Eva sat alone, cracking her knuckles absentmindedly, watching pixels drift up from her palms. She was so worried about the Shadow Virus. He seemed more defeated with each passing day. She hoped it was only her imagination, that the virus wasn’t really taking over his mind. But it was becoming increasingly difficult to hope, with each new incident, each new rampage, each new agonized return home.

They needed to find a way to get the virus out of him. Eva racked her brain for possibilities, but it was useless. What did she know about viruses? She barely knew anything about her own digitized state.

She glanced upward, toward the top of the stairway. On the second floor, there was a door that remained perpetually shut. The door to the Shadow Virus’s bedroom. He did not sleep there often anymore, with the virus making it difficult to climb the stairs. He recovered from incidents and suffered from nightmares in the master bedroom, sometimes remaining there for days at a time. Eva never tried to follow him in there, wanting to give him the space he needed.

The Shadow Virus had managed to climb the stairs today, staggering, tripping, emitting red pixels. Eva’s skin jumped when she noticed that for once, his bedroom door was wide open, revealing the man sprawled on his bed, muttering to himself in agitation. His hands clutched at his head, as his outline wavered and shuddered like liquid light. Eva could see the entire virus-corrupted side of his face quivering.

She bit her lip and turned away, knowing that he would not want her to see him like this.

She decided to explore the mansion, knowing it would take awhile for the Shadow Virus to recover. Lingering by the staircase and waiting for him to re-emerge would accomplish nothing. She began to walk down a random hallway, stopping in front of a random door. It retracted into the ceiling automatically, revealing a darkened passage she had never seen before. Filled with curiosity, she lit the way with her luminous pixels. The Shadow Virus never told her about this passage. Perhaps it was a secret tunnel, built by the original owners of the mansion, in case a quick escape became necessary.

The doorway had shrunk to a tiny rectangle behind her, when Eva heard the sudden crash. She stopped, briefly turning to pixels, and whirled around. Foreboding swooped in and snatched her curiosity away. What if the Shadow Virus was pixelating again? He would destroy his own home. She broke into a run.

Some part of Eva recognized that if the Shadow Virus really was pixelating, she should have been running in the opposite direction. But a cacophony of emotional voices drowned out that logical piece of her mind. She heard another crash, and a shout, then some strange electric noises. Her heart began to race. What was going on?

She barged into the living room just in time to witness a ferocious, fully-pixelated Shadow Virus toppling to the ground. Lightning danced across his body, shocking him out of his digitized state. Eva gasped at the unexpected sight of three people who did not belong in the lair of the Shadow Virus, intruders in her new home. The other Digitized.

The blue-haired man, Ceno, sensed her arrival and turned to face her, focusing his eerie mechanical eye on her face. He gave her a nasty smile, then extended his hand. A rush of pixels crashed over Eva, knocking her backward. She scrambled back onto her feet, ignoring the burning pain in her limbs, only to watch the Digitized surround the stunned Shadow Virus and teleport away in unison, taking him along with them.

Eva stared, shocked, at the spot where they’d stood just a moment ago. How did the Digitized find them? Why did they attack the Shadow Virus? What did they want with him?

“They want to kill him!” she thought aloud. Pure horror crashed through her skull, nearly knocking her down. They wanted to get rid of the monster of City 75505. 

The hypocrisy of it disgusted Eva. Ceno had been infected, too, but they helped him, and now he was cured. What made the Shadow Virus so different from Ceno, or from Iyanna, whose pixelation was uncontrollable? Why hadn’t the Digitized tried to help Nikolai Naren?

Eva smoothed down her hair, sighing loudly. What was she going to do? Where could they have taken him? Her mind began to spin, and her body responded, dissolving into pixels and reassembling on the other side of the room. She stumbled, off-balance, but recovered quickly.

Eva hugged herself, willing her thoughts to cease their incessant churning. The mansion felt so empty without the Shadow Virus there. Without his powerful, hissing energy filling the space, a profound silence seemed to smother her. 

As the hours wore on, and her distress rose to a fever pitch, she began to glitch, sensing something strange. A little buzz of energy she hadn’t noticed before, linked to her body. An energy that shouldn’t have been present, pulsating gently against her skin, so minuscule that it was barely discernible.

Eva rushed into the nearest bathroom, shoving her long hair away from her face and squinting into the mirror. There was something adhered to the back of her neck, a tiny little dot that blinked at a steady pace. She gaped at it in disbelief, then swiped at it frantically, knocking it to the ground after many attempts to dislodge it.

She bent down and picked up the little device, examining it closely in her palm. Her blood froze solid. It was a tracking device. The Digitized must have slipped it on her while she was unconscious. Two months ago. She had been wearing this for two months, and never realized. The Shadow Virus had drowned out her awareness of all other energies. This tiny piece of tech next to the chaos of his virus was like a whisper on the other side of a crowded street. A pang of loneliness filled her chest, when she realized the only reason she could sense it now was because he had been gone for so many hours.

Hot needles of hatred pressed into her heart. She could not believe the audacity of the Digitized. How dare they do this to her. They claimed to have suffered through everything she had, but if that were true, how could they do this to her? Did they not understand how unforgivable it was, that they had monitored her without her permission, just like the researchers from the facility had? Or did they just not care? Eva still had the scientists’ devices implanted throughout her body, no longer functioning thanks to the Shadow Virus’s power. She would never get them out. How dare they. How dare they.

Her rage diminished as her guilt swelled. This was all her fault. She had put the Shadow Virus in danger. She had revealed his secret sanctuary to his enemies.

She took the device and hurled it to the floor, allowing herself to pixelate. She felt the unstable energy of her form grow stronger, as she transformed into a fully digital being. She blinked at the little tracker, and it burst apart in a shower of sparks, leaving a tiny black starburst on the bathroom tile.