It started with a ping

Chapter 1

Gooby sat at his desk, fourhead resting on fidgeting arms as he stared around their room aimlessly. There was nothing to do, the temperature had plummeted and skies had darkened in the icy winter months leaving him bored and restless.

He picked up their phone for the ninth time in a row, it had barely been two minutes since his childhood friend yarrow had ended the call to finish their schoolwork , leaving gooby with no plans and an feeling of unfathomable boredom. Noticing the minutes were slowly inching up of 6 pm gooby pushed their chair backwards, stretching his arms above his head and pushing off the desk to stand and venture across the hallway.

Gooby opened the fridge, stacking a pile of butter and cheese between between his arms and closing the door gently with their knee. He placed the ingredients down and began filling a saucepan with pieces of pasta before a loud ping erupted from the phone unassumingly resting in the back pocket of his trousers.

Gooby leaned against the counter, legs bent awkwardly as they leaned backwards to rest on the kitchen workspace and investigate the disruptive notification.
You have been invited to Submissivemanzone

A light frown frowned on goobys face at the message,   The message seemed unassuming at first. Just a friendly invite, but gooby knew better, Submissiveman had been one of goobys close friends for a while but he couldn't deny anywhere the Brit went bought chaos and disruption. They slid the phone back into their pocket, opting to continue cooking his cheese beef and toast pasta then see what Submissiveman was offering.

Gooby confined on his evening, finishing up homework and preparing for the next days activities before settling into bed and pointlessly scrolling through tiktik for a while. Upon realising the time had slowly trickled into the early hours gooby clicked their phone off and rested it on his chest, staring into the ceiling, painfully aware of the awareness still coursing through his mind.

Gooby huffed and picked up his phone again, the bright glare sending daggers into their sore eyes. After a moment of adjustment gooby stared at the blue and green home-screen facing him, not sure what to do, but knowing sleep was not an option anymore.

After a few games of Crossy road gooby closed the app to find the familiar discord icon, it wouldn't hurt to see if anyone was awake just to chat to. The app loaded quickly and gooby was immediately faced with the glaring invite Submissiveman had send earlier. He stared at the words for a while, unsure of what to make of it before deciding it wouldn't hurt to check it out and see who was up.

The invite was accepted and gooby was suddenly greeted by the new server, the welcoming messages and rule reading instructions ignored as gooby swiftly located the active chat.
Gooby: hello

He watched as the replies came flooding in, messages happily greeting him and welcoming him to the server. They read over them dismissively, not knowing anyone typing and rolled over onto their side to place their phone away when a single reply stunted his movement
Stix: hi

Gooby frowned, what a dumb fucking name. He clicked the phone off and turned towards the wall, eyelids drooping slowly and sleep approaching easier then before