House of Wolves

Your life has looked almost exactly the same for every day of the past however-many months. You wake up, do the bare minimum to keep yourself presentable, and then usually sit at your computer half-watching a man hundreds of miles away from you draw on his computer. Presumably these drawings are important. Sometimes, you even write down the words he says; this is generally considered to be a good use of your time.

You’ve found it hard to believe you’re a person, lately. You have a vague idea that people are supposed to go outside, see their friends, take walks in parks, et cetera. Instead you just sit at home, and go through the motions of study. Stagnating.

This is a highly localized story, though we never get any direct descriptions of the protagonist. But to me they clearly seemed to be a college student studying computer science/programming, stuck at home during Covid. The part about being forced to eat meat, despite their own wishes, could be taken literally (they're vegan and their family doesn't approve?) or a metaphor about having to do things you don't want to do, with society imposing its demands on you.

That said. I didn't really feel connected to the protagonist or their situation. Even though I've been in similar situations before. I think more specific details would help anchor this story in reality - we already know the protagonist's some kind of CS student, but what college do they go to and why, why are they studying CS, what is their family like, what are their hopes for the future, etc... Too much was left vague for me. In the end, I couldn't really take anything away from this story.