Emily Carr was fairly normal as far as British 17 year olds go. She was still in her first year of 6th Form, slightly above average student, nothing special, but what she lacked in smarts, she made up for in confidence and popularity.
She stood at 5ft6, with a slim, fit body, despite some unhealthy habits, such as poor diet and heavy smoking. She wasn't particularly well endowed, with 32B cups, but she was always pleased with how her arse looked. Her dark brown hair went just past her shoulders in length.
At home she lived with her Mum, Katelyn (37) and her younger twin siblings Evie and Aaron (15). If Emily was at home, she would often be outside smoking, or in her room binge watching TV and texting her friends. Most of the time though, she was out being sociable, drinking at house parties or seeing her on-off boyfriend Nate.
It was a Friday morning, and Emily was stood outside a petrol station, staring at her phone, eyes occasionally darting to the door. After a few minutes, a pretty blonde girl stepped out and handed Emily a bag.
"I can't wait for you to turn 18 yourself so I can stop buying these for you! I must look like a right addict buying my own pack alongside your stock for the weekend."
Emily laughed.
"Oh stop complaining Kate. Just a few more weeks and you're in the clear. Besides, I pay for yours too when you do it for me!"
Emily reached into the bag, pulled out a few packs of cigarettes and crammed them into her handbag. She pulled out an open pack and lit two up, one for herself and one for Kate.
"Right! Let's go get classes out of the way so we can party all weekend!" Emily said, exhaling her smoke and handing the spare one to Kate.
"Thank fuck it's Friday!" Kate shouted into the air.
The pair walked five minutes to get to their college, had another smoke outside then headed in. Emily only had a couple classes for the day, Animal Care in the morning, and Media Studies in the afternoon, but she knew the day would go on forever. Friday's always did.
Animal Care went by without a hitch. Emily always liked the idea of working with animals, but this area of the UK didn't really offer much to work with. It was mostly just farmland, with the nearest zoo a couple of hours away.
It was during the lunch break that Emily's day took a strange turn. She was sat in a secluded area of the college grounds with Kate, chain smoking her break away and staring at her phone, when suddenly it sparked and switched itself off. Emily dropped it out of reflex.
"What the fuck was that?!" She panicked.
"That was really weird" Kate said.
Emily picked it up, it was a little scratched but looked fine. It even switched back on perfectly as if nothing had happened. The pair finished off their break and went to their classes.
Halfway through Media Studies and Emily glanced at her phone to check on it. It looked fine, but she had a notification from an app she never downloaded. The icon was a face, half of which was a human, the other a cat, just split down the middle.
The notification said 'Open me'. Emily was a little creeped out by this, but she was also curious. She excused herself from class to go to the bathroom, locked herself in a cubicle and opened the app.
It was just a list of names.
But her own name was at the top, followed by everyone else she knew. That was it. There was another columns worth of space on the other half of the screen but it was empty. Emily wondered how this app even got all these names. Some of them aren't even saved to her contacts. She tried to uninstall it but it remained there, sat on her home page. Emily went back to class, shrugging it off for now. After all it wasn't doing any harm.
The rest of class dragged on, but finally Emily was free. She beelined to the front of the college and lit up, forgetting about the app for now. She was shortly joined by Kate and a few of the girls from her class.
"Hey Emily! You still coming to my house party tonight?" Asked Meera, one of Kate's classmates.
"You know me right? Of course I bloody am" joked Emily.
At this point Nate walked past, Emily's on again, off again boyfriend. Currently off again. He made eye contact but didn't say anything.
The girls looked at each other awkwardly as Emily turned to watch him.
"You better not come to Meera's party later!" She shouted after him, then turned back to the girls.
"I know I can be a bit of a cow sometimes but that dick really knows how to press my buttons." She bitched.
The girls carried on chatting and planning the night, but Emily didn't realise her phone had vibrated with another notification from the app.