The Ballad of a Buried Beast

Chapter 1.

Imagine, being shoved in a box. A small one--so small you couldn't stand off your knees, so restricting you didn't even have room to breathe.

Now, imagine it buried. Under layers of soil, miles and miles beneath where footsteps fall. So deep, you couldn't even feel the toil of the worms.

Being trapped in such a small thing, being buried in the depths of a darkened world. No hope, no purpose, no escape, no death. Just you in your box, accompanied by nothing other than the black-light of your own dimly hued eyes.

For a time unaware to even the prisoner, that's all this lonely program had known.

"Mal-0."

-----

I was sixteen when I got my first phone; my father bought it for me as a coming-of-age birthday gift. It was a backflip model with a small keyboard, unlimited contact space, and a customizable snap-on casing. It was a carbon copy of the one he owned, and when it first touched my open palms my legs trembled with such excitement that I bolted out of the house to show my friends. I ran up out of our downtown neighborhood and to the bus stop, carrying myself all the way to my friends' gated homes in the suburbs. I jumped and screamed for joy as I knocked on each of their doors down the block, and after I'd acquired each of their cellular numbers I hurried back before night could settle.

This small phone was revolutionary--it was surreal!--it was everything I'd have ever wanted and more, it was-...

2017.

My phone was outdated, and as I'd walk down the blue-lit halls of my school I'd be constantly reminded of that. Touchscreen technology, videos, gaming, apps... I never grew envious or jealous, but--to my shame, I was embarrassed. I hid my phone in my pocket, and whenever my dad'd pry after work about making new friends to add to my contact list, I'd only offer up a hopeful smile and answer "Not today." He was a working man, after all, and with no mother in my life he had it difficult enough as it was.

I'd never disappoint him.

... Three years later, after high school, I got a job in deconstruction--Blue Collar work, an honest man's living. Just like dad. It offered decent pay for what I did--on a good day, I'd just lounge about and swing a hammer--but it didn't work miracles for my social life. Over the years, I'd grown distant, antisocial. -It wasn't anyone else's fault, though--no, no--it... I did it to myself, mainly. Whenever my friends'd invite me out, I'd use the excuse of requesting longer hours to get out of it. I did it for weeks, and then after the phone stopped ringing, I continued on for months.

I like to think it was because I was set on my goal, but... No, that wasn't really it. I just wanted to be alone, I think. I enjoyed the silence that came from being away from everything, and with every crumbled wall I'd set with my sledgehammer, that feeling only became more solidified.

But, that's beside the point: my goal, yes. I had a goal. I'd been saving for something, something for my dad. Repayment.

"So, will this be the one?"

"I-huh?" I shook my head of its daydreams and refocused on the clerk lady in front of me. She stood with her hands formally laced behind her back, staring at me with the counter-tethered phone in my hands.

"Sorry, I apologize-uh, what'd you say the price on this was again?"

Her hands unlinked behind her, and before I could object she scooped the smartphone out of my hands and held it beside her face. It looked like she was presenting it, about to make some spokeswoman speech.

"This," she started,

Oh, she was.

"-Is the Umbrella V.2, Valley's number two in leading software design. It comes with 5G capability, 8k camera resolution--complete with three wide-ranged lenses on the back here--and, if you choose to accept the family plan, unlimited data for you and your-"