Life sucked.
Danny Horton, aged 17, kept repeating that mantra as he walked; or rather, shambled back home. He'd been beaten again by Marco Avila's gang; just for committing the mistake of walking into the basketball court Marco had claimed as his turf. Danny attempted to pedal back, mumbling nervous excuses to explain Marco he had just been playing a game on his cellphone and failed to realize where the App was leading him.
Marco wasn't having none of that, however.
Marco Avila, a towering six-foot tall bully straight out of Bart Simpson's worst nightmares, ordered the other three guys in his gang to grab Danny and drag him to the heavily forested backyard behind the basketball court. There, Marco not only stole Danny's cellphone, backpack and running shoes; but also took turns with the other three grunts to beat the scrawny, 5'2" teenager into a pulp before letting him go with a warning.
If Marco saw him in the court again, Danny would be dead on sight.
Danny nodded and ran away as fast as he could, crying his eyes out and stopping only after he was close to home. After turning around the corner of his street, Danny collapsed on his knees, trying to recover his breath and realize his legs were burning as if Marco had branded them with hot irons.
That's why Danny skipped P.E. classes. His physical condition was beyond poor, probably between 'turtle upside down' and 'mummified corpse'. It took him a good five minutes to recover from the searing sensation in his lungs, the cramps on his legs and to finally stop coughing like a sick dog. Then, Danny noticed something very strange in front of him.
There was a tiny, black cellphone a foot away from where he sat on the sidewalk.
Danny looked around, hoping to find whoever had dropped the device, but there was no one to be seen in both sides of the street. Danny stretched his hand and picked up the cellphone. He dabbled with it for a while, looking for numbers, text messages or anything else that could identify the owner. Nothing. No Facebook or social networking apps, and the only thing that seemed downloaded into the phone was an App he had never seen before, something with the icon of a cartoonish monkey and the name "De-Evolve App".
He was about to open the App when a soft voice whispered from behind.
"That's a hell of a phone you have there." Danny almost jumped in place, thinking the phone's owner had come back, only to find him playing with it. Instead, Danny was met by a lovely teenage girl he knew well.
"Uh. H-Hi, Sophie." Danny smiled nervously at the beauty that stood behind him.
Sophie Harker was a 19-year old girl who lived three houses away from his, and he had a big crush on her since they were six.
Sophie was a tall blonde with big, blue eyes and freckles all over her cheeks and nose. Sophie was on her way back from cheerleading practices, judging by the fact that she was wearing the high school's white and red uniform, with a big sports bag hanging from her right shoulder.
Sophie seemed worried about him, something that made Danny blush like a ripe tomato.
"Jesus, Danny. Are you okay?" She asked, looking at the purple bruises on his arms and face.
"Yeah, i'm fine." Danny snapped back, trying to look as if nothing had happened. "Got in a fight with that asshole, Marco. Things got rough."
"Yes, I see." The girl extracted a yellow towel from her bag. "Here, clean yourself. Your mom is going to freak out if you cross the door looking like a zombie."
Danny grabbed the towel and wiped the muck and blood on his face with it. He smiled after catching the scent of Sophie's perfume in it. The girl probably noticed, because she seemed slightly uneasy with the stupid look on his face.
"Thanks." Danny muttered.
"Keep it." Sophie said. "It's getting late, Danny. I better go home before my dad gives me hell. Cheer up. See you at school on mondy."
With that, the gorgeous blonde sprinted away down the street, leaving Danny visibly conflicted.
He crushed on Sophie with a passion, but he knew she only dated jocks and other popular guys. There was no way she would look him in a light other than some awkard kid from the neighborhood, and all his dreams about her were doomed to remain as such: Fantasies and safe places to hid when confronted by Marco and the other bullies.
Danny shrugged and resumed the shameful walk to his house, where his mother gave him one of those long talks about not wandering town after school and especially avoiding that bully Avila as if he was the black plague itself. Danny's mother, a 38-year old secretary, lived alone with him after divorcing her father two years ago; and thus spent every day worrying about her sickly and frail son. While Lacey wasn't as beautiful as she used to be in her early twenties, she still had enough attractiveness to be considered a MILF not only by her co-workers, but Danny's handful of friends.
After taking a bath and having her mother cure his wounds, Danny locked inside the safety of his bedroom to toy with the cellphone.
He needed a new one, and this definitely was better than the old, malfunctioning piece of junk Marco had stolen from him.
He might as well keep it for himself.
The scrawny teenager had already forgotten about the weird App, so he decided to try it after finding the De-Evolve icon in the phone's menu. The screen went black for a second before a a menu was displayed. It had several options: Target, Time Period, Evolutionary Tree, Timer, Settings, De-Evolve! and a Help button. Puzzled, Danny pressed the Help button a and a new screen popped up.
TARGET - Select the App's De-Evolution objective.
TIME PERIOD - Select a geological age to De-Evolve the objective into its equivalent from said age.
EVOLUTIONARY TREE - Displays the objective's evolutionary tree, allowing to De-Evolve it into a selected stage.
TIMER - Sets a timer for the De-Evolution process, allowing objectives to return to normalcy after a while. Setting it to 'Permanent' makes the change irreversible.
SETTINGS - Toggles the Physical/Mental/Both settings for the De-Evolution process.
DE-EVOLVE! - Apply selected settings and De-Evolve.
Danny wondered what to do next.