DeaDia 01: Challenge Yourself

*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" was her first choice. A new window popped up. Instead of the sliders and selection boxes that she expected, a new text popped up. "DeaDia strives to represent your growth in a way that is as accurate as possible. To ensure a good starting image, please allow DeaDia access to your image data. Afterwards you will be able to fine-tune your avatar." As soon as Ember was done reading, a new checkbox appeared. She'd guessed it wouldn't do much harm to have an avatar modelled after herself, so she checked allow. Quickly a few new pop-ups appeared and almost just as fast disappeared. She couldn't quite make out the contents, but saw a few recognisable logo's, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok. She didn't really use her Facebook any more, and she forgot she had TikTok installed. Ember wondered what kind of information the app could gather from those two sites. She saw a progress bar fill up and a little after that a pixelated version of herself twirled around on the screen. The pixel art was quite good, it showed her shoulder-length brown hair, green eyes and it even had the small half-smile Ember showed on photo's. She zoomed in, the app had even got her freckles right. The pixelated Ember twirled around, the hem of the breezy summer dress flowing upwards a bit. She took another look at the blue garment. It was a dress she'd only bought a few days ago. She couldn't remember putting it on any of her socials, but she had taken a mirror selfie of it to show to one of her friends. "Edit Avatar?". Ember pressed the button. A new option revealed itself: "Clothes". She clicked it, and most of the options were even more revealing than her breezy summer dress. There were multiple pairs of bikini's, underwear and a nighty that would just about cover her avatar's butt. She decided to press the back button and instead use the created avatar.

A small fanfare sounded. Challenge completed! Twenty points. The XP bar filled for little over half of the bar. It seemed she needed to do more challenges to actually rank up more. She decided to check out the other challenge.

"Goals"

"In this questionnaire, DeaDia will start building your profile. Fill out this questionnaire as precise as possible. Results are private and will only be used by DeaDia to help you conquer your Barriers. And who knows, we might even uncover Barriers you weren't aware of yet. First question; In your own words, what do you want to get out of the DeaDia programme?"

Ember had to think about this. She hadn't expected to answer deep questions this late at night. And surely not after polishing off a bottle of wine. She didn't expect DeaDia to have any effect, but if it had, what would she want her life to be? She decided to be as vague as possible, just to test out the magnificent algorithm that the developers had been so proud of in her interview.

"I want to be successful in front of the camera." That was vague enough. She saw that the app needed some time with her answer. Where at first it had been quick with its responses, this time it took a little more than a minute for a new text to appear.

"Thank you for your response Silvia. Now we will delve further into the Barriers that stand in the way of your goal. Please select your next challenge." Ember hadn't expected the software to actually give her anything to work with, but not even giving her an answer disappointed her a little.

The new pop-up read "It will set you free." Intrigued, she clicked the button. "For this challenge the Eratos tracker is recommended. Please pair a tracker, or continue without." Last she remembered, she had left the tracker in her night stand. After a short while she found the unadorned black bracelet on the bottom of a drawer and she slid it around her wrist. A few seconds later the two red interlocked D's of the DeaDia logo popped up on the tracker. "Eratos band paired. Unlocking additional functionalities." The armband buzzed once around her wrist to signal its connection. A new question appeared. "Truth? Or Dare?"

Maybe she should have expected this. After all, wasn't the proverb "the truth will set you free"? Not knowing what to expect from the challenges she selected Truth. At least that would probably only involve typing.

"The truth shall set you free. The first Barrier DeaDia has identified is an inherent shyness. To be successful in front of the camera, you should be able to handle uncomfortable questions and situations. These next few questions shall be a first step to expose you to uncomfortable situations and help you on your way to become successful in front of the camera. So, for your first Truth: How often did you masturbate in the last week?"

What was that for kind of question? It felt very personal and not really something to do with her chosen goal. She pressed the back-button on her phone, but it refused to react. All other options also seemed to have stopped working, except for the input field and the little keyboard at the bottom of her screen. She started typing. "None of your business."

A red error popped up. "Numerical answers only."

Frustrated, but not defeated, Ember input a zero. A new message showed, "Checking..." Three green dots showed up on her bracelet. One by one they turned off. As the last disappeared they were replaced by a red exclamation mark. Ember let out a small cry as the Eratos band shocked her wrist. "Please. Don't lie. Being honest in response to uncomfortable situations will be the first step on the way to defeating your first Barrier. The Truth will set you free. How often did you masturbate last week?"

She thought back, without a boyfriend and not interested in one-night stands, she had helped herself with her fingers. It hadn't been very often. Three, maybe four times? She didn't even do it for the pleasure, she just knew that an orgasm would help her fall asleep quicker. Not willing to risk another shock, she gave a high estimate: "4". The three green dots appeared once again and were replaced by a green checkmark.

"Truth or Dare?" a new choice appeared. A little shaken by the previous question Ember selected "Dare."

"Like a photo of one of your friends on social media. The photo has to be at least a year old and the person has to be wearing revealing clothes. You have five minutes."

That wasn't so bad. She'd just like an old photo of one of her friends and unlike it after the app had counted the challenge. Ember selected Instagram and started scrolling. Who would she pick? If she chose a guy, they'd think she'd be interested in them. If she picked a girl, the worst that could happen was a curious message. Finally, she landed on Kyler. Kyler was a lithe blonde and had posted quite some bikini photo's during her spring holiday, posing more and more risqué in every photo. In the spirit of the challenge Ember selected a picture of Kyler facing away, showing her string bikini while her torso was turned towards the camera. She was wearing a wet white t-shirt, the transparent fabric showing the outline of her nipples. It was clear that she wasn't wearing a bikini top. The photo had got a lot of likes.

"Dare completed! You selected [this] photo by Kyler Black." The hyperlink showed the picture of the blonde showing off her ass and her rack.

Once again the choice between a Truth and a Dare popped up. "Just a few more questions to go and you'll have completed your first real DeaDia Challenge."

Ember decided to alternate. The last challenge had been a dare, now she would answer a truth.

"Truth; describe a fantasy you think about while masturbating." These challenges really went from zero to a hundred real quick. This window was different from the previous windows, at the bottom there was a "Skip" button. She pressed the button. Describing her masturbatory fantasies went a little too far, even with the wine lowering her inhibitions. "Used one out of one skips. Keep playing to earn more skips."

"Truth: What did you like about Kyler Black's picture? Tell it like you would tell Kyler" Ember knew what she liked, but she wasn't quite sure she wanted to trust it to an app. The text field held a counter 200/200.

She started to type and the counter started to count down. "I like your face. Your long blonde hair. I like the fact that you always have a naughty smirk on your face and look like you take shit from nobody." What more could she safely say about the photo? "I like how kind you were to me, the first time we met at summer camp. I would love to be more outgoing like you." Nearly a hundred and fifty words left. "If I were like you, I would also show people my perky, beautiful boobs. I'd enjoy everybody's gaze, turning everybody mad with desire, but knowing I would give it to the people I chose. I would love to hold your pert buttocks, to feel if they are as perky as they look." A hundred words left. She started fantasising as she kept typing. "If I were there, I would take your hard nipples in my mouth. The nipples you used to tease all the visitors of the resort. I wouldn't wait until we were in your room, but I would take you to the jacuzzi. A little secluded, but still enough of a risk of someone walking in. I would lick them until you moaned with pleasure. Then I would use my fingers to pull away your bikini bottom." While she wrote it down her left hand had found it's way into Ember's panties. "I would part your wet lips and finger you until your moans of pleasure would overpower the privacy of the jacuzzi." Her hand had found her wet folds, slowly it parted the lips. Just a few words left in her fantasy. "Then I would kiss you and take you with me to my room. We would make each other cum until the sun came up and the birds would start to sing."

"Hmmm, Kyler", a moan escaped from her mouth as her fingers started rubbing her clit. Most of the time her fantasies didn't involve other girls. But the idea of taking Kyler somewhere secluded and having her way with the outgoing blonde got her excited. She dropped her phone so she could use her right hand to pinch her nipples. Her sensitive nubs stiffened under the attention. What would Kyler do to her? Would she keep pinching her nipples? Would she pull them? Her hand took her left nipple between thumb and forefinger and pulled it. Involuntarily she let out a moan. Or would she ignore Ember's small breasts and immediately go for her pussy? Her right hand trailed down over her abs, past the left hand that was circling her clit and between her lips. She moaned as a finger entered her pussy, quickly followed by a second one. She felt herself get near an orgasm. Which was strange, normally it would take her a lot longer to cum. Her fingers started moving more frantically. Had she sent in the challenge? Reluctantly she removed her fingers from her cunt, wiped the juices on her leg and grabbed her phone. As her left hand increased it's pace on her clit, she pressed submit. Immediately she let her phone fall back down on her mattress. Her fingers found their way between her lips. Two fingers pumped frantically in her pussy. She was so close. She entered a third one. Her hips bucked upwards, willing her fingers to enter her deeper and faster. With a tingle that started in her toes she felt the orgasm approach. Inadvertent mewling sounds escaped her lips before being replaced by a deep moan.

The Eratos band lit up green at the moment of orgasm. Not that Ember was paying any attention to it, lost as she was in the bliss of her fingers.