Three possible muses

Neil stared at the scrolling numbers on the screen. It should have worked, but it hadn’t.

“Damn,” he said. He spun on his chair to consult his whiteboard again, even though he knew it all by heart.

But now there was something new. In the middle of his equations and arrows and doodles, there was a hole. A big one. It started at the floor and rose up most of the way to the top of the board, all eerie purple light and jagged edges, something from a cheap B movie.