It was a good hour before Chad tip toed down the hallway to his bedroom. He gingerly hovered before his closed door.
"No way. It must be a rat or something packed in there. Has to be!" He rambled with fearful tones and almost chewing a nail clean off the skin. He stopped his nail chewing and ran his long fingers through his stylish short wave kitten-soft brown locks. His twitchy fingers were making a mess of his do so he looked like he had a bad case of bed-hair. The hallway mirror at the end reflected his troubled blue eyes and flushed hue of red on his tanned, clean-shaven cheeks. Usually the mirror would reflect his handsomeness. Right now he looked like a nervy school kid in a bck and navy school uniform. One who was afraid of a bogey man.
"What are you doing?" Ally whispered into his ear, which made him yelp with fright and stumble backwards.
He faced his baby sister who was dressed in a loose white cotton blouse that was tucked into a smart pink mini and her long legs accentuated in height with her dainty feet in fine beige heel sandals. Her long brown ponytail draped over her shoulder as she folded her arms across her chest to stare at her brother with a bemused expression.
"Nothing." Chad huffed as he switched his attitude to one of cool and straightened up. His eyes darted to his door.
Ally could see he was hesitant to go inside. "Something in your room?"
As Chad was about to say something to shoo her off, his pants pocket began to vibrate and wiggle about like there was an animal struggling to break from it.
"Ah, is that your phone going off?" Ally asked.
"Yeah, so, um piss off will you?" Chad hastily answered and waved her away.
Ally rolled her eyes with a huff and strutted past him to enter her room near the end of the hallway.
Chad reluctantly slipped his hand into his pocket, squeezing his eyes shut as he gripped the pstic edges and carefully slid the thing out to hold it before him.
The entire screen glowed with a purplish light. None of his usual icons were on the screen. Instead, alien symbols and letters were scrolling frantically all over his screen.
He wanted to drop the damn thing but felt himself rooted to the spot. And the only thing he could do was stare at his phone screen.
Eventually, the symbols and letters formed patterns that were almost resembling sentences. Suddenly, they vanished into the surface and a new image appeared.
[System 0.5 Initiated. Hello World. Please enter a userid.]
A computerized female voice sounded from the screen. The command fshed on his phone screen with a cursor waiting for his input. But damn if he was going to touch that thing. He went to drop his phone but felt some kind of force pressing against his fingers to keep the phone glued to his hand.
[System 0.5 Initiated. Hello World. Please enter a userid.]
The command began to fsh brighter and with more urgency. Or more to say, it was getting annoyed that no response was being received.
[System 0.5 Initiated. This device will self-destruct if no response is received in t-minus ten seconds. A countdown is activated. 10…]
"You can't be serious?" Chad shouted with both tones of fear and outrage. He shook his hand to try and free the device from it, but the phone wouldn't budge like it was stuck to his palm.
But he didn't stop trying. Jumping up and down on the spot. Waving and banding his hand on the wall with such a mad ruckus that it stirred Ally from her room to see what was going on. She peered at her brother from the crack of her opened door.
"Are you going insane? Do you need to see a shrink?" She offhandedly asked.
"Shut up and go back to your room, welp." He snapped at her, doing his best to not appear flustered.
"Idiot." She huffed and smmed her door behind her.
[Five seconds. Please enter a userid. Four seconds.]
Chad pondered over his choices of whether to take the risk at face value. For starters, his hand was magically glued to his phone, so there was a likely chance this self-destruct threat was real. What harm could entering a userid cause? Still, if he was signing up for something shady, he really should decline and call a wyer.
"Oh, right, can't because my FRIGGING HAND IS GLUED TO THIS DOOMSDAY DEVICE!"
There was only one thing to do.
"System enter userid, er, um."
"Stupid big bro! Did you take my bag of nuts again?" Ally shouted from within her bedroom.
"What bag of nuts?" He snapped back.
[Acknowledged. What-bag-of-nuts registered. Self-destruct aborted]
The computerized voice said that stopped the countdown. Mysteriously, he could detach his hand from his phone, which he dropped to the ground and didn't look back as he stepped into his room. It was then that he realized he had forgotten why he was hesitant to enter his room in the first pce.
He stared at the fallen metal box, which was completely empty. A musk and woody scent overwhelmed his senses that he somehow found himself stumbling to his bed and colpsing on it.
When he closed his eyes he saw the little girl from the shop looking down on him with a wide, creepy, grin.
"Let the fun begin." She giggled and twirled about so rapidly that her form began to change.
Chad groaned when he saw a wispy, ghost version of a semi-naked, fat bellied and bearded man hovering over him with silver chains and bracelets all over his neck, arms and wrists. His legs weren't visible. He looked like Addin's genie except his color was ghost-white not blue. And his head was bare and shaved low to look like a commando's crew cut. Thick heavy eyebrows hung over small narrow amber eyes of the fat ghost's pudgy face.
"Welp. That's some trip." He grumbled when he decided to just damn it all and conk out. Before he lost consciousness, a weird screen of stats fshed through his vision.
Tutorial activated: pussy level
What-bag-of-nuts: Level 1
Css: Aristocrat
Soft Skills: Charisma. Physique. Apathy. Bullshit
Atk
15
Str
20
Int
40
Agi
35
Will
15
End
20
Veronica8
