Warm Up: “Who’s the joke on” (Part 1)

Title: Playing the Fool
Series: Unbound
Character: Zack
Rated: G
Words: 878
Summary: Zack is accused of being a jerk, and this time, it really isn’t his fault.
Notes:Warm Up prompt from Dragon Writing Prompts which is resulting in a longer-than-expected story…

… until Zack Dawson wakes up!

… I said, until Zack Dawson wakes up.

…

Zachary “Zack” Dawson, our intrepid hero from the hit series “Unbound”, was fast asleep on this fine Sunday morning. Splayed in a way that made his arms and legs stick out from the sides of the bed, he had blissfully snored his way through his alarm clock and his mother’s gentle attempts at getting him out of bed. Not that he needed to actually get up anytime soon, as he had the day off from delivering the Seisett Morning Edition as he did during the other six days of the week.

Now, however, his phone was chirping with an annoying chiptune ringtone that was characteristic to phones as old as his was. It had been doing so for the last five minutes, and even though he’d fallen asleep with phone in hand (“Must… keep… Cejemming…”), the phone’s attempts to rouse him from his slumber were proving to be futile.

Zack let out a snore louder than usual which seemed to have somewhat snapped him out of his deep slumber, and he groaned as he turned over and quickly resumed his snoozing. His fingers drifted over the Talk button, and he managed to accidentally hit in his sleep, finally silencing the incessant calling and replacing it with fury incarnate.

“ZACK, YOU JERK! I’M GOING TO GET YOU FOR SENDING ME A VIRUS!”

“GAAAAAAH!” Zack woke up with a start, the phone flying from his hand and landing in a nearby pile of dirty clothing, and he nearly fell out of bed as he flailed around in half-awake confusion. The first thing he noticed was that it was pretty early – 9:37 a.m. by his clock, which was far too early for a Sunday morning. The second thing he saw was that it was incredibly bright and sunny, which bode well for the weather for the rest of the day. The third thing he heard, however, was that his phone was still screaming at him.

“D-Deed?” Zack dragged himself to the pile of clothing and fished his phone out. No longer muffled by his dirty socks (which had made the phone smell rather zesty at this point), and he immediately pulled the device away from his ear as the yelling’s volume increased tenfold.

“Whoa, wait! Stop! Mercy? … Please?” He waited until Deed was at the point of needing to catch her breath, and he then took advantage of the pause to get a few words in.

“Deed, stop, calm down…” He winced at the small sound of anger he heard on the other end, and he quickly continued before he lost his chance. “What’s this about a virus?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Zack!” Deed’s voice still sound angry, but it had gone back to sensible levels and allowed Zack to hold the phone to his ear properly. “You sent me a virus in that essay you wanted me to proofread! It would’ve destroyed my whole computer if I hadn’t had a backup!”

“Wait, what?… What essay?” Zack frowned and shifted his seating from the balls of his feet to the floor proper. “I didn’t send you an essay!”

“Yes, you did! It came from your e-mail address! It had a note promising me a float at Sammy Days if I did this for you!”

“Deed, I swear, I really never sent anything like that!” Zack was becoming alarmed at this point, and he slowly stood up and went over to his computer; after kicking a pair of jeans off the chair, he sat down and turned the system on and waited for it to finished starting up.

“Your e-mail’s still zachary.dawson@10-12.seisetthigh.edu, right?”

“Yeah, unfortunately…” He clicked open his e-mail program, and after a painfully agonizing moment where it sounded like his hard drive was going to explode, it finally opened up.

“Check your sent items, then! You probably sent it in your sleep!”

“I… ooh, there’s a sale as Speedy Sneaker on track shoes…” Zack’s eyes drifted to the e-mail he’d received in his inbox, and he opened it up to take a better look at it.

“ZACK!”

“Okay, okay!” Zack winced at the outburst and went to his Sent folder. “There’s nothing there… the last e-mail I sent was on March 26, when I asked Miss Taffit if we had to study chapters 9-12 for the exam.”

“… what?…” Deed sounded just as confused as Zack felt. “So… wait, you didn’t…?”

“Whoever sent that wasn’t me…” Zack shook his head as he got up and started hunting for some clean clothes. “I think I should come over…”

“Yeah, I think so… oh Zack, I’m sorry… I was sure that…”

“Hey, don’t worry about it.” Zack said with a nervous laugh. “I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Okay, bye…” Zack put his phone down after Deed hung up, and he stared at his computer screen for a moment.

“Someone played a practical joke, and it wasn’t me…”