Work Text:
At the end of each day, you always made sure to practice the language you were learning on Duolingo. Lately, though, your passion for that language had been fading, and the notifications had popped up on your lock screen more frequently. Each message from the owl-faced app had reminded you well enough, but after you lost your streak, things felt different. You didn’t want to learn it anymore; you had given up.
Waving goodbye to your friends as you exited the school bus, you pulled out your phone to see another meaningless notification from the little green owl. You swiped it away without a second thought. The idea crossed your mind to delete the app, as it had a dozen times before, but you pushed it aside as a task for later. After all, your real homework needed doing.
You left your phone in your room to eat dinner with your family. You ate comfortably, enjoying a perfect night with your family without a care in the world. It had been a good day at school, much more to your liking than usual; your friends, teachers, and other classmates had been nothing but pleasant, and the homework had been easy, as you’d gotten it all done before dinner, save for a single page of easy math. An autumn weekday couldn’t be more perfect.
After dinner, you retired to your room. Your best friend called you, and when you answered, you thought to yourself, How could I not expect the day to get better? I have amazing friends, after all! The two of you talked for over an hour, during which time you finished the remaining page of your math homework. Leaving your phone on your desk and switching it to speaker, you changed into your pajamas. As you moved to pick up your phone again, however, you decided to check your lock screen for notifications. What you saw slowly sank in until you froze.
Your friend, alerted by your silence, spoke up and asked what was wrong. When you still didn’t answer, your friend became worried, begging you to respond. You finally explained that there was indeed something wrong, but you struggled to explain the odd situation. On your phone, over 70 notifications from Duolingo had appeared since dinner, with more popping up every few seconds.
You scrolled through the messages. Most were the usual reminder of your lost streak and lack of practice. Every so often, however, there was a more sinister note in a message. On top of that, you hadn’t even heard or felt your phone vibrate when they arrived. Sufficiently spooked, you read aloud some of the creepy notifications to your best friend. The two of you laughed about it for a while, but you still felt uneasy. You began feeling nauseous.
And then, your light turned off.
You made an effort to tell your friend, but your phone had shut down, too. Every attempt to wake it led to only a flash of your lock screen, then darkness again. After the third try, the lock screen wallpaper was different. It had become a fiery orange version of Duolingo’s usually green icon—the streak status version.
The room was growing hot; you began to sweat. Gazing into the darkness of the hallway, you suddenly wondered why you hadn’t heard your family’s confused voices when the lights went out. You barged out of your room, more scared than you had ever been before. You checked every room of your house, but your family was nowhere to be found. You breathed a sigh of relief—at least they weren’t mangled corpses. You figured that whoever was doing this was obviously just a stalker with a knack for hacking. Far calmer now, you made sure to lock the door before going back to your room and locking your own door behind you.
Though you had found some peace of mind, you were still cautious. You decided that the night could be passed without your nighttime routine—brushing your teeth would happen in the morning, and flossing wasn’t too crucial since your meals hadn’t been very clingy—but you did have to use the toilet, and that alone worried you. You turned to look for something to use as a weapon, but when you faced your bed, you realized you weren’t alone.
A small owl sat squarely in the middle of your mattress. In the pale, weak moonlight, you couldn’t see its face, but you knew it was Duo.
A scream caught in your throat. Your back pressed up against the door, your body moving backwards involuntarily. Your eyes flitted around the room for the weapon you’d already been thinking of. You felt tears welling up in your eyes, but when you moved to swipe them away, a strong hand grabbed your wrist. With your blurry vision, you couldn’t make out whose hand it was before a sharp blade slit your throat.
You fell to the ground, gasping for air and failing to scream. As blood gushed from your neck, the beast stood over you. It was highlighted with green where moonlight landed on it, but its feathery hands dripped with red. Your wide eyes brimmed over with tears as your lungs filled with hot blood.
As your body grew limp and your vision faded, a haunting sound filled your ears: a breathy, deep, and quiet voice—the voice of the beast.
“I will save you if you can say this in the language you have given up on: ‘Duolingo is a great tool for learning a new language that everyone can benefit from.’”
In the absurdity of the moment, you found no strength to speak as per the monster’s request—and besides that, you didn’t know how to say most of the words in that sentence in your chosen language. You closed your eyes and prepared to die.
“Fine,” rasped the voice one last time. “You will serve as another example in the Realm. Let all who pass by your skull know why you were imperfect: you forgot to practice.”