The Hidden God of Open Doors

1

Exhaustion blurring his eyes, Rune shuffles into his mismatched kitchen. He’s not sure what time it is—every appliance lists a different hour, and Rune doesn’t have any windows to check for daylight. Morning is whenever Rune wakes up. Evening is whenever he goes to sleep again.

Rune’s hexagonal prison is comfortable, dark, and lonely. Wooden screens separate the chamber into a bedroom, parlor, and kitchen. Like the rest of his belongings, the screens appeared out of nowhere one day. New things are rare, but Rune has lived here long enough to accumulate a lot. There wouldn’t be enough space for everything, except items also vanish when Rune stops using them.

Books, puzzles, needle and thread. More modern clothing sometimes, though Rune’s current tie-dye T-shirt is at least fifty years old. The television—once tiny and silent, now large and loud—keeps Rune sort-of sane. Before it appeared, Rune only caught glimpses of the outside world through the magic mirror.

Rune has been here, wherever here is, for a very long time. At least a hundred years. Maybe two hundred. Maybe many more. His memory is too bad to track time properly. He forgets years. He forgets where he comes from and who trapped him here—but he remembers why they did.

They said Rune was a demon. They imprisoned him because he was wicked, dangerous, and unnatural.

A human would have died in this chamber. Rune doesn’t age and doesn’t change. His body appears twenty-two, though he isn’t sure how he knows that, and his light brown skin never wrinkles. His narrow limbs neither widen nor shrink. This stasis is the only supernatural ability Rune is aware of, which seems unfair. If he’s such a dangerous demon, shouldn’t he have better magic?

Unless the magically appearing objects are his power too. That might just be a function of the chamber, though.

Rune doesn’t wonder about that today. Because the new item on his kitchen table requires all his attention. He’s seen similar small, sleek black rectangles countless time on recent television shows:

A cell phone.

Excitement chases away Rune’s exhaustion. “How did you get in here?”

The phone doesn’t answer now, but unlike most items Rune acquires, phones can talk back. They just have to connect to other phones. Rune covers his eyes and counts to twenty, trying to quell his silly hopes.

“It might not even work,” Rune tells himself.

The warning doesn’t work any more than counting to twenty did. Holding his breath, Rune picks up the phone. The cool metal case sits large in his palm.

A simple tap illuminates the screen. Iridescent pink hearts swarm like a tiny pink galaxy as the background. Rune tilts the screen back and forth, fascinated, before noticing the little square image in the top left corner.

The cell phones on Rune’s television usually have lots of little square apps. His only has a few, and the one labeled Heart2Heart draws his attention.

The name sounds familiar, which means Rune’s either read about it or seen it on television. He taps it—and jumps back, startled by the noise. A new interface fills the screen. More hearts, exclamation marks, and photos of smiling people. He pushes back his long black hair and slumps in a chair to figure this out.

Eventually, he has the gist. Heart2Heart invites him to make an account, so he can sign up for their special Valentine’s Day event. The app has partnered with Cupid, and the minor god of love will find Rune’s perfect date.

Rune almost sets the phone right back down. What’s the point? Rune can’t go on any date, much less a perfect one. He may be trapped who-knows-where, with nobody to talk to but himself and inanimate objects, but he knows the point of dating apps: dating.

Nobody will want to match with someone they can never meet.

Nobody will want to match with an evil demon.

Rune chews the inside of his lip. The phone warms with the heat of his hand. Yearning twists deeper into Rune’s heart—and there’s an option to exchange messages before the date.

He’s nobody’s perfect match. But what if he doesn’t ask for much? Just talking to someone would be so nice.

Exhaustion isn’t what blurs Rune’s vision this time. He wipes his eyes and starts painstakingly tapping his way through making an account.