Petting Zoo, Part #1

 The back of your head slowly fell back onto the headrest of your seat as the car navigates down the asphalt road. You tilt your head to the side to see your “friend”, a small monster with black fur, a shaggy gray robe and a skull face. They were holding onto the door panel as they peered over and through the window, one of their hands were held in the air positioned near the glass. By shifting your body and head downwards slightly, you could see that your friend was maneuvering their fingers along the outlines of the buildings and power lines, creating the illusion of a humanoid running across the city, as your parents drove the sedan across town and out into the old country roads. You leaned back into the seat cushion and once again lay your head back into the headrest, staring up at the beige fabric ceiling above.

The only other thing you knew about your friend, aside from their physical appearance, is that their name is Malo. You’d “met” Malo on your 13th birthday, when you received your first phone from your parents. You’d spent the whole afternoon messing about on your new cellular device that day. During those moments you set the time, date, notifications and contacts, as people normally would. But after that you did what any regular kid with a new device would, you started to install applications. Not even thinking about what to download, you just pressed your fingers against the icons of whatever app was on the top of the list on the app-store at the time.

 After mindlessly downloading nothing but cookie cutter maze games for five minutes, you finally took a look at what exactly you were downloading, it was an app without an icon, just a plain white space. Quickly skimming through it, you could see that the application had minimal reviews, all of which were all five star rated, and short. You were intrigued by this mysterious software, as any naive and blissfuly ignorant kid would be. Without a single shadow of hesitation or re consideration, you pressed on the download button, completely unaware of what was in store beyond the single moment that your finger tip touched the glass screen on your device. You momentarily waited, the app had downloaded in a blink of the eye, and was ready to be opened.

 It was only after you’d downloaded the software that you even bothered to take a look at the description. “Never settle for those awkward feelings of being alone ever again. MalO is an exciting and interactive experience that will keep you engaged and intrigued. The anxiety of social situations can be nerve-racking, but after just a few hours of MalO you will soon forget all about those painful emotions of disappointment. Be part of the new craze that is quickly becoming the next social substitute. Remember, the more you participate, the more MalO will engage you. Your experience is completely up to you. Absolutely NO ADS. Enjoy!” The description read. You interpreted the description as some sort of immersive tamagotchi. You’ve had one of those round plastic toys before, and it was an interesting experience getting to mess about with them. You misplaced every single one that your parents gave to you, and were never able to recover them, but the phone was something different.

 You knew already that you would constantly have this thing tucked away safely in the confines your pocket, or lying face down on the nightstand next to your bed. With that in mind, you just had a feeling that it would be quite difficult to forget the whereabouts of your new device. You were quite enthused at the thought of having something of a pet along with your phone, and you thought of it as a sort of double gift. As soon as the application had downloaded, you pressed the home button and skimmed the home screen of your phone. To your disappointment, the app was nowhere to be found.

 All of the previous generic games that you’d downloaded were all there, however, so you just assumed that the app hadn’t installed due to all the space the other apps took up. You began to delete the programs at random, in hopes that you’d free up enough storage space to download the so called “MalO app”. After you’d deleted numerous apps, you opened up the App Store once more in search of MalO, only to discover that it no longer appeared on the list of trending apps, or at all. You didn’t think anything of this, and pressed your thumb against the store’s search engine and typed in “MalO”.

 After waiting momentarily, you were met with disappointment, as there were no results for your search. You shrugged this off, one app lost didn’t matter to you. You figured that you’d spent enough time on the phone, your finger glided across the screen towards the glossy black circular home button, you almost pressed on it, before the phone vibrated in your hands. A notification icon descended from the uppermost part of the display, across the white rounded rectangle there was an amalgamation of numbers and letters layered on top of each other, along with a small image of sorts. The lure of such an odd looking contact overcame you, without anymore delay, you quickly tapped on the notification, sending you to the messaging app.

 As the white screen hit your eyes you focused on the image, which was colored in almost stark contrast to the rest of the screen. The image depicted the front courtyard of the middle school you had been attending, it appeared to be recent, as the light of the sun was the same as the sunlight currently shining outside, only this time you could spot something next to the steel plated flagpole. You spread your forefinger and your thumb over the image to zoom into this black smudge of an object, it appeared to be something short in stature. You knew this because you had a picture of yourself standing next to the same flagpole, and your head reached higher than the top of whatever it was in this picture. It was difficult to make out the physical appearance of this, person?

 What once appeared to be a small object now looked vaguely humanoid, as a single arm jutting from the side of this thing was poised against the pole with its palms touching the metal. You could just barely view its face, it appeared to be long and pale, in contrast to the black as night body to which the head was attached to. The image didn’t phase you at all, for the creature looked to only be an elementary school kid wearing a Halloween costume. You scoffed at this, there were numerous instances where the younger children on the block attempted to spook you. All of these attempts failed, as you could see and hear them approaching from a mile away, they’d became so predictable that you felt it wasn’t a normal week unless there were five attempts from the youth of your neighborhood to try and scare you.

 You placed your forefinger and thumb on opposite ends of the display and pinched them together, zooming out of the image. Your thumb hovered back to the home button and depressed it twice in quick succession, you swiped up on the tab containing the message from that mysterious contact, and you were back to the home page of your new device. You could see your reflection in the now slightly smudged black screen of your new device, you approached the small nightstand next to your bed and placed the phone face down on the wooden top. You bent down to retrieve the white charger cord from the ground and brought it with you to the phone, you plugged the aluminum tip into the oblong hole with a faint click. The phone emitted a low beep and vibration of confirmation, and then it was silent.

 You turned away from the phone and approached the television sitting atop of your dresser, you grasped at the hand grip of a plastic ebony controller and gripped onto the black rectangle of a television remote. As you walked backwards towards the edge of your bed, you pressed on the little red button atop of the remote. The television screen displayed the logo of its manufacturer, and then it displayed the many options for entertainment that were available to you. You pressed on the directional pad and selected the HDMI port option, your thumb slid over to the right hand side of the remote and raised the volume by a couple bars. You reached behind yourself with the remote in hand and dropped it to the sheets, your arm brought your hand to the grip of the ebony controller and you grasped it with both of your hands.

 You pressed on the small circular button on the bottom center of the controller, the television screen displayed the ivory logo of your gaming console against a pitch black background. After a few moments of waiting, the screen’s coloration turned to that of dark aqua marine. You flicked the toggle stick to the right until the highlighter on the screen hit one of your favorite games, you tapped the A button on the controller with your thumb and started up the game. You got past the start up screen and selected arcade mode, and you spent the rest of the afternoon mowing down wave after wave of hideous aliens with monstrous looking firearms. Eventually, this somehow tired you out, the last thing you heard before your head hit the firm mattress was the sound of your character screaming atop of their lungs, as five deformed horrors ripped his visceral matter straight out of his abdomen, with their bare, gnarled hands.