*Please continue setting up your DeaDia profile to start building the new you*
The pop-up flashed on Ember's screen. For a while she didn't remember what DeaDia was. It was something she had installed because of a segment she was researching. Just another fluff piece for the tech segment that was ultimately cut for time. Sometimes it frustrated her that all the work she did could so easily be dismissed. The work on the DeaDia piece had taken her at least a week to research and write. But then again, that was the job. Everybody kept saying to just keep putting in the hours. And who knows, you might get your lucky break in front of the camera.
Ember had installed the app in preparation for an interview with one of the DeaDia developers. The segment hadn't panned out, but the DeaDia developers had been grateful to answer her questions and even had sent her the accompanying Eratos tracker free of charge. They explained that the idea behind DeaDia was to expose people to their fears and allow them to realise their fears weren't the end of the world. An AI algorithm would cater the challenges to each individual. The idea had appealed to Ember. While she wasn't as shy as she used to be, she still had trouble standing up for herself. She didn't like to be the point of attention. And whenever she did speak her mind people would dismiss her and treat her like a child throwing a tantrum. If the exposure therapy could help people like her, she surely saw the benefits. The station manager didn't see it the same way and the segment was cut. Her work thrown in the thrash on top of a pile of other rejected scripts. The only thing reminding her of the segment were an app on her phone and a bracelet left somewhere in a drawer.
The petite brunette poured another glass of wine. The bottle was almost empty. She felt she had earned it. It had been a long week. She was looking forward to a weekend of doing nothing but the bare essentials. On the TV, the series continued with some kind of convoluted and bloody fight scene. She wondered what her colleagues would say if they knew that the prim and proper little girl loved to watch gory action series. Half paying attention to the screen, she scrolled through the social media and news apps on her phone. The DeaDia pop-up all but forgotten.
The episode was over. Her bottle of wine was empty. With a pleasant buzz she made her way to bed. Far from drunk, but surely not sober either. She brushed her teeth, drank a glass of water and got changed into her light blue cotton pyjamas. Laid down. Out of habit she grabbed her phone again. As the lock screen lighted up her face, she once again saw the innocuous DeaDia logo. What was the danger in getting a little exposure therapy? Perhaps it could even help her to get a chance in front of the screen.
The first question was easy: "Enter e-mail address and password." She entered her email address, making sure to use her private address and not the one the TV-channel provided, and used a generator to generate some string of hard to remember symbols. Next up it asked for a screen name. Her mind flipped through the several nicknames she had used for all kinds of online accounts and then landed on Silvia. It was a handle she hadn't used in a long time, and it still sounded feminine enough. Next up was the standard set of End User Agreement stuff. She scrolled to the bottom and clicked "I agree", there would be time later to read this stuff.
"Take the intake questionnaire and start earning points!"
A round icon in the top right of the screen showed a big red zero. Ember clicked the questionnaire button and was greeted by the introduction. "Welcome Silvia. To start your journey we need to get to know you a little better. These first questions are for us to find out your barriers. Are you ready?" Ember clicked the "Yes" button. This questionnaire held just two questions, age and location. She filled in her age as twenty-five, California as location. She submitted the data and a new message popped up flanked by celebratory fireworks. "You finished your first challenge! Now let's see if you were honest and you'll earn your first points!"
Her phone asked her to allow DeaDia access to her location. Ember hadn't expected the app to actually check, but allowing it access to her location wasn't that big of a deal, she could always rescind it. A zoomed out globe was shown on the app, which kept zooming in until it found her location. In green, "California" popped up.
"See how easy this is? Here are your first points!" The counter in the top right of the screen counted up to five, and two new challenges had popped up.
Curious, Ember clicked the counter at the top of her screen. A sort of XP-bar showed up and filled itself. "Congratulations! Rank 1. Avatar unlocked!" The bar disappeared to show a reward track. Most of the ranks and reward were greyed out, but she saw that the next reward was at rank 5. It was something called a points shop. Ember smiled a wry smile. This was something she should have expected, a reward track to convince people to keep playing, it wouldn't surprise her if there would also be daily login bonuses. She returned to the home page to examine her new challenges. The first one just said "Avatar". The other one said "Goals".
Whenever Ember played a game, she liked to have a cute representation of her player character, so
"Avatar"
