Warning: there is nO fOurtH WaLL you have been warned. Any resemblance to the real world is purely coincidental and should not be taken seriously. This is all cRacK. I hope you enjoy :')

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The device was nothing like Io had ever seen. A rectangular, shiny surface that appeared black from afar but would light up with colour at the touch of a finger, prompting the most vibrant pictures, numbers and words that seemed to him like a tablet of sorcery at which he had full control of at his very fingertips. Ah yes, that would have to be what it was: a tablet of sorcery.

"It's a smartphone, you moron," identified Vaughn at once, several feet away but perfectly unable to keep his eyes off the device in Io's hands. "This technology allows the owner to communicate with another owner regardless of the distance between the two. Fuelled by 'internet connection,' one can have access to a whole new universe of knowledge and information."

While the last couple of words accurately summed up Io's lifelong search, interest, and hobby all at a go, his experience with eight-balls and the spoon-feeding phenomena of answers made him rather inclined to the former function of communication.

"So... I can talk to Luka when he's in the shower and Pipa when she can't get out of bed?" Io made his first attempt at connecting the dots which the vulture had so kindly provided. He unfortunately did not get very far.

Luka Sullivan was naturally within earshot, seated nearby on a couch shared between Jiro, Papercrane and Victoria, who'd already been charged with vandalising the cushions in the predator's common room twice. Somewhere in the back of Luka's mind, he could tell that this wasn't his first encounter with a phone that was smart. The black, reflective surface that had the power to conjure images so real but the entire concept, so distant in his memory.

He turned to Lyra, all snuggled up in the pocket of his blazer and reached down to pet the top of her head. Io had looked up in confusion. "But I don't lock the door when I shower."

"Information I did not need to hear," concluded Vaughn the bitter, casting an immediate glare his way before holding out his hands to receive his very own personal device, bestowed upon him by the cupcake above. "Can't believe she'd go against the laws of the very universe she created."

His creator was kind enough to enlighten him by pointing out the fact that he was very much surrounded by potential gay couples in every page of all three books in the series he was in, which was practically the breaking of several universal laws all at once. Vaughn had paused; true enough, the thought had never crossed his incredibly androgynous, asexual mind. He glanced down at the universe-transcending device, realizing that it wasn't turned on, unlike the one given to Iolani Tori.

"And no instruction manual, I presume." The vulture was having a hard time deciding between burying his head in his hands and pinching the bridge of his nose whilst palming his face (if that was a term). This dilemma would never have occurred if he'd just been given four arms instead of two but that was the whole point.

The struggles of Iolani Tori would never have occurred or been easily solved with the presence of an all-forgiving, wish-granting god; or the inclusion of internet; or that he'd never come from a tiny village but from some metropolitan city and hadn't stayed up home cooped up in his thoughts like the hermit he was; or texting his mother whenever he wanted to; resolving ambiguous time spent apart from his beloved friends, etc etc.

While it was certainly the case that their creator had had enough of being the all-forgiving, wish-granting cupcake in her other creations, today was special. Today was the day she'd excused the summoning of smart phones and their sorcery, all for the sake of entertaining you, the reader and oh god this already sounds like it's going to be quite the disaster.

*

Disaster. "Man, look what I can do with this thing!" Dmitri would be the first member of the crew to come to mind upon that very word and here he was, summoned by the very mention of superior technology faster than Oreos could ever imagine of attracting the falcon. "Pictures. Of me. And at every slide of my thumb!"

Already, his phone featured an album of the most disastrous form of photography: selfies. Of which included the falcon appearing childishly fascinated with every single thing under the sun—pointing, gesturing, hugging non-living objects and catching his friends off guard. Among these pictures was what he'd considered his sole pride and joy: a snapshot of Vaughn resembling a frightened giraffe, mouth startled into the shape of an 'A'.

The burst shots that came after these primarily featured the vulture's middle finger, which weren't any different from the other shots he'd captured on his 'scare the crew on Halloween prank'. Dmitri had made the tremendous effort of dressing up as an eggplant—dying his hair an ugly shade of forest green before painting his entire body purple and donning a hideous 'eggplant' suit he'd found on the Halloween catalogue at the post.

Regardless of his chosen camping location (he'd taken the time to wait outside everyone's rooms since he was, well, unfortunately void of things to do), he would have frightened ever single soul he'd encountered purely because they'd be questioning his sanity. Either way, Vaughn had bestowed upon him the award-winning reaction in his Captain Hook costume and everyone else were either too indifferent (Luka the sorcerer had been fixing his hat and missed the purple human entirely) or more interested in his selfie-function than the eggplant himself (Io the eight-ball).

"Know what's even better than taking selfies?" Lucienne had gotten hold of a smartphone device herself and had flocked to Dmitri's side in an instant. "You can send them." She showed him how.

The falcon could not believe he hadn't heard of such a function and was appalled by the fact that he'd assumed enlightenment had been attainted even before this. He announced a 'free' selling of his pictures almost at once. "Just, just line up and I'll send them to you." No one had asked.

Aside, Abigail and Meryl had their eyes fixed on their tablet of sorcery. "You can send them to multiple people all at once, you know," his fellow American said without looking up, scrolling through human online shopping sites that were a whole lot more diverse than the catalogues they had at the post office downstairs.

Already, the pair had a total of 53 items in their shopping cart, of which included furniture and what seemed like a whole new nest for each of their Avians. Victoria had screeched for one like a child, claiming that Lyra and herself had always wanted to share a cozy little nest. Luka had peered over Meryl's shoulder and caught a glimpse of the words 'dog' and 'house'.

"Alright, alright. You're the expert," Dmitri had responded with a roll of his eyes before sending the photos of himself and everyone else to Lucienne either way—feeling quite the expert already. Little did he know, his knighted partner had long established herself as the superior smartphone user. She was a step ahead, miles above and ready to ascend higher up in the Pyramid of technology. The harpy eagle had downloaded memecreator.

Meanwhile over at the couches, Io had joined Jiro and Luka in their journey of exploration and discovery. Merely five minutes into the chaos however, the surface of the nightingale's smartphone already began to sport multiple scratches that appeared to be a result of Papercrane attempting to, well, provide some company. The pair had taken quite an interest in multi-player games and Jiro had shifted into his Avian form for supposed 'fairness'.

"Look, Luka," aside, Io held up his tablet of sorcery. "It sends letters in less than a second! If only my Ma has one of these. Then, we could write instant letters to each other. And I could even send a picture of you so that she would know how you look like." He'd borrowed the idea from Dmitri, somehow glad that the falcon was the one who'd gained early access to the device and not himself.

Naturally, Luka was all for the idea of sending a picture of himself to Io's mother. He needed to see it happen. Yet, the qualification of Io's family living far out in possibly rural lands made things slightly harder to work out. He wasn't even sure if a device like this had made its rounds among villager hands or if they'd even heard of it. Or even if they did, if it would work without the 'internet connection' magic Vaughn had raised beforehand.

"Maybe we could put up a notice. Like, you know, the 'wanted' posters or 'missing person!' kind of thing?" Io tapped on random applications, searching for something that resembled the function he was looking for. "If someone in the village sees it, they might show my Ma. As long as we put both our names up there somehow..."

"She remembers my name?" Luka narrowed in at once, quietly pleased. Io peered up with a laugh.

"Ma's never had any names to remember. Names of my friends, I mean. Because I didn't have many. Or, rather... they were just people of the village. I don't think I've ever talked about someone else to her before," he explained and the appeased creature in Luka's cage blossomed even further. Io unfortunately did not catch the smile threatening to surface on his companion's lips, head lowered and gaze affixed on the brightly-lit screen that he'd somehow managed to end up on. "It says... create a pro-file... and post them online."

This was it, or so Io had figured with the supportive chirp his Avian had given. All he had to do was create this pro-file and post whatever it was to the magic world of webs that would automatically put his 'missing person poster' up on every tablet of sorcery! He got to work at once.

"Luka," he handed his device to the eagle seated beside him. "Fill this in. Describe yourself! Like, in a missing person poster. And and and if you can, include me in some creative manner. Oh! And take pictures. I think you can add them by tapping this camera, button, thing, looks like a... oh! There it is."

Io guided him every step of the way, demonstrating how it was to be done as though he'd been putting up 'missing person posters' for the past decade or so but was really overall mistaken on the entire purpose of social media. Precisely because he and Luka were so fortunately lacking in technological capabilities of the modern world, they were a perfect match for the awful experiment.

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Odette had been swiping through an interesting application by the name of Tinder except that the creators, under the influence of the net, adored spelling errors and left out the 'e' between the letters 'd' and 'r'. After creating an account of her own and realizing what the function of the app was at the 'state your preferences' page, she called her twin brother over and together, they amused themselves with the range of descriptions and photographs, playfully swiping whichever way throughout.

The process was nothing short of entertaining. From reading through cheesy pick-up lines at the get-go to the wit-attempters and others dying to stand out with busty selfies and abs-in-the-gym-or-bathroom-mirror, the pair had never found an activity more exciting and absorbing than dancing itself, at least not until they came across two familiar-looking profiles.

'Less than a mile away' were Jeremiah Reyes, 18, and another silly bird of the same age who, unlike the former, clearly had no place on this particular platform. While the kite's bio contained carefully crafted words and the occasional combination of a semicolon and a close-bracket, the latter's description of himself had the ability to incite tremendous jealousy in the singles that this very app was made to cater towards.

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My name is Luka.

I have a friend. He is this tall. And this heavy.

He smells very nice. He is also very nice.

He knows many things. He asks many questions.

His name is Io.

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The set of photos chosen to match this very description featured an impassive-looking young man dressed in the predator's uniform holding a vertically-positioned hand up to his chest as though demonstrating height; and the next, with his arms in the position of bridal carrying except without a bride; and the last, of his Avian posing in front of a fireplace.

Almost immediately, the swan twins were able to identify (judging by the height, angle and seeming lack of professionalism or familiarity with photo-taking) that these pictures of Luka Sullivan were taken by no one other than his sparrow friend, Iolani Tori. They glanced over at his couch.

That the poor boy had his mind nowhere near improving his photography skills or the fact that they, together, had unknowingly signed themselves up for a dating application (when they were clearly occupied with, well, with each other), Odette could not find any fault with.

Vijay Krishnan had wheeled Pipa Felice over to the couch that now appeared increasingly overcrowded with friendly prey gathered around a single tablet of sorcery. Enraptured by a screen of shouting chefs and flustered contestants, each pointed out a curious point of interest.

"I didn't know making potato salads could be so stressful and difficult," said the canary offhandedly, adjusting the angle of her smartphone so that Jiro could join in on the fun.

Vijay had blinked. "But, weren't you the one who's always bringing potato salads to parties?"

At this, she'd laughed sheepishly, turning her attention back to the screen and pretending to look vaguely confused. "Well... recipes differ. And I just happen to use different ingredients, that's all!"

The storm petrel could not bring himself to ask what exactly it was Pipa put into her potato salad but was thankfully distracted by Io's pointing out of the list of recommended videos after the one on shouting chefs and panicked potatoes had come to an end. In instant awe, he'd tapped on the title 'Best potato salad recipe.'

"Nash is going to be proud. He's no longer going to have to suffer from my unseasoned potatoes!" The sparrow turned to his canary friend, who hadn't exactly caught on with the term 'unseasoned.' Anything was bland to the mynah boy. "What else do you think they have?"

"Everything under the sun, I would think," Pipa presented him the search bar and Io was at once faced with a blinking line and the magic key-writer-type-alphabet-thing. They stared back with an empty gaze, reminding the boy of the prior experience he'd had to undergo.

After all, he could see no difference between this blinking line and the 8-ball he'd received last Christmas. Answers no longer sought after, Io understood the need to step back from his fascination towards this tablet of sorcery and the magic that it seemed to come with—pre-packed with answers, determined. Handing it back to Pipa, he told her it was the journey he sought.

Whether it was the red box with a triangle or the word 'goggles' which appeared to have been spelt wrongly, those things seemed a little too convenient, warranting less and less thinking in the age of such technology. With the answer always a click, a tap, a swipe away, he'd decided that breaks from such was necessary.

And so he got searching for other users and bothering them about it. Like always.

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It wasn't long until Vaughn Alekseyev encountered the detrimental app that would—and for all intents and purposes, has, already—changed his life (made him exist, per se), discovering the silly orange 'W' square shortcut on his homepage. The coagulation of badly-written fiction, the epitome of teen imagination, home to cheerleaders and football boys, horny werewolves and hornier vampires.

Ah, yes. The sinful temptation of free books, or so Vaughn the bookworm had it in him to think. He wasn't wrong, strictly speaking. Things that didn't come with a price tag were indeed a rare find even on the floating island they lived on, let alone some highly-populated online universe in a smartphone. Yet, it seemed to bother him that carefully crafted words and woven worlds needn't any form of payment in return and he could thus only come to the conclusion that perhaps the quality of free books like these would have to be compromised. After all, he couldn't possibly expect every writer on the platform to be the legendary Oscar Wilde.

So to answer the question of: to what extent were free books by unpaid authors (who could very well be fourteen or fifteen years old or younger) necessarily good, Vaughn Alekseyev took to the app and began scrolling through the titles listed under his recommended section. What a trusting little boy, placing his faith in an algorithm meant for a largely young, female audience thirsting for some hiGh qUaLitY rOmAnCe.

He scrolled for ages, legs crossed, head tilted backwards over the couch—otherwise known as his optimal position for reading. Of the popular titles, he'd noticed a fair trend in the way they were named. The first time he'd come across something like this, he'd thought it might have been a repetition of words.

ROOMMATES (boyxboy)

Titles that revealed the entire basis of a romantic relationship or rather, the sparking of it all, were a common trend on the platform and while Vaughn didn't necessarily find a problem with it, he couldn't quite comprehend the words that came after the main title; the ones in brackets. Was boyx a word? And if so, was repeating boy a mere typing error or some way to get past the tricky algorithm? He moved on.

CLASSMATES (boyxboy)

FLATMATES (boyxboy)

MATES (boyxboy)

HE IS MY MATE (boyxboy)

TOO MANY MATES (boyxboy)

OI MATE (boyxboy)

And there it was again; those brackets. The inner critic in him was harsh and merciless but Vaughn understood better than to lash out at these talented writers who only coincidentally weren't very good at naming their work, including the most ridiculous one he'd come across: Baked Love—skies what sort of unholy name was that? Absolute garbage! Downright cheesy! Absurdly brainless! Clearly, this writer had no talent whatsoever.

While he hadn't quite figured out the meaning of the incomprehensible letters in the brackets that happened to fill an entire page of his recommendations, the vulture was desperate for content, hungry for words on an empty stomach and waiting to be fed a world of heroes in dilemmas and villains with style. He ignored the similar-sounding titles and continued to scroll further down, giving each synopsis a quick scan.

"Danger. Chase. Devil. Sky. Rogue... are these real names?" The voice over his shoulder turned out to be Shri and while Vaughn did not appreciate other people spying on the screen of his tablet of sorcer—smartphone, he couldn't help but agree.

"I was just thinking the same thing," he sat up straight, turning to face the osprey who was half-sitting, half-standing on the back of the couch he was on. "I suppose it must be hard to come up with unique-sounding names or memorable ones at least. With more than a million novels on the platform, I can imagine every writer wanting their characters to be special."

"I think you're giving them too much credit," Shri laid out. "They probably want their readers to feel how cool someone is by their name. Like this one here," she pointed out a stray name. "Xander Jaxon. Two 'x's in a name? Skies, he must be at the top of the pyramid."

"So. The more 'x's, the stronger they are?" Vaughn was frowning and he could not control it.

"The more dominant," his companion corrected as though she was an expert, nodding away. "And the more 'v's in a name, the more villainous. Characters with 'v's always end up being the secret villain."

"Brilliant! I've got two." The crème brulee was ecstatic. "That must necessarily increase my chances." He might end up being the villain after all and there was no better reward than actually playing the villain than, well, being the villain that everyone else considered a harmless bean.

Shri made a face. "Yeah but does it apply to people who started out as the villain? Those tend to end up dead or defeated or, uh, become all friendly-friendly with the hero like in Naruto or something."

"I have no friends and I am the friend of nobody and neither am I dead or defeated and as such, I'd like to consider myself an exception or a diamond in the rough," Vaughn declared whole-heartedly and the osprey was inclined to shut him up with an alternative platform for content.

She swapped phones with the vulture and presented him with a whole new platform. This one had a red-white theme and appeared to have very specific categories pertaining to an unknown term: 'fandoms'. Such were the curious workings of this new writing site catered to the niche and Vaughn had always been fond of anything special and unique. He decided to take a closer look, tapping on a random category that had more than twenty-thousand works written under it. The very first page of results re-ignited his traumatic experience of the previous platform:

TEAMMATES |Kageyama Tobio x Hinata Shoyo|

Apart from the similar-sounding title which he so kindly pardoned, Vaughn was quick to note the slight difference in the latter portion of the title. Instead of the usual 'boyxboy' nonsense he'd seen in the previous site, this one had what appeared to be names to the left and right of the infamous 'x'.

And then it all came lighting him up like the crack of dawn. Angelic beams sliced through heavy clouds of storms and thunder, casting its warmth over the barren land below. He gave his hypothesis a quick test by checking the rest of every other work containing the 'x' and found them corroborating with his supposed claim.

"Romantic relationships," was all he managed in a whisper. Aside, Shri nodded approvingly. She was about to point him towards her already bookmarked reads and perhaps even a range of probable recommendations according to his selective tastes when the literary addict returned at once to the orange-themed application and scrolling through every work marked 'x'. He picked one at random.

"Bageshri," the vulture scanned through the prologue, scrolling fast as he did. "Would you say that romantic relationships thoroughly amuses the human mind and effortlessly so? Why do the majority of readers prefer the presence of such a theme to a work absent of it entirely?"

"MmMmMmm I wOnDer whY," was all the osprey could say in response, guilty of such. She fell into seat beside her companion—something he hadn't quite been expecting her to do and had nearly done a double take when she did—and thought of something to say. "I mean, good on you to ask. Don't think I've ever heard you question human nature or the reasoning behind it since that's practically Mr. Sparrow's job. I guess... people just, you know, like reading or watching the process of two people going all crazy for each other. Maybe it's for projection. I don't know. Maybe they want to relive it, or, experience that kinda thing through someone else."

"And would not betrayal do the very same thing? Or murder, or war, or friendship, or—anything that doesn't involve romance." Vaughn had so kindly ignored Shri's prior claims and focused on her latter comments. Naturally, he was determined. "It's upsetting that works of fiction somehow end up forcing some romantic relationship involving the main character to create some sort of sub-plot or, worse, a plot device. That is if they weren't about romance in the first place."

"That's because it gets them the money, Vaughny-poo. Simple," Shri pointed out. "Or the reads, in other cases. Or views. Whatever. Romance sells—or, uh, more specifically, sex does."

"Yes I know that," said the bitter vulture bitterly, before calming himself and realizing that he wasn't being the best conversation partner since it was himself who'd brought up such an infuriating topic. "Apologies for my... behaviour. I'm well aware of the kind of things human beings are into. Just, I can't seem to figure out why."

"Maybe it's because they're under the impression that it's the strongest feeling there is out there," piped a voice coming from behind the couch. A tuft of hazelnut hair allowed the pair to identify it as Iolani Tori. Soon, eyes emerged. "Maybe that's why so many people like reading about two people falling in love."

"Well then, they've never been betrayed by a friend or fought at the frontlines of a war," rejoined the vulture, quietly making space for the sparrow and his Avian regardless. "I find it difficult that people expect for every work of fiction to somehow include the idea of romance."

Io laughed. "I wouldn't mind if you decided to create your own work of fiction one day, Vaughn. Although... is it really possible to create a world where romance doesn't exist at all? I mean, like you said, in sub-plots or side characters, you know. Is that realistic, you think? I don't know. While every other emotion is just as important, it doesn't look like we can leave one of it out either."

The vulture was listening throughout and found himself being increasingly convinced in a matter of seconds. This occurrence, however ridiculous and shameful, or so he deemed, was unfortunately quite inevitable. Vaughn glanced down at his smartphone that contained all the fantastical creations of writers from all across the earth down below and could not help but feel the weight of it all. So many worlds. And in them, something unmistakably present—a form of humanity, greater or not.

"What do you know about love, Iolani Tori?" The vulture quipped soon after, glancing sideways, downwards at the smaller frame. "Humour me. I'm curious."

At this, the sparrow laughed once more. "Nothing. It's the field of knowledge I lack the most. Not to mention, have the least experience in."

Vaughn struggled to keep his composure in check, settling with a snort. "I'm surprised, considering the extent of love and care you seem to have for the people around you."

"I don't even know if that's what it's called, Vaughn," admitted the sparrow rather honestly, kicking his feet that dangled in the air now that he was seated all the way, back resting against the cushions. "As far as I can tell, you demonstrate the same thing.

"Maybe you can write a book about that," Io voiced the idea that came to his head at once, a spark in the shade of the moon cemented in his eyes. "A human being whose name has two 'V's, the most villainous character, and his journey to greater heights."

His words warranted a scoff from the vulture, who noticed that Shri had no longer been part of the conversation since minutes ago, when Jing had approached her with a Chinese webtoon app.

"No one's going to read a book like that."

Io shrugged. "Not if it's titled 'This is a good book.'"

"Then, they'd be perfectly disappointed with it." Already, the vulture was itching to create an account of his own and immersing himself in a fiction of his own.

"Okay," the sparrow thought for a moment. "Then 'This isn't a good book' to lower their expectations...?"

Vaughn paused.

"I'll consider that."

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A/N: I'd never intended for this to take a turn BUT LO AND BEHOLD, THIS IS THE KIND OF FICTION I WRITE ANYWAY, sO :'D In fact, I had a list of titles that I'd intended for Vaughn to witness and render him immobile from second hand-embarrassment or just pure insanity. I'm sure we've all seen the following titles all over Wattpad. I mean, it's even a genre for goodness sake. I'll leave the rest to your imagination, but the titles are below :>

A BAD BOY

THE BAD BOY

BAD BOY

BOY BAD

HE IS BAD BOY

BAD BOY RETURNS

HE BAD BOY

HE BAD

BOY IS BAD

You know what? I promise to write a parody of all this ridiculous nonsense one day and mark my words I'm naming it HE BAD BOY for the laughs. Either way, hope you enjoyed this little short adventure. I'll be updating next week again at the same time, resuming the story 😊 See you then.

-Cuppie.