Alfred F. Jones was laying on his NASA themed sheets that messily rested upon his mattress. The typical American boy found himself to be bored, longing for something to do instead of staring up at the galaxy-painted ceiling of his room. He tossed to his side, his hands resting in front of him by his phone which remained cold from being unused. He first pondered about how long he had been doing absolutely nothing, but that question quickly passed. He then moved onto what he could do to pass the time. He could always bother his twin brother, Matthew. He was probably in his room doing god knows what. Then Alfred proceeded to recall what happened when he tried to do that a few hours ago. He was shoved out of his brother's room because he was studying for his Algebra test. Alfred couldn't begin to imagine why his brother was so insistent on studying. His brother was very smart, smarter than him though he'd never verbally admit it.
Alfred's eyes widened in excitement as his phone vibrated a little and the screen lit up. He grabbed his phone that laid beside him and quickly sat up against his pillows. He lolled his head back, groaning after seeing that it was just a spam email. The spam email wasn't even interesting. Just the usual "Alfred - I'll be frank. I'm fighting every day to move our country forward, but the Republicans in Congress have blocked me every step of the way." The email would proceed to ask for donations then claim it to be from President Obama or Michelle Obama. He looked down at the phone in his hands. He could text one of his friends. He was fairly popular in his school and had lots of friends, however, he never felt any of them were truly his friends. Kiku was most likely the only one that he could call his true friend out of all of the ones that claimed to be his friends. However, Kiku had his cousin, Mei, visiting and was unable to skype with Alfred to play video games when asked at school. On that note, Alfred could do his homework. Or he could do it tomorrow during Health. That seemed to be the best idea to him. He decided to scroll through his games and other applications on his phone as he hoped it would somehow provide him something to do.
After scrolling back and forth between the pages of applications, he opened up YouTube. Hopefully some of his favorite YouTubers uploaded some videos while he was doing nothing. He scrolled through his subscriptions, which mainly consisted of gaming videos. A certain title of a video uploaded by the gamer ZeRoyalViking caught his attention. "BLACK HOLES & PLUTO'S REDEMPTION! (UNIVERSE SANDBOX)" was the title. Ze happened to be one of his favorite gamers. He was very much interested in space just as Alfred was. He played games such as Universe Sandbox, Kerbal Space Program, Space Engineers, and as of recently had some things about space in his Cards Against Humanity videos. Alfred hoped Ze would play Moonbase Alpha with the Derp Crew. Not only did you have to complete missions on the moon in that game, but the robotic voice chat also proved to make the Let's Play much more enjoyable.
After watching the approximately twenty-minute long video, an idea had sparked inside of Alfred's head. He hopped off of his bed to his computer which laid on his desk. He awoke his computer and opened up Google Chrome. He smiled as he typed Omegle into the search bar. A few clicks of his mouse and he was typing in his interests on the website. Space, NASA, Universe Sandbox, Moonbase Alpha, and Kerbal Space Program were the interests he had put in. He applauded himself as he clicked the Text option to begin chatting with some random person. He didn't know how he hadn't thought of this sooner.
To his surprise the person who he had connected to had the same interests in Space and Universe Sandbox. Alfred engaged in conversation almost immediately.
You: Hey!
He smiled as the stranger began to type their response.
Stranger: Hello.
You: It's so cool to find someone who also likes Universe Sandbox. I rarely find anyone who likes it as well.
Stranger: Yes, it is. I'm sorry if my English is bad.
You: It's okay! Oh, my name is Alfred! What's your name?
Stranger: Ivan.
You: Nice to meet you, Ivan!
Matthew had just finished up an equation when his father had messaged him. Just as he expected it was dinner time and he wanted him and his brother downstairs for it. He sent his father a short response before standing up and stretching. He had been studying for quite some time now so he would allow dinner to be his break. He pushed in his chair and headed out of his room. He strolled past his brother's room, down the stairs and into the dining room.
"Mathieu, where is your brother?" His papa asked as he began to place the plates of food onto the dinner table.
"I thought he was already down here." Matthew responded and shrugged.
"Well, can you go get him? Your father will throw a fit if he is not here when he sits down."
Matthew nodded and Francis went back into the kitchen. He ran up the stairs and made his way to the door of his brother's room. After a few knocks he spoke up.
"Al, dinner is ready."
"Mm. I'll be down in a few minutes." Alfred said, not truly paying attention to what Matthew had been saying.
Matthew knew he wouldn't be down in a few minutes. Those few minutes would turn into ten minutes which would result in his father getting very angry.
"Come on, Al. Dad will get angry if we don't hurry up."
"Uh huh."
Matthew sighed and walked into his brother's room. Whatever he was so absorbed in had to wait and Matthew was going to have to pull him away from it.
His brother's eyes were glued to the computer screen. The entire room was silent expect the sound of Alfred's rapid typing and occasional giggling which was odd since his brother usually always had some music on. He approached his brother who seemed to be chatting with someone on Omegle.
"Hey, Al, can't that wait? We have to go eat."
His words seemed to have finally gone through as his brother glanced at him and sighed. He typed his goodbyes, disconnected and closed his laptop. He jumped off his chair and ran towards the door of his room.
"Last one to the dinner table is a rotten egg!" He smiled cheekily at Matthew before running down the hall. His brother was so childish sometimes. As he began to leave his brother's room he paused and looked back at his brother's laptop. He wondered about who his brother was talking to as this person clearly had grabbed all of his brother's attention.
His question would be answered later at dinner. Alfred had gone on about his new friend, Ivan, that he met on Omegle. Though their parents did not seem very pleased to hear about their son's new online friend, he went on about him anyways. Ivan was from Russia and though he said he didn't speak English very well, Alfred thought he spoke it well enough. He was also into space and video games, much to Alfred's delight. He then went on to say how before they disconnected that they exchanged skypes and they would add each other later. His parents were glad that he met a new friend, but they told him to be careful. It wasn't that they didn't trust him, they just didn't trust this Ivan person he had met. You can not trust anyone you meet on the internet, after all how do you know it's really them? Despite all this Alfred was still set on skyping Ivan whenever he got the chance. Not everyone on the internet is a pedophile trying to harm you and Alfred knew that. Though he knew his parents were just looking out for him and so he would be a little cautious. He had yet to actually hear Ivan's voice or see what he looks like, but he felt he was a good guy from the time they had spoken via chat. He also was happy to have a friend just as interested in space as he was.
After he finished his dinner he ran upstairs, despite his father yelling at him to help clean up. He shut his door and locked it to avoid any interruptions. Never in his life had he opened his computer and woke it up as fast as he did in that moment. At the task bar of his computer screen was the skype icon with a one in a little orange circle. He smiled as he accepted the friend request from someone with the name of Иван Брагинский. After accepting, he began typing right away. He was not sure if Ivan would respond automatically, but he hoped he would. He wanted to engage in another conversation with his new friend more than anything at that moment.
TheAmericanEagle: Hey! This is Ivan, right?
He was happy when skype said that the user was typing.
Иван Брагинский:Alfred?