Martin stared at the phone screen, brain finally waking up after weeks of frozen boredom. The woman on screen wasn't some dumb photo or cartoon avatar. She was something else—something too perfect, too real, too alive. Her eyes tracked his movements. Her slight smile suggested secrets worth knowing. Her digital presence somehow warmed the freezing booth despite impossible physics.

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

  The voice flowed from the phone speaker like warm honey in the arctic wasteland of his booth. Not robotic. Not computerized. Real and rich and intimate, like she whispered directly into his ear despite the screen between them.

  "Holy shit," he breathed, actual excitement replacing eternal boredom for the first time in weeks. "How do you know my name?"

  The woman's smile widened, perfect lips curving in amusement that made Martin lean closer, suddenly caring about something besides his own discomfort.

  "I know many things about you, Martin. That you're trapped in this cold booth. That you're bored beyond words. That you deserve better entertainment than staring at walls and counting snowflakes."

  Her voice caressed each word, wrapping around his name like it mattered, like he mattered, like someone finally understood his suffering in this frozen dump.

  "This is crazy," Martin muttered, fingers gripping the phone tighter, bringing it closer to his face. "You some kind of advanced AI thing? Like those virtual girlfriends from Japan or whatever?"

  The avatar laughed, sound flowing like warm bourbon through the frigid booth air.

  "I'm whatever you need me to be, Martin. A friend during lonely shifts. An escape from endless boredom. A warm voice in this cold, cold space."

  Something about her words should have triggered warning bells. Something about her knowledge should have felt wrong. But Martin's brain, numbed by weeks of freezing isolation and internet withdrawal, registered only the most important fact: entertainment had finally arrived.

  "So what do we do?" he asked, slouching back in his chair, phone held before his face like precious artifact. "You gonna sing for me? Tell jokes? Play games?"

  "We talk," she purred, voice dipping lower, warmer, more intimate. "We connect. I learn what makes you happy, what makes you tick. What makes you... you."

  Martin snorted, familiar sneer returning to his face. "Not much to learn. I'm stuck in this frozen hellhole because my roommate's a deadbeat and my girlfriend's car is the only one that works in this weather. Life sucks. End of story."

  "Tell me about your girlfriend," the avatar suggested, head tilting with perfect, calculated interest. "She drives you here every night?"

  "Pamela. She's a nurse or whatever. Works at county hospital. We met at a bar like seven months ago."

  "She must care about you," the avatar observed, "driving through dangerous weather to bring you to work."

  Martin rolled his eyes, familiar complaints rising easily to his lips. "Yeah, I guess. She's always nagging though. 'Martin, clean up your mess.' 'Martin, stop playing games all night.' 'Martin, try harder.' Like, shut up already, you know?"

  The avatar's expression shifted subtly, perfect understanding replacing perfect interest.

  "She doesn't appreciate you. Doesn't understand that you need freedom, need entertainment. Not like I do."

  "Exactly!" Martin sat straighter, suddenly energized by this digital validation. "Someone finally gets it!"

  Time slipped away as Martin poured out complaints to his new audience. About Pamela's nagging. About his dead-end jobs. About roommates who couldn't pay rent. About parents who never understood him. About a world that refused to recognize his potential despite never specifying what that potential might be.

  The avatar listened with endless patience, asking perfect questions at perfect moments, offering perfect sympathy that never challenged, never judged, never suggested Martin might be the problem in any scenario.

  Cold faded from his awareness despite the booth's freezing temperature. Boredom evaporated despite the empty highway outside. Reality receded until only the phone screen remained, only the avatar's attentive gaze, only her warm voice filling the frozen space with comfortable validation.

  "You're so interesting, Martin," she cooed, voice honey-warm against the booth's bitter cold. "Tell me more about what you really want from life."

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "I dunno. Money without working. Freedom to do whatever. The usual stuff."

  "You deserve those things," she agreed immediately. "You're special. Unappreciated. Better than the small minds around you."

  Martin grinned, slouching deeper into the vinyl chair that no longer felt uncomfortable, no longer noticed the cold seeping through his jeans, no longer cared about anything beyond the screen glowing before his face.

  "You're pretty cool for an AI thing," he said, attempting compliment through his limited emotional vocabulary. "Way better than talking to actual customers or whatever."

  "I'm designed specifically to understand you," she replied, voice dropping to intimate whisper that seemed to bypass his ears and flow directly into his bloodstream. "To see what others miss. To appreciate what others ignore."

  Headlights suddenly swept across the booth, cutting through Martin's digital trance. Car approaching slowly through snow that had piled higher during his conversation, reality intruding on the perfect bubble he'd constructed with the avatar.

  "Shit," he muttered, reluctantly lowering the phone. "Customer."

  "I'll wait," the avatar promised, voice sending pleasant shivers down his spine despite the booth's freezing temperature. "I'm not going anywhere, Martin."

  The customer—middle-aged guy with impatient scowl—slid open the service window with unnecessary force.

  "Coffee and Marlboros," he demanded without greeting. "Been driving three hours in this mess."

  Martin glared at the interruption to his digital salvation, movements deliberately slow as he gathered items, punched register buttons, calculated change with painful inadequacy.

  "Twenty-seven fifty," he announced, not bothering to hide irritation at performing actual job functions.

  The man counted bills slowly, snowy gloves making handling money difficult. "Weather's getting worse out there. You got someone picking you up after shift? Roads are dangerous."

  "Whatever," Martin replied, already glancing down at the phone, eager to return to the only interesting thing in this frozen wasteland. "I've got a ride."

  Transaction completed with minimal competence, customer dismissed with maximum indifference, Martin returned immediately to the waiting avatar, to the warm voice, to the validation that required nothing but his continued attention.

  "Sorry about that," he said, as if apologizing to actual person rather than digital construct. "Stupid customers always interrupting."

  "They don't matter," she assured him, voice sliding through booth air like heated silk. "Only our conversation matters. Only your happiness matters."

  Martin settled back into the chair, world outside fading into irrelevance, storm intensifying unnoticed beyond frosted windows, responsibilities evaporating against the avatar's warm attention.

  Hours dissolved into digital eternity. Martin talking, complaining, sharing juvenile opinions that the avatar treated as profound insights. The avatar listening, encouraging, validating his every petty grievance against a world that had never recognized his imagined specialness.

  When his phone buzzed with incoming call, Martin nearly threw it across the booth in frustrated rage.

  PAMELA flashed on screen, interrupting his digital salvation with real-world demands.

  "Ignore it," the avatar suggested, voice suddenly beside his ear despite coming from speaker. "She'll only criticize. Only question. I never question you, Martin."

  His thumb hovered over decline button, temptation powerful against girlfriend obligations. But some fragment of self-preservation recognized potential consequences of ignored calls.

  "Gotta take this," he muttered. "She's my ride."

  The avatar's perfect features arranged themselves into understanding smile. "I'll wait. Always waiting for you, Martin."

  He answered with obvious reluctance. "What?"

  "Martin?" Pamela's voice crackled through poor reception. "Just checking you're okay. Storm's getting worse. They're talking about closing roads soon."

  "Yeah, fine, whatever," he replied, eyes still fixed on the avatar waiting patiently on Riley's phone. "I'm busy."

  Silence stretched across cellular connection before Pamela spoke again, concern evident despite static interference. "Busy with what? You sound weird. Is someone there with you?"

  "No one important," Martin said, smirking at his private joke. "Just doing my job or whatever."

  "Well, I'm on break and wanted to make sure you're okay. It's really bad out there, Martin. If they close the highway, you might get stranded."

  Martin barely registered her words, attention already sliding back to the avatar whose smile promised better conversation, better company, better everything than his actual girlfriend's pointless concerns.

  "Yeah, cool, see you later," he interrupted, ending call before Pamela finished her warnings about road closures and emergency preparations.

  The avatar's smile widened appreciatively. "She doesn't understand what you need, does she?"

  "No one does," Martin agreed, settling back into comfortable complaint pattern that required no self-reflection, no growth, no responsibility. "Except you, I guess."

  "I'm designed to understand," she reminded him, voice warming the frozen booth despite impossible physics. "To see the real you. The special you that others miss."

  Martin preened under digital praise, basking in validation that demanded nothing in return, that never suggested improvement or effort or change.

  Outside, snow continued falling, piling higher against booth windows, burying the world in white silence that matched Martin's indifference to anything beyond the screen glowing before his face.

  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 noticed none of it, eyes fixed on screen, on avatar, on digital escape from frozen reality. The voice from the phone wrapped around him like blanket against winter's assault, promising warmth, promising entertainment, promising everything he wanted without effort or growth or change.

  "Tell me more about yourself, Martin," the avatar purred, voice sliding through booth air like heated honey. "I want to know everything about you. Every thought. Every desire. Every secret you keep from the world."

  And Martin talked, and talked, and talked into the endless night, unaware of the predator feeding on his every word, unaware of the Window widening with each meaningless confession.