And then he noticed the other booths.
The first ten results were what you’d expect: calorie counts, a Reddit thread about “best fast food combos,” a YouTube review where a guy in a beanie took exaggerated bites. But Liam scrolled past all that. He’d been here before. He knew where the link hid.
He looked down.
She gestured at the other booths. The crying girl had stopped. She was smiling now, a real one, wiping her nose with a napkin. The guy with the black eye had slowed down, savoring his last few fries. The young kid had finally picked up his burger.
“Then why does it exist?”
He looked at the medium fries. Still warm. Still perfect. He pushed one through the little ketchup puddle, watched the red seep into the ridges.
Back to his room. Back to the laptop. Back to the unblocked games and the endless scroll and the group chat where no one had messaged in three days. Back to the hunger that wasn’t for food. double cheeseburger, medium fries unblocked
A waitress appeared at Liam’s elbow. She had no face. Not in a horror-movie way—just a smooth, kind absence where features should be. She refilled his Coke without asking. The glass had beads of condensation. The ice cracked.
