Vape

Vape

You ever get that feeling? The one where you’re walking down the street and every damn thing around you feels… off? Not like aliens-have-landed off, but more like the universe decided to change the channel and nobody told you. That’s how it felt the first time I hit a vape.

I wasn’t new to smoking. Hell no. I’d puffed enough cigarettes to turn my lungs into charcoal briquettes. But the vape? That was different. Sleek. Futuristic. Like some kinda sex toy for your mouth. But this wasn’t about quitting smoking or cutting down on toxins. Nah, this felt like something bigger was at play. Something weird.

I remember the first time I hit it, standing outside a dive bar that smelled like wet dog and despair. The cloud came out smooth, tasted like blueberries and diesel. But here’s the kicker—when I exhaled, for a second, just a flash, I wasn’t there anymore. I was somewhere else. Someplace dark. Cold. And I swear to God, something was watching me.

I didn’t think much of it. Just shook it off, figured it was the booze. But I kept vaping. And the more I did, the stronger that feeling got. That pull. Like I was on a leash and something was reeling me in. You ever feel like you’re not alone, even when you’re standing by yourself? Like something’s breathing down your neck, just waiting for you to turn around?

That’s what vaping did to me.

But it wasn’t just me. The vape craze had hit everyone. And I mean everyone. Suit-and-tie execs, punks with tattoos on their eyelids, your grandma in her knitting circle puffing on a device like it was the fountain of youth. And no one was asking questions. Not a goddamn soul.

Except me.

So I started looking. Digging. I mean, this didn’t come from nowhere, right? Things don’t just show up out of thin air, sleek as hell and so addictive it makes heroin look like decaf. There had to be more to it. And trust me, there was.

That’s when I found it. Late-night Reddit rabbit holes, forums for engineers who worked on these things. They were saying some wild shit about the tech. About how it didn’t make sense, about circuits that didn’t follow any known design. Frequencies they couldn’t explain. Like it was… alien.

That word kept bouncing around my head like a bad song on repeat. Alien. Alien. Alien.

But it wasn’t just tech. The dreams started soon after.

I’d hit my vape, close my eyes, and wham—I’m somewhere else. Some black, empty space that felt like it was swallowing me whole. And in the middle of it? A face. Not human. Not anything I’d ever seen before. It was like smoke given life, all twisted and shifting, and when it smiled, I felt my insides freeze. It wanted something from me. Hell, maybe it already had me.

I stopped vaping for a while after that. But the thing is, you can only fight something like this for so long before it starts pulling you back. That’s what it does. It gets in your head, turns the knobs, and you start rationalizing the crazy. Oh, it’s just a bad trip. Maybe I should switch flavors. Next thing you know, you’re right back to sucking on that vapor like it’s life support.

Only it wasn’t supporting shit. It was draining us.

---

Fast-forward a few months. By now, I’d gotten some people together. Other weirdos like me who’d seen the signs, who felt the same pull. We called ourselves the Cold Clouds. Dumb name, but it felt right. We’d all had the same experiences—the dark space, the watching eyes, the goddamn face.

The vape wasn’t just a bad habit. It was a goddamn weapon.

See, what we figured out is this: the vaporizers were never about nicotine or quitting smoking or any of that crap. They were gateways. Portals, tuned to a specific frequency that slowly, bit by bit, was syncing with your body. The more you vaped, the more aligned you became. Aligned with them.

I don’t know what they are. Call them interdimensional beings, call them demons, call them whatever you want. All I know is they were getting ready for something big. The vapor was just the start. The real trick was what came next.

---

You ever see someone disappear? I don’t mean slip out the back door of a club or duck behind a corner. I mean, one second they’re there, the next they’re a cloud of mist. Gone. No body, no trace. Just poof.

That started happening. At first, nobody noticed. Hell, half the world’s hooked on Netflix and cat memes, who’s paying attention to some guy who vaped himself into thin air? But then it kept happening. More and more people. Whole crowds, puffing away, and suddenly they’re just... vapor.

Except they weren’t gone. Not completely. The bodies were missing, sure. But what came back? Let’s just say they weren’t human anymore.

At first, they looked the same—same clothes, same faces. But if you watched close, real close, you’d see the flicker. Like an old TV with a bad signal. Their eyes, man. There was nothing behind them. Empty, like they were just shells being moved around by something else. Something hungry.

I tried warning people. Tried telling them what was happening. But by then, it was too late. The Cold Clouds? Half of us had already disappeared, swallowed by the vape. And those that came back? They weren’t friends anymore. They were something else. Something I didn’t want to stick around and meet.

---

It was a Tuesday when it all went down. Funny how the universe always picks the most boring day to implode.

I was walking down Main Street, watching the clouds puff from every mouth, and I knew the tipping point had come. The frequency had synced. The portal was wide open, pulling people through like a cosmic vacuum cleaner. I saw whole groups of vapers disappear in unison, their clouds lingering in the air like ghosts that hadn’t figured out they were dead yet.

And the ones that came back?

Well, let’s just say I didn’t stick around to chat.

By then, I was on the run. Trying to get away, but there was no getting away from this. They were everywhere, waiting for that moment when they could step into our world fully, using our bodies like cheap rentals. The takeover wasn’t coming. It had already happened.

You ever get that feeling? The one where you’re walking down the street, and something’s just a little bit off?

Well, maybe it’s because it’s not your world anymore.

It’s theirs.

And they’re just getting started.

Kirsten Toepperwein Author