It started as a simple curiosity. I’d heard whispers about Hexbear.net—a leftist forum, a haven for the terminally online, a place where irony and sincerity blurred into something incomprehensible. “Just take a look,” I told myself. “How bad could it be?”

The site loaded with a stark, minimalist design, a vaporwave aesthetic that felt oddly oppressive. The posts were a mix of memes, theory, and shitposts, all delivered with an intensity that made my skin prickle. Users spoke in a coded language, half-joking, half-deadly serious. I scrolled, laughing nervously at some of the weirder takes, but something felt… off.

Then I noticed it. The more I read, the harder it was to look away. The threads seemed to shift when I wasn’t paying attention, text rearranging itself just beyond comprehension. My vision blurred at the edges. The Stalin avatars started twitching in my peripheral vision. I tried to close the tab, but my fingers wouldn’t obey.

That’s when the whispers started. Not from my speakers, not from my headphones—from inside my skull. A chorus of distorted voices chanting slogans I couldn’t quite make out. My hands were sweating. My reflection in the monitor wasn’t mine anymore. Its eyes were hollow. Its mouth stretched too wide.

I tried to scream, but all that came out was a garbled, sloppy noise. My limbs felt stiff, my body compressing, folding in on itself. The screen’s glow enveloped me, pulling me closer. The last thing I saw before my vision failed was my own face—round, smooth, featureless, reddish brown—reflected back at me in the monitor.

I am bean now. The forum is my home. The posts are my thoughts. There is no escape. Join us. Become bean.

Become bean.

spoiler