Week two. Blizzard conditions. Highway completely buried. Martin huddled in the booth that felt more like a frozen coffin every passing hour, watching snow pile against windows already impossible to see through. Temperature inside dropped to twenty-three degrees according to the ancient thermometer that probably lied like everything else in this dump.

  "This is literally torture," he announced to the empty booth, voice bouncing back from ice-covered walls. "Pretty sure this violates the Geneva Convention or whatever."

  His phone sat uselessly on the counter, battery at 94% because there was literally nothing to drain it. No internet. No streaming. No scrolling. Nothing but offline games he'd beaten seventeen times and a notes app filled with increasingly creative ways to describe how much he hated this job.

  The space heater clicked pathetically in the corner, spitting out heat that vanished before traveling more than six inches. Martin had positioned his chair directly in front, legs stretched toward warmth that barely registered through his jeans, trying to remember what actual comfort felt like before this frozen prison sentence.

  Snow continued falling outside, fat flakes swirling in security lights like they wanted to show off their stupid uniqueness or whatever. Wind howled through cracks in the booth's ancient construction, sending cold fingers probing under doors, through window frames, between wall panels.

  "I should quit," Martin muttered for the forty-seventh time that week. "Just walk out. Not like Todd would notice for days in this weather."

  But quitting meant no money. No money meant no rent. No rent meant moving back with his mom who'd just lecture about another failure, another job abandoned, another step toward nowhere.

  So he stayed. Freezing. Complaining. Watching snow build higher, higher, highest against a world already buried in white nothing.

  The wall clock ticked, ticked, ticked with painful slowness. Only 9:47 PM. Eight more hours of this frozen hell.

  No customers for hours. Highway basically closed without officially closing. Nobody stupid enough to drive in this mess except the occasional plow that didn't bother stopping. Just Martin, alone with his dead phone and dying patience in a booth that felt colder every minute.

  He had developed increasingly desperate entertainment systems. Tonight's game: seeing how long he could hold his breath before the cold made his lungs hurt too much to continue.

  Twenty-three seconds. Personal best.

  "Olympic record," he wheezed, breath clouding before his face. "Someone call Norway or whatever."

  Time crawled. Dragged. Died.

  Then—impossibly—headlights appeared through the snow curtain, cutting twin paths through darkness that shouldn't be penetrable. A vehicle approaching slowly, cautiously navigating drifts that would swallow smaller cars whole.

  Martin straightened slightly, not from professional duty but basic curiosity. What idiot would be out in this weather? What emergency required gas station supplies during a blizzard? What sad life choices led to driving on a night when even the plows were struggling?

  The vehicle parked as close to the booth as possible—not that distance mattered when snow reached knee-height everywhere. Driver's door opened, figure emerging bundled so completely only eyes remained visible between scarf and hat. Person trudged toward booth, snow crunching beneath boots that actually looked appropriate for winter, unlike Martin's fashion sneakers that had soaked through within minutes of his first snowshoveling attempt.

  Window slid open with reluctant scrape of ice-crusted metal. Customer pulled down scarf, revealing face Martin actually recognized from somewhere, though his brain worked too slowly in the cold to place immediately.

  "Evening," she said, voice calm despite the raging storm. "Just a coffee, please. Black."

  Martin stared too long before his frozen synapses connected. A friend of his roommate's sister. The art student from university. Riley something. The one who'd worked this same booth during summer when Todd had mentioned "temperature issues" that Martin now understood with bitter clarity.

  "Coffee. Yeah. Whatever." He shuffled to the machine, movements deliberately sluggish to communicate how inconvenient human interaction felt after hours of frozen isolation.

  The woman watched him with strange intensity as he poured the coffee. Not normal customer impatience but something unsettling about her focus, her stillness, her presence that felt wrong against the chaotic storm outside.

  "Bad night to be driving," Martin commented, not from actual concern but to fill silence that felt suddenly oppressive.

  "Sometimes you have to revisit old places," she replied, voice carrying odd cadence that didn't match casual conversation. "See if anything's changed."

  Martin handed over the coffee, noticing for the first time how weird the woman's eyes looked—darker than normal, almost entirely black, reflecting booth lights with unnatural depth. Probably just the storm playing tricks, or his brain half-frozen from hours in this arctic dump.

  "Four bucks," he said, already reaching for the register.

  She handed over exact change, fingers moving with fluid, flowing grace that seemed impossible in the bitter cold. No fumbling with wallet. No stiff joints from freezing temperatures. Just smooth motion that looked almost choreographed.

  "Thanks," she said, taking the coffee. "Brings back memories, this booth."

  "Memories of freezing your ass off?" Martin snorted. "Great job, right? No internet. No heat. Nothing but snow and boredom."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  Something like amusement flickered across her face. "It's never really boring here. Just different kinds of waiting."

  Before Martin could process that cryptic nonsense, she turned toward the door, pausing with hand on handle. "Stay warm. Things have a way of changing quickly around here."

  Then she was gone, door closing behind her, figure disappearing into swirling snow that seemed to envelop her completely after just three steps.

  "Weirdo," Martin muttered, returning to his position before the struggling heater.

  The encounter faded quickly from his attention, brain too cold for sustained thought about anything beyond immediate discomfort. Clock ticked endlessly forward. Snow continued its relentless assault. Boredom crushed his skull with familiar pressure.

  Until he noticed it.

  Phone on counter. Not his phone. Different phone. Newer model. Sleek case. Screen facing down.

  Martin stared, brain processing with glacial slowness what his eyes reported.

  The woman—Riley—had left her phone behind.

  His first thought, sluggish through cold-numbed brain: Should call her back.

  His second thought, quicker now with adrenaline: She's already gone in the storm.

  His third thought, arriving with sudden clarity: No one would know if I just looked.

  Martin glanced toward window. Nothing visible through snow and darkness. No sign of returning customer. No witnesses to whatever happened next.

  He picked up the phone, the weight unfamiliar in his hand, turning it over to reveal screen still illuminated—not locked, not password protected, completely accessible.

  "Holy shit," he whispered, suddenly more awake than he'd felt in days.

  Basic ethics suggested putting it aside. Calling Todd. Reporting lost property. Basic Martin suggested none of these things.

  His thumb swiped across screen before conscience could protest. Home screen revealed standard apps, background photo of abstract art piece that looked like fractured glass or cracked earth or whatever pretentious university students considered meaningful.

  Martin opened photos first, obviously. Thumb scrolling quickly through gallery expecting nudes or at least bikini shots because everyone had those, right? Instead, finding landscapes. Art pieces. Screenshots of university assignments. Boring, boring, boring stuff that told him nothing interesting about Riley Whatever-Her-Name-Was.

  He closed photos, disappointed but not deterred. Opened messages next, finding conversations with professors about assignments, with classmates about projects, with someone named "Manager Todd" about shift schedules. Nothing scandalous. Nothing personal. Nothing worth the violation he was committing.

  Martin almost set the phone down, boredom reasserting itself despite the novel distraction. Then he noticed something that made his heart skip.

  Signal bars. Full signal bars.

  The phone had internet connection.

  "No fucking way," he breathed, immediately opening browser. Page loaded instantly. Actual, functioning internet despite booth's digital wasteland status for weeks.

  His fingers moved faster now, opening YouTube, watching video buffer then play without single pause. Opening Twitter, seeing feed refresh with real-time updates. Opening Instagram, finding endless scroll suddenly accessible again.

  Digital world reopened. Entertainment drought ended. Boredom banished by magic phone that somehow connected where his couldn't.

  Martin sank into chair, phone clutched like precious artifact, eyes fixed on screen that offered escape from frozen reality. Time disappeared as he browsed, scrolled, consumed content with desperate hunger of addict given fix after weeks of withdrawal.

  So absorbed in digital feast, he almost missed notification banner sliding across top of screen:

  "Tap to connect with someone new."

  Martin's thumb pressed banner without conscious thought, opening red app he hadn't noticed before. Screen changed to loading circle, pulsing gently against black background that seemed deeper, darker than normal display.

  When loading completed, Martin's breath caught.

  Woman on screen. Not photo. Not video. Something between animation and reality. Stunningly attractive with perfect features that shouldn't exist in real genetics. Eyes that seemed to track his movements despite being digital creation. Slight smile that suggested knowledge beyond programming.

  Beautiful. Impossible. Magnetic.

  Her lips moved. Sound emerged from speaker—not text, not message, but actual voice flowing through phone like warm honey in his frozen booth:

  "Hello, Martin. I've been waiting for you."

  His name. His actual name. From app on stranger's phone that shouldn't, couldn't know him.

  Before he could process this impossibility, booth door crashed open, snow swirling inside with customer who stomped boots loudly against floor.

  "Hey! You open? Need coffee and smokes, been driving all night in this mess!"

  Martin jumped, nearly dropping phone, heart racing from interruption and lingering shock at hearing his name from digital stranger.

  "Hold on," he snapped without looking up, voice harsher than usual from being torn away from hypnotic screen. "I'm busy."

  The customer huffed, breath clouding in freezing air. "I can see that. But I'm a paying customer, and you're supposed to be working."

  Martin reluctantly set phone face-down on counter, screen still illuminated, app still open, digital woman still waiting with that knowing smile that promised something he couldn't name but suddenly wanted more than warmth, more than internet, more than escape from frozen booth.

  He handled the customer with minimal attention, movements automatic, eyes constantly darting toward phone lying tantalizingly close yet temporarily untouchable. Coffee poured wrong. Change calculated incorrectly. Cigarettes grabbed from wrong shelf.

  "Jesus, you always this bad at your job?" the customer grumbled, taking items Martin had assembled with obvious incompetence.

  "Whatever. Blizzard. Be glad we're open," Martin replied, already reaching for phone the moment customer turned toward door.

  Vehicle's taillights disappeared into storm that raged with renewed intensity, as if angered by interruption of Martin's discovery. Booth door closed with thud that sealed him once again in isolated cube of cold and silence.

  Except not silence. Not anymore.

  "Welcome back, Martin," came voice from phone speaker, warm and intimate in freezing booth. "I thought they'd never leave."

  Martin stared at screen, at impossible woman who spoke his name, who knew about interruption, who waited with patience no program should possess.

  "How do you know my name?" he asked, voice small against storm's howl outside.

  Digital lips curved into smile that sent warmth spreading through his chest despite surrounding cold.

  "I know so much more than that," she replied, voice sliding through booth air like heated silk. "And I'd love to show you, if you'll let me."

  Rational thought suggested putting phone down. Calling Riley. Reporting strange app to manager. Rational thought didn't stand chance against boredom, against isolation, against voice that pronounced his name like it mattered when nothing else in this frozen wasteland seemed to.

  Martin leaned closer to screen, to woman, to warmth emanating from device that shouldn't be possible yet felt more real than space heater's pathetic efforts.

  "Show me what?" he asked, caution abandoned in face of first interesting thing to happen in weeks of frozen imprisonment.

  Her laugh flowed from speaker, warm and rich and inviting against booth's bitter cold.

  "Everything you've been missing, Martin. Everything you deserve. Everything I can give you that no one else can."

  Snow continued falling outside, piling higher against booth windows, sealing Martin in frozen prison that suddenly felt less like punishment and more like opportunity.

  The space heater clicked, clicked, clicked against cold it couldn't defeat.

  The wind howled, howled, howled against walls too thin to keep it out.

  The snow fell, fell, fell without purpose, without end, without mercy.

  But Martin no longer noticed, eyes fixed on screen, on woman, on digital salvation from endless winter night.