When Hastin woke up that morning, it was still dark with crows cawing outside his window. He opened the window to try to shoo the birds away. But instead of flying away, they came into his room and smashed everything around.
He blew up after seeing how these birds spoiled his room. His laptop, mobile, books, everything lay down on the floor scattered. He took the hockey stick and tried to hit the birds to make them go away.
But before he could even swing once, they all flew away through the window which they came in from.
"Why? What is wrong with these birds? Stupid bastards" Hastin shouted through the window.
One of the crows noticed his head outside the window and came rushing towards him. When he noticed that crow, he closed the window in a hurry. The crow then hit the glass frame and fell down.
'Cawww' It shouted once and glided down the window.
Out of curiosity, he went near the window to check on that bird. But before he could even open it, the crow soared up high in the air and flew away.
'What a horrible morning? Why is the sky still dark when it is already ten am? I definitely like this atmosphere! It would have been a lovely morning if only I was not disturbed by those crazy birds.' He shook his head and marched towards the bathroom to freshen up.
Hastin prepared a toast and an omelet for breakfast. He sat in his breakfast room and finished his toast while flipping channels on the TV. When he was almost done, he realized he forgot to bring his phone.
All because of those stupid birds, his room was now in a mess. He doesn't even know where his phone was right now in that messy room! What the hell was wrong with those idiotic birds! He had never seen such a huge number of birds around his home before.
He cursed at those unlucky birds in his heart and threw the plate into the kitchen sink with frustration. He went back to his room to search for his mobile. But he couldn't find it anywhere even after searching for more than half an hour.
He kicked the floor in frustration. He once again cursed at his bad luck and then at that black evil bird. He roamed around the mansion for a few minutes to search for his spare phone.
When he went inside the library, by chance he came across his first book which he could never publish. He wondered if he could ever write stories that could attract lots of attention. After wondering about that, he completely forgot about finding his spare phone. Instead, he opened the book which was now almost covered in dust.
He closed the book after a few minutes and blew on the book cover. The dust entered his eyes and made them burn. He remembered the childhood days that only had him and his father, the only other human being he had close contact with.
Hastin was a loner from his childhood. His mother passed away after giving birth to him. His father died in a horrible accident when he was fifteen years old.
All they left him was this mansion, a few million in bank accounts, hundred acres of land which almost looked like his own private dark forest behind his backyard.
From childhood, he had this weird hobby to like anything dark and he would collect things which resemble darkness. He was home-schooled from when he was a kid. His father, Jackson taught him at home.
Jackson could be considered as a genius who was an expert in investments. Whatever he invested brought him excellent money back and he was quite famous among the aristocrats.
All the knowledge about the outside world Hastin accumulated was from books and his father's tales. He never felt odd being not a part of any society. He liked loneliness as much as he loved darkness.
Currently, he wrote his horror novels on a few famous websites. Even though he had written more than fifty books until now, none of them were famous yet. He found the situation to be both funny and irritating.
Out of all the books, each book hardly received a thousand to two thousand views. Then it would completely disappear or be pushed to the extreme last page where no one bothered to scroll down.
He did not have high hope left for his book to become famous anymore. But he had nothing else to do other than writing. Writing kept him busy and he always felt proud of his work. The only thing Hastin did was writing novels, other than cleaning this huge mansion and ordering daily necessities from online websites.
No one had visited him or even knows who lives in this secluded mansion; except those delivery guys who drop the packages near the gate once in a while. The gate was almost a mile away from his mansion. They would inform him once the delivery is done through the intercom.
Hastin would then ride his new bike to the gate which was also ordered online. He got it delivered just last month. Once in a while, he would go trekking to the dark thick forest behind his mansion to get a more spooky feeling.
The whole of his property was covered with a thick boundary wall which also had a long electric fence running on top of it. Other than birds who can fly, not even an animal could enter his place.
After his father passed away until now, he never met any other human being. He isolated himself so much that sometimes he even forgot that people exist in the outside world.
He sat in front of his laptop and found himself in a dilemma. He tried hard to imagine a plot for his next horror novel. Even after thinking for half a day, he couldn't come up with anything.
He found himself to be out of ideas to write his next horror novel. Nothing! Empty! His mind was totally blank! He shut the laptop with frustration and looked around. Seeing his room to be in a total mess made him even more irritated. so he decided to clean the room first.
While he was arranging the scattered books in order, Hastin found his mobile just next to his pillow. He was sure that when he searched his room previously, it was definitely not there.
But miraculously now it appeared on his bed and that too next to the pillow. He felt chillness run over his veins. He suddenly felt excited as he picked up the phone.
The feeling which he sensed doubled when he saw the phone screen lit up with a message. It displayed, 'Running out of ideas for your book? I can help you! Just click install…'.
He thought how did the phone find out that I was running out of ideas for my novel? When he was wondering about that a second message appeared on the screen which said,
'Do not worry I won't harm you, but….' Click next to see further.
He hesitatingly clicked next.
'....I will help you achieve several million views in the next few months'
'Do click install to try my ideas. You will not regret it, I promise...'
INSTALL
Still, he was not sure if it was a good idea. He did not have the courage to click install.
A message then popped up once again on his phone screen within a few seconds.
'This is absolutely free. You take ideas for free for the first month as a trial period. Then…'
'Oh come on click install now! It won't cost you anything. I know for sure that you will love my ideas…'
'Ok fine! Last offer! I cannot go any further than this. You get six months free trial and I guarantee a million view in one day'
He could not lie but he was definitely tempted for this offer. His fingers clicked on install as if it got a mind of its own.
The app got downloaded before he could even blink. Woah! That was fast! The app then asked him to agree to the terms and conditions. But it did warn him before he could accept,
'Beware: Terms and conditions are subject to change at any time. Users will be notified of the changes but once you accept 'Agree' you cannot uninstall the app for the next six months'.
He clicked on Agree without reading the terms and conditions properly. The app took him into a page where it asked him to select a genre. It displayed the options under the menu,
Horror - kill at least 10 people
Horror and thriller - kill at least 10 people
Horror - kill at least 100 people
Horror and thriller - kill at least 100 people
Horror - kill infinite people
Horror and thriller - kill infinite people
Horror - bring people into the play
Horror and thriller - bring people into the play
Horror - author decides everything and the app obeys
Horror and thriller - Author decides everything and the app obeys
'Select one of the options above to continue…'