Gambit 1 - Meeting

Awkward software developer John meets his new coworker, Tim, your typical, plugged-in socialite, with a perfect smile, all the right clothes, and a psychopath's dead-eyed stare. Tim's ever-escalating mind games and gaslighting gambits seek to isolate and control John. Security becomes unobtainable. Objective truth, a warped opinion. Even John's survival is in question, as Tim throws them both into a life-threatening trap. This is not a story about happy endings or triumph. It is about coping with the everyday horror around us, which can only be defeated by outlasting it.

~80K words
Mature rating for: strong language, self-harm, and all flavors of abuse. Nothing is graphic, but the themes are present.