Pascal philosophized that all human problems stem from the inability to sit quietly in a room alone. He believed people fear loneliness because it forces them to confront their own anxieties, leading them to seek constant, often shallow, distractions.
For millennia, humans have found ways to build relationships and propagate the species. Until now.
What's changed?
If media is to be believed, the younger folks just ain't getting freaky like their grandparents did.
Josh was thirty-four years old and had never so much as held a woman’s hand.
That was the line he liked to start with when he argued online. It had a certain tragic rhythm to it, something he felt people should recognize as proof of his personal deep injustice. Thirty-four years. As if time itself had wronged him.
His bedroom was still the same room he had grown up in. Posters had been replaced with a second monitor and a ring light for recording videos no one watched. The carpet smelled faintly of dust and laundry detergent. His parents kept the rest of the house tidy. They moved quietly now when passing his door.
While still a young man, Josh spent most of his time sitting.
Sitting in the glow of a screen.
Sitting with a phone in his hand.
Sitting inside a thousand arguments.
The videos neatly explained how everything had gone so horribly wrong.
Women had changed. Society had changed. Weak men had ruined things. Algorithms had replaced natural order. Every night there was a new expert explaining why someone like Josh - an alpha, whether others recognized it or not - had been cheated out of his rightful place.
He watched.
He listened.
He nodded.
He repeated their words online as if they were his own thoughts.
He would love to go to one of the manosphere or alpha retreats, but he just didn't have that kind of money. Most of what little he had; he'd been investing in cryptocurrency. It had to be a sure thing! Even the President was into crypto!
Most evenings he ate at the diner three blocks away.
Not because the food was good. It wasn’t. But it was cheap.
And she worked there.
She moved between the tables with a quiet efficiency that fascinated him. Dark hair tied back. A pen tucked behind one ear. She laughed easily with some customers and politely with others.
She had never said more than four words to him at a time.
Coffee?
Need anything else?
Here’s your change.
Josh replayed those moments later in his room.
He studied the way she leaned when she placed the cup down. The sound of her voice. The brief smile she gave customers, but especially to him.
He convinced himself those small gestures meant something.
She had to know.
Women always knew.
****
The first police warning came after Josh waited outside the diner one night.
He explained he was being protective.
The officer explained that standing in a dark parking lot for two hours watching the back door made people nervous.
Josh apologized.
The officer told him not to come back.
Inside him, something curdled.
The videos grew harsher.
More certain.
More angry.
Josh watched them late into the night, the phone glowing inches from his face.
The voices told him he had been robbed.
They told him the world owed him something.
They told him the problem was not him.
Josh believed them.
****
The offer came just after three in the morning.
Josh had fallen asleep in his chair again. His phone slipped from his hand and hit the carpet with a dull thud.
When he opened his eyes, the room felt wrong.
It was darker than it should have been. He checked the time on his phone.
3:15am
The corner near the closet had thickened into a shadow that seemed to have weight.
A voice came from it.
Soft.
Curious.
“Lonely, aren’t you?”
Startled, Josh turned slowly.
The darkness had gathered itself into a shape that resembled a man the way smoke resembles a body.
“You’re real?” Josh whispered.
“Real enough.”
Josh felt something close to relief.
Finally.
Someone willing to listen.
“They’ve taken everything from me,” he said. "34 years!", he started his usual online spiel.
The shadow tilted slightly.
“How dare they?!”
Josh began talking.
About the videos.
About the injustice.
About the waitress.
About what men like him deserved.
The shadow listened patiently.
When Josh finally stopped, the room grew quiet.
“You want a mate,” the voice said. Clearly it understood his pain.
Josh leaned forward.
“Yes.”
“That can be arranged.”
Josh felt his pulse racing.
“What do you want for it?”
The shadow extended something long and thin that might have been a hand.
“What do you have?”
Josh thought quickly.
"I have a lot to offer!"
"Oh really? Such as?"
“My truck.”
The darkness made a sound that might have been a laugh.
“I have no need for trucks.”
Josh frowned.
“My computer then.”
“I assure you,” the voice said gently, “I have access to better ones.”
Josh hesitated.
“My money?”
Silence.
Josh knew the answer to that one before the shadow spoke.
“You have none.”
The room felt suddenly very small.
Josh’s frustration flared.
“Then what the hell do you want?”
The shadow leaned closer.
Its outline shifted constantly, as if something inside it had too many limbs.
“I asked what you have.”
Josh’s thoughts spun.
What did he have?
Nothing.
Nothing anyone wanted.
Anger rose in his chest.
“Fine,” he snapped. “Take my soul.”
The shadow became very still.
For the first time since it appeared, it seemed genuinely interested.
“Your soul?”
Josh rolled his eyes.
“Yeah. That’s what you people always want, isn't it?”
The darkness unfolded into a wider shape.
Something like a grin stretched across it.
“Yes.”
Josh’s sarcasm faded. Had his mouth just written a check his ass couldn't cash?
“Wait.”
But the voice had already spoken.
“Accepted.”
****
At first nothing changed.
Josh woke the next morning feeling strangely...confident.
Something had shifted.
He could feel it.
That evening he went to the diner.
She brought him his coffee.
Their eyes met for half a second.
Josh felt a thrill in his chest.
See? he thought.
It’s working.
The changes came slowly.
Josh’s jaw began to thicken.
His teeth pressed painfully against each other.
Hair appeared along his neck and shoulders.
His voice grew rough and heavy.
Online, people began encouraging him.
They told him he looked stronger.
More intense.
More alpha.
Josh believed them.
The waitress stopped coming to his table.
She asked another employee to serve him now.
She moved quickly when passing by.
Her eyes avoided his.
Josh felt a constant pressure building behind his ribs.
Didn’t she understand?
Didn’t she see what he had become for her?
****
The night everything ended began with rain.
Josh waited outside the diner again.
Water ran down his face. His hands felt thick and swollen.
The back door opened.
She stepped out.
She froze when she saw him.
Fear crossed her face.
Josh stepped forward.
“I did this for you.”
His voice came out low and wet.
She backed away.
Josh felt something inside his spine shift.
Bones grinding.
Skin tightening across muscle that hadn’t been there the day before.
The transformation finished in that moment.
The monster inside him had finally reached the surface.
Police sirens exploded into the night.
Someone had called them.
Josh turned toward the flashing lights.
For a moment he caught his reflection in the diner window.
What stared back had too many teeth.
The officers shouted commands.
Josh barely heard them.
The gunshots came quickly.
When his body hit the pavement, it no longer looked entirely human.
Hours later the rain had washed the parking lot clean.
Inside the diner, the window reflected only empty streetlights.
Somewhere in the darkness a quiet voice murmured with satisfaction.
“You humans always think you have nothing left to lose.”
A pause.
“Until you remember the one thing you still own.”
****
Josh expected Hell to hurt more than it did.
Fire. Screaming. Chains. Something theatrical.
Instead, he woke up in the dark.
Cold concrete beneath him. A faint dripping sound somewhere in the distance.
He tried to sit up.
His limbs didn’t feel right. Too long. Too heavy.
“Ugh,” a voice sighed nearby. “Another one.”
Josh blinked into the gloom.
Shapes moved in the darkness around him. Several of them. Tall, hunched figures with twisted limbs and slick, uneven skin that glistened like something recently pulled from a swamp.
One of them leaned forward.
Its face was wrong in a dozen different ways, but the expression on it was unmistakable.
Annoyance.
“Well don’t just sit there, honey,” it said. “You’re blocking the walkway.”
The voice was low and gravelly...yet strangely feminine. Josh stared.
“What...what is this place?”
The creature rolled its eyes so dramatically they almost slipped sideways.
“Oh sweetheart, did the contract not explain it to you?”
Another shape shuffled closer. Then another. He could hear a wet, rhythmic sound coming from one of them.
Josh noticed they were all watching him with the same mixture of irritation and curiosity.
“Where’s my mate?” Josh croaked.
The creatures froze.
Then, almost simultaneously, they burst into hideous laughter.
Wet, horrible laughter that echoed through the chamber.
Josh felt suddenly very small.
From somewhere above them, a familiar voice drifted down from the darkness.
Calm.
Patient.
Amused.
“You humans misunderstand the word mate.”
A faint red glow spread across the cavern ceiling, revealing dozens - maybe hundreds - of grotesque figures crouched in the shadows.
All of them staring.
All of them once human.
The fapping noises increased.
The voice continued.
“It simply means one of your own kind.”
The first creature gave Josh a slow, toothy grin.
“Congratulations, sugar,” it said.
It extended a long, clawed hand.
“You’re one of us now.”
It glanced around the cavern.
“Which means we’re stuck with you.”
Time paused a beat.
“Don’t worry,” it added. “You’ll never have to sit alone in a room again.”
Then it added with a weary sigh:
“And let me tell you, the dating pool down here?”
It gestured to the crowd of snarling monsters.
“Is absolute garbage.”
(© 2026 Michael C. Metzger)
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