Theodore Spencer was the mysterious sort, and had not many friends. Oh, he had friends that would use him when they needed something , but a true friend was not in his possession. He would do his school work, and each day he would run home to his computer, and type into the search engine, "I am Theodore. Can I be your friend." And every day he was disappointed. Not even the computer wanted to be Theodore's friend, until one fateful day he typed in the same message, and got a response.

He was so frightened that he shut down the monitor, and hid in the closet waiting until his mother got home from work before he dared come out. When his mom finally did get home he sneaked out of the closet, not taking his eyes off the computer all the way out of his room. When his mother saw him she knew there was something wrong, Theo was as white as a sheet.

"What's going on Theo?" she asked, "you get another fight at school."

"No mother honest I didn't." How could he tell his mother that the computer had answered his search for a friend. She thought he was crazy as it was, know nee to give her any more ammunition.

"Sit down and eat your dinner, it's getting cold."
Theodore sat at the kitchen table, and barely picked at his food. Where would he sleep tonight, he thought. I'm sure not going back to my room, but he did, after about an hour outside the door convincing himself that it was all a misunderstanding, or someone was playing a joke on him. It was no joke.

Theodore sat at his desk again, switching the monitor on, and the screen was blank. He brought up his home page and typed in the same sentence, "I am Theodore. Can I be your friend.", He waited and nothing happened. He waited for an hour staring at the screen until his eyes watered.

"I knew it was just my imagination," he whispered to himself.

As he was turning his back to the screen, he heard the roar of the processor, and the tic, tic of words forming on the screen.

"I will be your friend, if you will let me," the words came across the screen.

This time Theodore didn't run to the closet. This time he wrote in the box, "who are you?"

"I am your friend, Theodore."

"How do you know my name?"

"I know everything about you, and in a short time you will know all about me. That is if you want to be my friend."
Theodore was beginning to get scared again. Then it hit him. How did it know his name?

"Is that you Anne?" asked Theodore,"it is you I know it is."

The screen went blank, and his conversation was lost.
In school the next day he shuffled up close to Anne, and said, "I got your message yesterday, thank you."

"What message," she barked," I would never send you a message. I only text messages to my friends, and you aren't one."

Theodore Spencer skulked away once again, and spent a very miserable day alone, as usual. His friend Anne, who he thought was a friend, disced him in front of her clique, and his mother was too busy with her own life to deal with his fantasies. Dear old dad had deserted the family years ago, and wasn't heard of since. So Theodore Spencer was on his own to solve this little mystery.

He couldn't wait to get home that day to see if his mysterious friend would join him in a conversation He typed in the words exactly as he had twice before, and waited. This time his wait was only a couple of minutes, and the words came, saying,"thank you for coming back, I am very lonely here."

"And where is here?"Theodore asked.

"Inside your computer, Theodore," it responded,"I have always been here just waiting for you to ask me out."

"As on a date."

"No, you stupid little boy," she retorted, "out as in your monitor screen, lol."

"How can we be friends, you are not alive?" said Theo, "I need someone I can talk to and feel, and someone who can understand what I am feeling. You can't do any of that."
"Maybe not, but I can still be your friend."

Theo shut down the monitor, and was about to leave the room, mom had called for dinner, when the monitor came to life on its own. Theodore turned it off again, and again it turned back on. He sat back down, and started tapping some of the keys trying to end the program. Finally he got the stupid thing shut down. He ate dinner and went to bed early so he could get up in the morning, and talk to his new friend.

His dreams were exceptionally weird that night. He could see a face far off, but the closer he got to it the farther away it would retreat. This went on all night long. When he awoke the next morning, he was troubled by his dreams. What could a face in the darkness mean to him? He shook it off, got a shower, and turned to his computer.

He typed in the words, "If you are my friend, then you must prove it to me."

A face flashed across the screen, and Theodore Spenser began to scream. By the time his mother got out of bed, and into his room Theo had gone into a mental collapse. She tried with all her ability to snap him out of it, but she couldn't. Theodore Spenser was now one with the computer.
His mother had doctors, psychiatrists, physiology experts, even therapists' try to break into his steal trap of a brain, but none were successful.

What Theodore seen that morning was not an eerie thing, as much as it was frightening. The face in his dreams was the face that flashed across the screen, and Theodore Spencer was right when he said, "I have no friends." Even his friend in the computer was no other than an image of himself.

So in reality he was his only friend.