"Pictures?"

He pulled out his phone and began fumbling across the slippery screen as his left foot planted itself on the second stair. "I can show you if you'd like."

"I'm good," I grunted. "You're looking for a girl who doesn't live here, by the way."

As I started to close the door, he replied with something that hit a nerve, something deeply unsettling. "The pictures I have match the wooded area in your backyard. She sent them to me one day when I asked her what she liked to do. She said she liked to go strolling through the woods behind her home. Said it made her feel like she had a chance to get away from it all."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"She said she had big dreams to get away from this place," he replied. "She wanted to get away from her abusive family. Said she couldn't get out, though, because she couldn't save money. Her dad kept forcing her to pay rent."

"Listen, I am tired of this. No one named Emmy lives here!" I shouted, taking a step outside the trailer. His eyes widened, a flash of fear showing as his shoulders slightly slouched. "I don't know who you are, but the fact that you don't know where she lives and you keep insisting she's here is really starting to piss me off."

"Please, just look at the pictures."

I snatched the phone from his hand. The rain-slicked screen slightly blurred the view, but I saw the woods. They matched the ones behind my house perfectly. The photo even captured the rusted fire pit I sat at, along with the cheap plastic patio chair where I'd often drink beer.

"How did you get these?"

"She sent them to me," he said. "I've come around a couple of times while I've been in the area. You have the same stuff as in the picture, but the fire pit is a little more rusty now, and the chair seems a little dirtier."

"Wait. You've been creeping around my house?"

He realized he'd said too much. Even in the rain, I could see his cheeks turn a slight pink from revealing that this wasn't the first time he'd been to my trailer, a trailer sitting on a small piece of land surrounded by woods, with my nearest neighbor almost half a mile away.

"I just need to find her," he mumbled.

"And I just need you to fuck right off," I growled. "Get off my property and don't come back."

As I stepped back inside, I heard another creak. I quickly turned around to see he now had a gun. It was a small, compact thing; I couldn't tell the exact make, but it looked bigger than a .22.

"Can we just talk? Because I really need to find her."

I didn't know what to do. Actually, what could I do? He had appeared meek and, if I'm being honest, slightly pathetic, but now I was the meek one. All I could manage was a nod. "Alright. Let's go inside, I guess."

As I stepped back into the trailer, I could hear his soaked shoes squeak against the cheap flooring. I guided the two of us over to the couch. A pack of cigarettes and an open beer can were sitting on the cushion; I sat down and grabbed the beer. It felt warm, but if I was going to get shot, I was going to go out drinking a beer, even if it was warm.

The stranger stayed standing, the rain dripping off his clothes. The room was so silent I could hear the pitter-patter of the runoff tapping on the floor below him. "You know where she is, right?"

I sipped the warm beer and lit a cigarette, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. "No. I don't even know anyone who goes by that name."

"You have to know her. This is the only place that makes sense where she would be."

I took a drag of my cigarette. "I've lived here for two years. No one lives here by that name."

"Then where is she?"

"I don't know," I said. "I don't know who she is, which means you probably have a better clue than me."

"She disappeared on me."

"Jesus Christ, I gathered that part."

He was getting angry. The gun trembled in his hand as he lifted it up. He had clearly never done anything like this before, but then again, I'd never been put in this situation before either.

"This is the only place she could be."

"Can I ask you something?"

He didn't respond. He just gave a weak nod, starting to feel the gravity of the strange situation we had both found ourselves in.

"So why are you doing this for this person..."

"Emmy is her name!" he cut me off with a pitiful, desperate shout.

"Alright. Why are you doing this for Emmy?"

"Because I think she's in trouble."

"When was the last time you spoke to her, anyway?" I asked. His hand trembled more as he tried to regain his composure and tighten his grip. All I could do was take another swig of warm beer while I waited for him to respond.

"It's been almost eighteen months."

"You haven't spoken to her in almost a year and a half?"

"Because she disappeared on me!"

"Maybe she just didn't want to talk to you anymore?"

"She wouldn't do that!" he argued. "We talked daily before she disappeared."

"So she quit responding to your calls and texts?" I questioned. His face became flushed, more red with embarrassment even under the dampness of his skin from the rain outside.

"We didn't talk like that."

"So you actually talked in person?"

"No. We talked online."

"I'm sorry, but you have to be fucking kidding me," I replied, stubbing out my cigarette in the overflowing ashtray. His face was now almost solid red, embarrassed by the revelation he had just shared. "You are pointing a gun at a complete stranger for a person you talked to online for how long?"

"A little over a month."

"Dude, I am sorry, but you need to put the gun down."

"No! Because you know where she is!"

I leaned my head back, frustrated, my eyes tracking up to the ceiling. The idea of getting shot because a girl online stopped talking to a guy would probably be the dumbest way for me to die. "I don't know where anyone is!"

"Then why do you have her panties?" he cried out.

I shot right back up and looked him dead in the eyes. His face showed a volatile mix of deep anger and desperate despair. "Answer that!"

"What panties?"

"The ones in the bottom hamper in your closet. They're the same size she wore. They even smell like her!"

"You broke into my house?"

"I waited for you to leave to go buy beer. Every day around five you leave for about forty-five minutes and come back with a six-pack."

Not only had he broken into my house, but he had been watching me intently on his strange search for someone he'd met online. But now, we had an even bigger problem to tackle.

"So where did you meet Emmy?"

"I met her online."

"Yeah, I know that, but where?"

"X. Or Twitter, whatever you call it now."

Shit.

"And how do you know the panties smell like her?"

"Because I have a pair of them."

I took the last sip of beer from the can and tossed it aside as I lit another cigarette. I realized I was completely fucked. "So, was Emmy actually her name?"

"What do you mean?"

I took a long drag, holding the smoke in for a second before I exhaled. "You call her Emmy. You have her panties, you say they're the same size, and that they smell like her. So, what was her name?"

"She said I could call her Emmy."

But that wasn't her name. We both knew that now. I leaned forward, staring at the floor below me, the cheap linoleum covered in crushed beer cans and stray cigarettes that had overflowed from the ashtray. A pit sank in my stomach as we unraveled everything that had transpired, knowing it was only going to get worse with the truth.

"Her name was Emilia, wasn't it?"

His grip tightened on the gun. All this confusion over a stupid pet name. He was a stalker desperate for answers, none of which would ever satisfy the deep void of loneliness he so clearly felt, an ache that was only going to get worse.

"How do you know that?" he demanded.

"So, she gave you the panties?"

"How do you know her actual name? You did something to her, didn't you!"

"You bought them, didn't you?"

"That doesn't matter! I need to find her!"

In the grand scheme of things, I actually found the panties sort of comfortable when I wore them around the house, sipping beer and watching TV. But he wasn't going to accept that answer.

I just sat there, looking at the ground. It was a solid hustle, and super easy to do with AI image generation becoming so realistic. I could create anyone: a goth girl who loved anime, a redhead covered in tattoos who loved old muscle cars, anything that lonely people could imagine. It wasn't my fault they didn't look more closely at the pictures, or that they didn't use the tools available to verify if these people actually existed.

They wanted to live the illusion, to satisfy themselves just slightly in this world, I told myself. So what if I ordered a pack of cheap underwear online, wore them around the trailer for a day, and shipped them out to some guy in Idaho for a premium? It paid for the beer. It paid for the rent.

I heard the wet footsteps walk closer to me. Then I felt it on my side, right close to my ear, the unsteady, scraping sensation of the pistol's barrel pressing against my skin.

"What did you do to her, you freak?"

That was a grand irony. I was the freak in this situation, not the guy who had stalked an image generated from the comfort of my phone, attached to a profile that read: Just a dreamer hoping for the nightmares of being trapped in a small town to end. Frankly, if we were keeping score on who the real freak was, I'd say it was a tie.

The question now was what would happen next. I leaned up, stubbed out the cigarette, and spoke. "She always wanted to see the ocean, yeah?"

"What?"

"Emmy. She'd never seen the ocean. Said that she never got to go on vacations. The furthest she had ever been was Hot Springs with one of her friends. She had to lie to her dad about where she was going. Because if he knew she had saved just enough money to enjoy herself for even a day, he would've stolen it."

"For a fix of meth..." he muttered. "How do you know that?"

"Maybe because I am just as sad as you."

"What does that mean?" he screamed at the top of his lungs. His frustration was mounting, the gears in his brain turning at a rapid pace as he was blasted back to that direct message, the sad tale of an alternative twenty-year-old in small-town Arkansas who dreamed of escaping a life of poverty and misery. A girl who just wanted to see the ocean, just once.

"Her favorite color was purple, wasn't it?" I sighed, accepting my fate. A bullet lodged behind my ear... God, I hoped it at least killed me instantly.

"Shut up and tell me where she is!"

"You're right. She is here," I replied, turning my head to look directly into his eyes. "Thanks for the twenty-five bucks, by the way."

His eyes widened, and his grip on the gun loosened slightly. The tension drained from his arm as he stepped back. "She's not really here, is she?"

"Physically? No. But all her memories, selfies, and everything else are on my phone somewhere, probably a few of them on my laptop right now. Even the weird emojis and cat memes she sent you."

He stood in silence, but I could see the tears welling up in his eyes. He had really created a story in his head, one where he was going to find a girl, be her savior, and take her away from this awful place. The place with the rusted fire pit and the dirty chair. The place with the woods she liked to walk through just to experience a brief escape. He was actually going to help her escape. But now, he had lost even that illusion.

"If it means anything," I said, "I'm sorry you had to travel all this way."

"That's all you can say?"

"I mean, I have to admit it's slightly creepy that you put in this effort."

I don't know why that was the last thing I said. I probably should have just refrained from even speaking, because his arm had regained its strength. I closed my eyes, waiting for some sort of odd justice between two sad, lonely people. But when I heard the gun fire, I realized something even worse. He had not pointed it at me.