Chapter 2
"That's too much information Mom," I said with a little shiver to emphasize my point. "I can't believe that it already has over one hundred thousand users and it's even more surprising to find that everyone that it's matched together seems to be happy with each other, thus far anyway," I said still puzzled by the app's popularity and accuracy levels.
"It really is unbelievable, maybe you should get it too, "Mom responded wiggling her eyebrows at me before she went to the cabinets to pull out the pots. "What should we have for dinner tonight?" She asked facing me.
"Spaghetti sounds nice," I said plopping down on one of the chairs by the counter. "And no way Mom, this app seems way too good to be true." I said.
"Spaghetti it is," She said pulling out all the ingredients that she was planning on using. "Just try it, you have nothing to lose from just trying." Mom continued with a shrug.
"I'll think about it." I said hopping off the chair just as my phone began ringing signaling that someone was calling. I picked it up without looking at the caller ID, seeing as I already knew who it would be.
"Let me guess, the app has already found a match for you." I said to the caller.
"Sadly no, but I've completed all the questions and it's already looking for my match," She said barely containing her excitement. "So after watching the news and hearing about its current accuracy levels, are you still not going to get it?" She asked with a pleading voice.
"I'll think about it." I said nonchalantly as I walked into my bedroom door.
"How much more convincing do you need?" Renee whined obviously losing patience with me.
I shrugged just to remember that she couldn't see me. " I honestly don't know, you know that I don't do dating apps Riri." I said plopping myself on my bed.
"Yes I know, but it's always good trying new things." She said with another attempt to convince me.
"Doesn't this app seem even a little shady to you? The are many other dating apps, asking for similar information like this new Fantasy App but those apps barely matched the correct people together yet this new one can suddenly match people from across the world using the exact same information as the other apps." I explained.
"Maybe the other apps have miniature bugs or something," She responded. "Come on Rose, it's not like you have anything to lose." She whined.
"Fine, I'll try it." I said giving up and giving into my curiosity, I wanted to see who it would pair me up with, unless I didn't have a soulmate of course, but that would really suck.
"Great, tell me when you've signed in and everything, ciao."Renee said with excitement before hanging up, leaving me in shock. I guess that we all knew what the purpose of the call was then.
With a loud sigh, I slumped down onto my bed and stared at my phone's brightly lit screen. I couldn't help but to weigh the pros and cons of downloading this app, I've always been the analytic and scared-to-take-risks type of person so this feeling of skepticism definitely wasn't new to me. I lightly bit my lip as my finger lingered on the Play Store app. Something in me telling me to go for it against my brain's better sense of judgment and for some reason, I found myself pressing onto the colourful application, and right there like a flashy headline on a magazine was the daunting app. I quickly pressed onto it and pressed 'Install'. The downloading seemingly taking longer for once in my life.
I waited patiently for a couple of minutes as the downloading process seemed to chip away at my already haywire nerves.
I placed my phone on the bedside table, not even bothering to exit Play Store, and pulled my cover over my head. Dread eating away at my soul as sleep took me into its peaceful grasp.
"Anne, what up, dinner's ready." My Mom said, gently shaking my arm to what me up.
"Okay." I groaned in my sleep-induced state, shooting my mom a quick glance to show her that I was awake, more or less anyway.
Mom just hummed in response and left the room. I slowly sat up from my bed and stretched my body as I released a yawn. I then stood up and made my way to the kitchen to see my Mom on the phone with a frown on her face.
"Okay, I'll keep a look out for her," Mom said to the person on the other end of the phone. "Bye." She said getting off the phone and looking at the screen with a frown.
"What's wrong, Mom?" I asked her plopping down on a chair by the kitchen counter.
"Do you remember your cousin Riley?" She asked to which I just nodded in response with confusion in my eyes.
"Well, she's missing." Mom said.
"For how long?" I asked, shocked to hear such.
"According to Catherine, she hasn't been back since she left this morning." Mom said with a sigh.
"That is strange, the last thing that I knew about Riley is that she always made it back home in time, if she said she would be back in 10 minutes, she would be back in 10 minutes never later than that." I said remembering my overly punctual cousin.
"We just have to keep looking out for and hope that nothing bad has happened to her," Mom said. "Let's eat." Mom continued dishing up for herself with me following right after her.
We ate in silence and then went to watch the night news. As we sat watching, the Fantasy App was mentioned again as well as the fact that there were about 2 girls and 1 boy that have gone missing in the past 24 hours and according to the people that reported them missing, all of the missing people had gone missing after the app had found matches for them. Mom and I looked at each other and then faced back towards the TV, I couldn't help but to wonder, what if all of this was related to the new Fantasy App, then again it was a possibility that it wasn't, we were leaving in a cruel world after all and such things happen every day.
"Well, I'm off to bed, goodnight." Mom said standing up and gently kissing my forehead goodnight.
"Goodnight." I said flashing her a smile before she walked away leaving me alone. I flipped into Netflix and chose the anime category. I watched some good old anime and ignored all the Fantasy App internal concerns.