When Darius got home, the first thing he felt was relief. God, his boss pissed him off, constantly scrutinizing and criticizing his work for incredibly minor flaws, most of which he was going to fix anyway. Being away from that bastard filled the young man with something of a sense of glee, a sense of freedom. The best part of his day was always leaving work, as he would say, and today was no different.

Opening the door to his apartment, he flicked on the lights and sat on his couch. Pulling out his phone, he thought about what he wanted to do. He’d gotten bored of that game he downloaded a month ago, so he figured he’d delete that. That left some free space, though, so he figured he might as well fill that space with something. Thus, Darius opened the app store to look.

Scrolling through the games, Darius couldn’t find anything interesting. He mostly just saw a bunch of anime girls in skimpy outfits, plus a bunch of idle games and pay-to-win puzzle games. It all felt the same, and it all left him bored of it all. This boredom just drove him to keep looking, just looking for something to do. After all, this phone was pretty much the only device he had to entertain himself, so he might as well use it. 

One certain app caught his attention. The icon was entirely blank, but there was still a name: MalO ver1.0.0. It wasn’t a game from the looks of it, which just left him confused as to how he found it in the games section. Darius wasn’t very good at determining the suspiciousness of situations, and so he decided to click the app and read up on it.

The developer name was blank. The description described something of a “social substitute,” perfect for “those awkward feelings of being alone.” Truth be told, Darius was not the most social person. He was socially anxious, and the idea of a social substitute started to become incredibly tempting.

Wait a minute. This all looked incredibly suspicious. No icon, and most importantly no developer indicated to him that something was wrong. Everything about this screamed malware, like the moment he clicked that button his phone would have spyware from seventeen different countries installed onto it. As much as he wanted to find a good socializing tool without anyone from his old school on it, this all looked incredibly off…

“…what?”

Darius was shocked to find that, somehow, he had already clicked the download button. Panicking, he tried to cancel the download, to no avail. That file, all 9.8 MB of it, just kept going, installing itself, unable to stop. With that shitty internet of his, such a small file felt like it was taking forever to install.

When the file finished downloading, Darius sat in silence. Goddamn it, if this phone had malware on it, he’d probably have to get a new one, and he knew he couldn’t afford it. He decided not to open it, instead closing out of the store. 

Suddenly, Darius got a text. The text seemed to be from… MalO? Malware can be sent through texts, right? Well, yes, Darius thought, but as far as he knew, you had to click on a link to install any of it. So, if he just read the text without clicking on any links, he would be fine, right? He sure seemed to think so, as he went ahead and tapped on his messaging app to read the text.

“Thank you for joining the MalO experience! We’re matching you up, please wait. This can take several minutes.”

So, no links, and he only had a few minutes before things went to Hell. That was reassuring, right? Well, if his phone was going to up and die, he might as well watch the fireworks. Maybe he could get something to eat while he was at it. Darius decided that would be a good idea, and so he set his phone down. That was his first mistake.

Darius was shocked to see a strange, white object on his coffee table, one that simply wasn’t there before. The object gave off an unsettling aura, like it wasn’t even there. Its realness couldn’t be disputed, however, as when he went to touch it, he felt something. It felt like bone, and upon further examination, the object seemed to be shaped like a canine skull. The back end also appeared somewhat hollow, making Darius wonder if it was possible to wear this thing like a mask.

The skull mask’s presence sent chills down Darius’s spine. How did this damn thing get here? He couldn’t have been hallucinating, he’d already confirmed that it was really, physically there, so now he was just left with a lot of confusion. Worse yet was the odd urge to put the mask on his face. That’s what a mask was for, right?

So, Darius found himself picking up the mask. He sat and held it, not feeling entirely in control of his actions. In fact, he felt like he was entirely on autopilot, actions entirely done for him by some weird, supernatural force. So, instead of malware, he had to deal with being possessed by ghosts? That couldn’t be much worse, right?

Darius put on the mask. It… fit perfectly, like it was made especially with his face in mind. In fact, it started to feel like a part of his face after only a few seconds of wearing it. Well, the mask was comfortable, at least, but enough of that. He went to take it off… and he couldn’t. The mask had gotten stuck on his face.

“What? What the hell is going on?”

Darius struggled to take off the mask, but it was no use. That thing was stuck, maybe even permanently attached. The only thing he felt lucky for was that he could even see through the eye-holes of the mask. He ran to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. There, he could see the further changes that were about to take place.

Darius’s hair started to grow in, thicker and longer than it was before. Its color also seemed to change, turning from a light blonde color to pitch black. He noticed that when he looked at the eye-holes of the skull through a mirror, those holes were also pitch-black. He couldn’t see his eyes, but somehow, he could still see.

As he continued to watch, he saw something creeping down his neck.  It was like hair, but it looked softer, shorter, more like… more like fur. This black fur was growing on his exposed skin, the tingling sensation making him feel a little sick. What on Earth was he becoming, some kind of monster? He couldn’t do anything to stop this, so he just stood in the mirror and watched.

Darius seemed to be growing taller ever-so-slightly, and his clothes seemed tighter. Moreover, his body seemed… more feminine? At the very least, it was slimmer than his previous build. Plus, it appeared that his chest was expanding to form more pronounced, female breasts. There was no doubt about it, he was becoming a woman.

“Oh no…”

To his surprise, the mouth of the skull mask moved when he talked, letting out a more feminine voice that he didn’t recognize. Even more surprising was that the mask… his face… was rather expressive. He tried smiling, and it smiled. He tried frowning, and it frowned. In his eyes, he saw glowing, white circles, which seemed to act like pupils, as when he looked around, they moved in that direction. The more he did this, the more he realized this was going to be permanent. Might as well get used to it…

Fur continued to creep down Darius’s body. As his clothes grew tighter, they started to tear, exposing the black fur underneath. They were incredibly uncomfortable, and so he decided to speed up the process and tear them off himself. Thanks to his now-furred arms and clawed hands, he was able to get his clothes off sooner than later. Once he was done, he could tell that he was now, entirely, female.

“Oh God, why… why…”

Darius’s mind soon became hazy. He couldn’t think straight about anything he was seeing, from the fur growing to the growth sprouting from his lower back. What even was he? Could he even be considered Darius anymore? Now that he thought about it, no, he really couldn’t. He was… no, she was something else entirely. She was…

God, she was beautiful. That sleek fur, those curves, and those eyes… she’d fallen in love with herself. Confusion had become amazement as fur continued to spread and a tail grew. That tail, that long, thick, tuft-ended tail… all she could imagine was what sorts of things she could do with it. Looking down, her legs now ended in paws, and her transformation was nearly complete. She just had a bit more fur left to grow in… and there, she was done.

She was a MalO, in all its gorgeously monstrous glory. She had no name, she didn’t need one, she was just… MalO. Names were for her master to decide. Speaking of a master, that was what the app was for, wasn’t it? Yes, that was right, she would be matched with various sad, lonely people, and she’d keep them company. Whoever she was matched with was her master, and it was her duty to make sure they no longer felt lonely.

After looking herself down in the mirror and appreciating her new, feminine body, MalO went back to the main room of the apartment to get her phone. Checking her texts, she saw that she got matched. It was a handsome fellow in his mid-20s, with brown hair and glasses, and apparently, his name was Tom. He looked lonely, so why not help him out with his predicament? He could get some company, and she could get to use her new body and all its benefits.

MalO held the phone up and took a photo, holding a deliberately seductive pose. Picture after picture, she took in various poses, both for her own enjoyment and her new master’s. She then chose her favorite and captioned it.

“Like what you see, Tom?”

She sent that picture and immediately, she knew that sitting here wouldn’t be enough. Pictures were great, but she needed to meet him herself. How could she keep him company if she just sat behind her phone and texted him? She needed to go find him, to meet him personally. Immediately, she knew where to find him.

MalO left that apartment to go find her master. She walked without shame, just with readiness to please. Despite passing by the occasional human, it didn’t matter, they couldn’t see her anyway. The only ones who could see her were her master, plus any other MalOs she came across. In fact, she saw one or two on the way, which made her smile. It seemed that the MalO experience was growing ever-more popular, which improved her mood considerably.

After all, there were so many lonely people in the world. It was up to MalO to fix that.