Don't look at the Walrus!

[WP] It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says "DO NOT LOOK AT THE WALRUS". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending "It's a beautiful walrus. Look."

******

Fridays were for parties. Get-togethers. Nights out at the club. More often than not, Sex even, for most of the people my age with raging hormones and the curse of wrong choices. Fridays marked the end of the week, of the long hours in a cubicle or behind a school desk, so it was inevitable that the nights would be used to release pent up emotions, frustrations and strain caused by overexertion.

For me, Friday Nights - Saturday Mornings were spent behind my desk, typing an article for my Monday column in the popular local newspaper. Anonymous, satiric and quite sarcastic, it provided the thoughts of a cynic with a twisted sense of humor on any trending topic at the moment. It was intended to sharpen the edge, not take it off, and - humorously - tell my readers what I felt a bit the sh*tty country we all lived in.

Funnty enough, unlike the popular stereotype for my kind of people, I was an outspoken guy with a lot of friends - a whole lot of 'em. But then, I had my private life as well, and...

My reminiscing was ended by the buzzing of my phone.

Damn it, who the hell is that? I thought, still not picking the phone. It was just a message or a useless phone notification. It would come lat...

Buzz

Buzz

Buzzzzzzzz

Multiple notifications came in all at once, making my phone vibrate again and again. It was not in anyone's habit to send me texts, at least not this day, which everyone knew - or so they thought - was a day I dedicated to myself.

"Are you damn kidding me? It's 3AM for goodness' sake! Nah, I'm not breaking tradition over some stupid notifications," I said out loud, trying to overpower the voice of reasoning that said the message my be urgent. "If it's an emergency, only a nutjob would call me. I'm no good in that aspect."

Then my phone came on with a long buzz and then I knew something was not right. Christ, I thought, grabbing the damn phone. My phone wasn;t set to turn on its display at a notification, so what was...

Notifications

MePhone: Offical Notification:

DEAR CITIZEN, DO NOT LOOK AT THE WALRUS OUTSIDE.

I froze, unable to tell if this was a joke of some sort; perhaps the government's idea of telling me it had found me and was ready to send operatives to lodge a bullet in my brain for my comments on their new trade agreement with the East.

Or was my MePhone misbehaving? I suspected I should have bought a Samdance instead, but...

My phone buzzed again, and I looked at it. It was my messaging app, and I had…

The hell? I thought. 69 messages?

Unlocking my phone, I went to the messages app and there they were, random messages from numbers I’d not saved, all saying the same thing in different ways:

“The Walrus Outside is so beautiful! It’s beautiful, it’s…. you have to see it!”

“Dude, check out the walrus outside! Totally rad!”

“Yo, there’s a friggin’ walrus outsyd and it looks tots’ rad ngl. You gotta come see this bruh!”

“Hey there, sexy. I’m waiting for you outside, with the beautiful walrus. Come save a damsel in distrexxx, my knight in shining armor ;)”

Attached to the last message there was a picture of a girl in a bikini, so I was pretty sure it was some automated bullsh*t. But the messages went on and on and on, and I wasn’t sure whether it was bot generated, or not. Whatever it was, I’d definitely be talking about something else rather than the quality of the meat FKC uses.

A call came in. It was Angela, my girlfriend.

“Hey Angie! I wonder if you’ve gotten this…”

“Don’t look outside, Alan! Don’t! No matter what happens, no matter how tempting it is, don’t…don’t…AAAARRRGHHHH!”

The line went dead, and I shuddered as my phone dropped to the carpet. Her scream was so guttural, and she sounded so terrified… so…I couldn’t even begin to explain it. My mind was in a state of complete and utter disarray.

I called her back instantly, but there was no answer. I was losing my mind. There were loud shouts from outside, like the echoes of a thousand voices. I rushed to the window, but as I wanted to draw apart the curtains, I remembered her warning.’

What the hell was the whole walrus business about, and why did so many people – and a few bots – want me to see it? Worse still, why did Angela call and plead with me dearly not to look at the very thing all these people were trying to get me to see?

I opened Tweeta instantly and it was the #1 Trend – in less than thirty minutes! Scrolling throught the tweets, I could see that most of them were either people telling us to go look outside, or those that were saying that we shouldn’t.

One guy said that he’d go take a picture of the walrus – that was ten minutes ago – but he had not come online since them. I silently hoped his connection a=had gone back. There were also a lot of deleted twits, and twits from accounts that had suddenly been banned, including a popular influencer.

Conspiracy theories werefloating around in my head. What if Tweeta was silencing those who spoke againdt wahgt they saw? What they were seeing?

I saw a notification from Outsungram. Someone started a live video. I rushed to join, and it was a girl, setting up the camera to face her while she stood in front of her window.

“Hey guys! I think the whole walrus thing is just a huge pile of B.S, and I’m gonna prove it in 3,2,1…”

I accidentally dropped my phone, my hands shaking wildly. I looked at them in shock, only then noticing how scared I was. Picking up the phone again, I saw that the Live Video session had ended.

I rushed to her most recent posts, and there were already comments there.

”Oi! What happened?!”

“@stylagawdcharizzma @frag_addict_ You guys gotta come see this. They’ve done her in!”

…

I stood up, drained, confused and tired. I didn’t know what was happening anymore; I didn’t even care.

Walking to the window, I threw apart the curtains.

“Wh…what…is…”

It was a giant walrus.

It was a giant walrus in the sky.

It was a f*cking giant walrus looking at me!

I felt an acute headache for a few seconds, and then all went dark.