Lonely Hearts

It was another just another weekend for me, my assignments were done and there was no courses for next two days. I was staring at the screen of my television with a controller in my hand trying to lose myself in another world on the screen.

Yet my heart was just not in it that day, even the video games I used to distract myself with. I blew out a long sigh and tossed the controller to my side on the empty space of my couch. It was in that moment I had keenly felt the loneliness I was trying to escape from.

I sought out my phone for comfort, opening it up to the myriad of social media and dating I had been using. I swiped through pictures of my old friends who I no longer had any real connection with, tormenting myself with the urge to reach out, but the desire was fleeting and I could never go through with it.

This ache for companionship was far too familiar a sensation for me, but it had only grown worse once I had begun my studies in college. With my family was gone as well, I had become desperate, resorting to apps on my phone to find a connection, anything to fill this void in my chest.

Sure, there were forums and chat sites to be social but they could never sate a real physical connection I yearned for. Though every dating app that promised me such remained silent and I had long given up on swiping my way to a partner.

It vexed me deeply why I was being passed over and labored over my profile pics. Was I not doing enough with my short brown hair, maybe I kept it too tidy. Sure, my body was not amazing, I was no Adonis but I was still lean and tall. Could it have been the way I stared directly at the camera, could they see how desperate I was in my green eyes?

With a sigh, I gave up on the analysis of my body and had begun to browse for yet another app that might yield some results.

That was the when I had come across Mal0.

It was an app with early access testing, no reviews, no rating or even the number of downloads. What had caught my eye was the small 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!'

Like with the many chat programs I had downloaded before I was already skeptical about how a ten-megabyte program could possibly help me. Yet here I was, watching the installation bar filling up on my phone, curious to see if it could hold up to what it had promised.

Then when it finished, a tiny black icon flickered on my phone, then it was gone, the program vanished the moment it completed the install. A cursed hissed through clenched teeth when the realization had dawned on me, it must have been some kind of fucking virus.

Then it struck me how MalO could easily have meant malware, god damn it, it was right in the name! With a deep groan of exasperation, I slammed my palm into my forehead to punish my lack of foresight. I was forced to plug my phone into the laptop which was sitting idle on the coffee table in front of me.

I went through the tedium of scanning my phone for malicious software with a cold indifference, it was only a small inconvenience. Yet, one cleaning program after another found no viruses. This had me perplexed and in my curiosity, I went so far to manually browse through the files for something out of place. Still, I had come up completely empty, Mal0 had vanished as quickly as I had downloaded it.

It was really strange and it had me scratching my head over it. I even attempted to try and download it again, only to have it tell me I had already installed it.

My brows furrowed, with my phone in my lap, the screen providing the only illumination the room. There was something really strange happening here but I just couldn't seem to figure it out.

It was getting late and my patience had run dry. I had dismissed it as either harmful or maybe just a bugged program at best. Either way, I was not about to take any chances and performed a factory reset.

The last minutes of my night had been resigned to updating my phone to the most current version and reinstalling my most mandatory apps.

With my phone tucked into the waistband of my boxers, I pushed myself off the couch with a grunt then snatched up my laptop. It was then I had felt just how tired I was and shoves my fingers through the front of my short mousy brown hair.

I shuffled my way down the short hallway towards my room wearing just my boxers and a pair of slippers. One of the perks of living in a single person dorm was how I could walk around dressed as I pleased.

My room was pretty sparse, the bed was neatly made with a single nightstand, a laundry bin was tucked in a corner and the tall dresser faced me across the room. I moved to the nightstand and placed the scrubbed clean phone next to my alarm clock before tucking my laptop in the cubby under the top.

Just when I had gotten under the covers my phone vibrated with a loud rattle off the faux wood of my nightstand. It was not often I got any kind of notification and picked it up to see why it wanted my attention.

Oddly enough there was a text message, this was not a common occurrence for me. The number attached to it was usually long and looked too cryptic. Still, curiosity had gotten the better of me and I unlocked the device with a swipe of my finger.

Instead of a message, it was a photo that had been sent.

My brows furrowed at the picture of a dimly lit building in the middle of the night. Yet I couldn't shake the feeling that it felt strangely familiar but I was unable to make out the details.

I wanted to know more and made the attempt to text them wanting to know what this was all about. Every attempt was met with the same red texted response of 'message failed'.

The number was too weird and I cursed under my breath, thinking to myself that maybe MalO got enough information out of my phone before I had scrubbed it so I could get some strange spam.

At that point, I was too tired to care about some stupid picture being sent to me and went to sleep. The constant electric buzzing of my alarm roused me and with a groan, I rolled over and swatted at the device until it shut off. With a grogginess, I had fallen into the autonomous routine of getting ready for my morning classes, barely even alert of my surroundings.

I shambled into my cramped bathroom and flicked on the light. The sterile white walls flashed all the brighter making me wince as my eyes watered from the glaring shift.

It was all function and left very little room for anything else. There was a small oval sink with just enough room for my toothbrush and the cup I used to hold it. The toilet was tightly packed in the corner and right across from it was my standing shower with a sliding door and its heavily fogged glass for privacy.

It was after I had gotten out of the shower and walked back into the room I had noticed my phone was flashing a new notification. At first, I thought little of it and assumed it was something innocuous like an update.

When I picked up my phone to check the time, I noticed instead it was another message from the same number from last night. With an annoyed sigh I couldn't resist the urge to check and whoever it was had sent me another photo.

Except for this time, my mouth parted in surprise.

It was an image of the front of the computer store I had visited maybe a few days ago. The hairs suddenly stood tall on the nape of my neck, my heart suddenly spiked in pace in response. Deep down my instincts shouted to me that I was being hunted and I for a moment, I agreed.

"What the fuck," I hissed through my teeth, unable to take my eyes off the screen, trying to force an answer out of force of will.

My routine was shattered and I paced the room, wracking my brain over out how they could have known I have been there.

Did they have access to my GPS?

Maybe this was all just a stupid prank?

I was quick to fire off another message and demands answers, but it too had failed to send like the last time.

With an annoyed growl I did the next best thing and blocked the number, it was all I could think to do before I had to attend my classes.

---

To say I was a little on edge for the rest of the day would have been an understatement, I had an issue with overthinking things. I was stuck on the idea someone could have been stalking me, but for what possible reason, I couldn't even fathom.

I was constantly looking about for anyone suspicious, though I had no idea what I would even do if I discovered them. Yet, no one really stood out to me and my phone was dead silent once the number was blocked.

The rest of the day passed on just like any other, I had survived another day in college and made my way back to my dorm.

---

I opened the door and walked into my conjoined living room and kitchen separated by a small island countertop. I had just one chair tucked in close to it and I hung my pack off the back of it.

All that anxious energy had bled away and left me utterly drained from it. My bed was calling for me, it was time for a well-deserved nap. I flopped into the bed with a groan, not even bothering to take off my clothes or get under the sheets, my mind had quickly drifted away from reality.

Then I was rudely jolted by a vibration against my thigh by my phone still tucked in my pants pocket. I cursed and dug it out of my pants to check what had interrupted me, and my heart dropped into my stomach.

It was that damned number my phone was supposed to be blocking!

All my anxiety surged right back into the front, my breathing hastened in pace, eyes gazing wide at the small notification like it was this looming threat. I couldn't bear to open it then and had simply stuffed my phone under my mattress and buried my face into my pillow.

After restlessly tossing and turning, at some point sleep came for me and I had escaped from my worries.

---

I was woken by the alarm, the next day. It wasn't a fucking nap, I had hibernated for sixteen damned hours!

Worse yet, I felt lethargic and some part of me just wanted to go back to sleep. Still, I had to drag my ass out of bed and get ready for another day.

Instead of getting ready I had pulled my phone from the purgatory of my mattress but refused to even glance at the screen. I was so down and out that I had walked out the door in the same clothes I wore yesterday, after all, who the fuck do I have to look good for anyway?

I walked down the sidewalk towards the campus, it was a short four-kilometer jaunt to get there. The fresh air was the balm I needed to wake me up and clear up my head, finally rousing fully to the world.

Out of causal reflex, I had pulled out my phone to check the time, only to quickly realize my error.

There were three more messages from my stalker waiting for me. I stopped dead in my tracks, I could tell they were sending them quicker and I felt my skin break out in goosebumps from not just the realization, but how precise the times were. Each message had come at half the time from the other, the next one I could expect during class.

Still, I couldn't look at them, I was just too much of a coward to check and stuffed my phone into my bag. Suddenly my walk was more than brisk, wondering if I was being watched right then, always looking at my surroundings.

When I had gotten to school, I felt a small measure of calm there, feeling safe in public. I tried my best to focus on the lectures, though this was more a defensive tactic to keep my mind distracted in my classes. It wasn't working, I kept peering at the clock, knowing the next message was going to come soon.

It during lunch when my phone went off again and just as I had predicted it was perfectly paced right down to the second. This had me thinking it must be some kind of machine and I blew out this sigh it had to be some kind of program and not a person.

Then I was more annoyed, I had gotten myself all worked up over nothing, no one was out to get me.

By the time my classes ended and I had gotten home, those three texts had grown to five. I was getting deeply annoyed by their regularity. In a wild surge of frustration, I had grabbed my phone and tore the backplate off and yanked the battery out and tossed the pieces onto my coffee table and watched them spread across the surface.

"Let see you send me a picture now asshole," I said with venom in my voice.

---

It was the next day I didn't even bother to put it back together, there was no point, it was not like someone important was going to call me. I went to college, did my studies and prepped for my tests for the end of the week. What I didn't do was worry about some loser wandering around and snapping stupid pictures to send me. It was kind of funny, ignorance was truly bliss.

When got home and saw my phone in shambles, I was struck with an immediate sadness what I had done. I kneeled over it and tenderly put the device back together, all the while cursing myself for taking my frustration out on a device I had usually taken such care of.

To my relief, the loading screen blazed to life with color, but my elation turned to dread when the rolling barrage of photos was spooling past the screen. One after another was pushed past as my phone received them and they were places I had been before.

I grew nauseous, watching as each photo was of a place closer and closer to where I lived. I could no longer deny it, I was truly being hunted by someone.

Another text came while I was looking at the pictures and I had nearly dropped my phone when I saw it was a shot of the front of my college today. My throat was suddenly parched, the blood turned to ice in my veins and it felt like my heart had sunk into the pit of my stomach.

While pacing in my bedroom I watched as this person started taking snapshots from the inside of my college. I that moment I had no idea what to do and seriously doubted the cops could be inclined to help someone sending photos to me. Never in my life had I thought I could ever find myself in a situation like this.

I didn't sleep at all that night because my phone kept going off and I couldn't just turn it off then. Still, every vibration was a shock to my system and my heart was sent racing over it.

I couldn't help but watch as whoever it was moved from one of my classes to another. It was then I had noticed they were moving through the building that was supposed to be closed, this seemed to offer no difficulty for whoever it was from getting around.

When my alarm went off I nearly leaped out of my bed with fright, I had been watching them shadowing the path I had taken the entire night. What fear I had felt had long since lost its edge, I was tired and annoyed then, all night I had been considering a plan.

I was still in my now three-day-old clothing, but it hardly mattered to me then, I was going to confront this person at the college.

--- Still, even with this plan in place, I had to take a long way around because they were coming up the fucking street I always walked. I was too scared to confront whoever it was alone, what I need was some help.

While I was walking towards the main building I received a very unwanted update, it was a picture of my room. They were inside my dorm. I wanted to throw up, I had no idea how they had gotten in but it wasn't good if they were willing to break into my place.

This new photo which had got me running up to the liaison, not just a security guard but an actual police officer. He was leaning against the wall close to the doorway with a coffee in hand, just starting his morning.

"P-please you need to help me," I said to him with enough urgency to startle him.

"What's the matter?" He asked while looking at me. "Are you OK?"

"Someone is stalking me, look at my phone... there are pictures of my room today when I had just left." I passed him the phone while looking cautiously over my shoulder.

He didn't say a word while flipping through the images, but he seemed completely unphased by them.

"It doesn't look like much to me. Have any threats been sent, can you name anyone you think would be responsible for the pictures?" He asked with this annoyingly casual tone like he didn't believe me.

"No... but come on officer... they were in my room after I left. They had to break into my dorm to get that picture." I was pleading with him and looking for any angle to get him on my side and act.

"You need to contact the station for the breaking and entering, if they did that, you will have a case against them." He sighed and looked at the university before looking back to me and said with a resigned sigh "Look... if it would make you feel better I can escort you to the class... it pretty much all I can do here."

"Yes please... maybe if they see you with me they will fuck right off." it was hard to contain my enthusiasm and he got a good chuckle from it.

"Have you seen this person at all?" he asked.

"No... I have no idea what they look like... I started getting the photos out of nowhere three days ago." It was so frustrating how little I had to offer him.

"Well, maybe today we can get a good look at your stalker and then you will be able to move forward on getting a restraining order." He dropped his hand on my shoulder so hard I flinched, but at least I felt reassured when he flashed me a smile. "Let's get you to class."

As we were walking to my first lecture I felt the vibration in my pocket, and I stopped dead in my tracks to look. When I saw the photo l, my eyes went wide, it was the front of my school, they were so close now.

I showed it to the officer, his brows furrowed and his lips pinched together.

"You know what... you get to class. I am going to cut this bastard off before he can get close."

"H-how are you going to know it's them?" I asked, unsure of his decision.

"Simple... I just need to look for some shithead snapping pictures of an empty hallway for no reason... now you get to class, I have a job to do." He said with this reassuring smile.

I nodded to him and turned to open the door to walk into a nearly empty room. Even with everything going on I had still unconsciously given myself plenty of time before the lesson started. When I took my seat I was a tightly bunched ball of anxiety.

Surely the liaison would catch my stalker and my life would return to normal. When it seemed like it had been a good long time since my phone had gone off. I couldn't help but think the police officer actually had caught him and it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.

The class was starting to fill up and the teacher took the podium to get lesson was underway. I might not have slept all night, but I felt great, finally, I could get my life back on track.

Then I felt a vibration against my thigh.

The dread I felt had twisted my guts up so badly I was ready to throw up over it. I pulled my phone from my pocket with a trembling hand, it was a message from my shadow.

My throat tightened and I asked myself how could they have slipped past?

I didn't want to look at the picture, I was far too terrified at what I would see.

It was then I saw it from the narrow window set in the classroom door. All my expectations could not have prepared me for this, what was gazing right at me defied all logic. What I saw was not a person but a skull that was not human, it was too long and was bleached a bright white, surrounded by fur so black it seemed to suck out the light. Set in the dark sockets were a pair of bulging white eyes and I felt them on me, boring right into my being with this alien and unreadable intent.