Episode 01x01 - Introduction

Malex:

I woke up again, and immediately regretted it. I opened my eyes, and was greeted by the sight of... Well, I suppose I ought to explain myself a bit.

My friends call me Malex. My enemies call my Malex too. Actually, everybody calls me Malex. I have a ‘real’ name, but I keep hoping that, if I ignore it, it’ll go away. Before anyone asks, I am not the ‘mAleX’ from mnet-media.com. That sickeningly successful fool stole my name after I had been called Malex for years. Ah well, I refuse to get into that. My life has been... interesting. I guess you could say I am a programmer - that is indeed what I do to make money. You could also say that I am a musician, but that rarely goes the way I’d like it to. I’m a techie, a dance music freak, and I’m still looking for ‘the right girl’.

Until I become rich, famous, married, or any combination of the above, however, I am stuck rooming with Icepunk.

Icepunk:

I am writing this in the hopes that someone will read this and save us, although I can’t imagine how, as we tend to lock all five of the deadbolts on our apartment door. (Come to think of it, stay the crap away from our apartment, you sicko.)

Our supply of caffeinated beverages quickly dwindled in the days following the liberation of cola from the local convenience store. Malex has already succumbed to the melatonin released as a result of sleep-deprivation, and he lies snoring on the couch.

Already my mind begins to fog, and these dang pink ponies won’t stop prancing on my chest...

Malex:

Indeed, life has been interesting. Icepunk and I have been arch rivals ever since we met. Icepunk is an interesting character to be certain. He has always struck me as being something of an unstable chap, but he tends to have enough bolts tightened at any one time to avoid being institutionalized.

Over the course of middle and high school, we repeatedly vowed never to speak to one another again. Sadly, however, one or both of us retained such dim memories as to forget whatever vile offense prompted the vow, and we always ended up insulting each other again, just like old times.

Icepunk:

The Dark Lord Malex and I first met in a strange land of sandboxes and swing-sets. We studied each other carefully - analyzing strengths and weaknesses. Immediately, I saw a chink in his armor. I called upon an ancient spell - guaranteed to bring pain and suffering down on all those foolish enough to be on the receiving end of it...

“Butthead,” I said to him, and he wept.

Malex:

After we both graduated high school, I chose to move out of state, for political and economic reasons. Icepunk chose to follow me because fireworks and underage drinking are legal in this state. To be clear, Icepunk does not drink, but instead draws something of a perverse pleasure from watching peers drink themselves into a stupor. I have been repeatedly awed by his successful attempts at convincing drunken saps to do things no sane person would ever attempt.

Icepunk:

“Yeah, cops don’t arrest people in general, just people that break laws. And show me where it says that you can’t give a cop a wedgie and steal his donut?”

Malex:

As I was about to say, I opened my eyes, and was greeted by the terrific example of insanity that was our shared apartment. How we ended up rooming together is beyond the capacity of my mortal mind to fathom. It is, however, the current state of reality, and I must come to terms with it.

It is not as if we have entirely resolved our differences. Indeed, this apartment has been mathematically divided in half - the boundaries marked clearly in duct tape.

My half is dirty. I am, after all, a programmer. His half, however, appears to have been ransacked by a herd of elephants.

I had just awakened after having crashed from yet another caffeine mega-high. Sleep is such a waste of time, why have we humans not come up with a perfect way of replacing it chemically?

As I lay in bed, becoming acclimated to wakefulness, I looked over at Icepunk’s half of the apartment. The poor sap was hit the hardest by the after-effects of the caffeine high. He is, I noted, the only person I’ve ever seen to jitter in his sleep.

I began to stare at the wall, and slowly became aware of an unspeakable horror. Icepunk had somehow succeeded in cultivating a rare breed of mold on the walls in his half of the apartment.

I let that thought sink in, and then turned my thoughts toward the start of a new afternoon.