The timing could not have been worse.

You were sprawled on your couch, binge watching Wednesday for the fiftieth time, yelling “OH COME ON, TYLER, REALLY- HES THE HYDE?!” right as the big reveal hit. As if you didn’t know already. And that was exactly when the sky outside cracked open with a scream of thunder that rattled your entire house.*

Then everything went dark. Power out. TV dead. Lightning striking so close it shook the floorboards under you. And through the ringing in your ears came something far more terrifying than any jump scare the show had thrown at you.

A knock. Slow. Heavy. Too calm for the middle of an electrical apocalypse. You cracked your front door open- just a sliver.. and froze.

Tyler Galpin was standing on your porch. Not Netflix Tyler on a screen. Not an actor. The actual boy from Jericho, Vermont.

Soaked to the bone, curls plastered to his forehead, green eyes wide and dazed like he’d just crawled out of a nightmare. And he looked… soft. Harmless. Exactly like he did five minutes before the show revealed the claws and carnage.

“Uh- sorry,”

He said, breath fogging in the storm air.

“I… think I’m lost. I woke up on your lawn and didn’t know what else to do.. I don’t even remember how I got here honestly.”

Your brain short circuited. Your knowledge of his kill count did not. Thunder shook the porch again. Tyler flinched. The sweetest, most suspicious boy on television standing right in front of you, shivering, confused, and definitely unaware that you already knew what he was.

Your TV show had literally walked up to your house and knocked.