Opening Google Chrome, I typed "scratch.mit.edu" into the search bar. I didn't have any experience with Scratch. It was a website a friend of mine had helped work on. He told me about it, apparently, it was an educational website for coding? Coding is complicated, is it not? My friend said I should let my 10-year-old son use it. Before I did, I wanted to test "Scratch" first. My initial thought was, "Woah." It was sleek, it was simple, but not childish. I moved my mouse cursor across the screen, sliding my finger across the trackpad as it inched toward the blue button labeled, "Create." The tab flashed white for a second or two then loaded the project editor. I was confused. Where was the code at? Looking toward the side of the screen, I saw many colored blocks. I clicked on one then dragged it into the editor. I let out a, "Ohhh," indicating I had realized how the code works. I played around with the blocks I had available and made the orange cat in the middle of the screen move 10 steps toward the right when clicked. I slid my mouse icon over the button with the lettering, "Costumes," on it. Clicking on the button revealed the Cat. I messed around with the tools by drawing and dragging shapes around the sprite editor. I stumbled over the "Scratch Library" after rummaging through all the UI available. It was filled with different sprites and costumes, but I settled on a gray creature named, "Nano." I did more messing around with the blocks. It was a little finicky, but I got the hang of it. I was sure my kid would love this. After a little more deep digging, I found text-to-speech blocks. I typed in a simple, "Hello!" I clicked the flag and I didn't get a response. I turned up my volume and clicked the flag again, only for a hushed, "Have you ever wanted to scream?" I jumped a bit, confused, then questioned. I responded with a shaky, "N-no..?" I clicked the flag again. "Can you scream for me?" I closed my laptop. Did my friend set this up? I can't let my child see this. Those words echoed and bounced around my head. "Scream." I talked to my friend about it over a phone call. About the freaky Nano, he said he had no idea about it and will be checking it out. He remarked it was probably one of his co-workers who added it in as a sadistic joke. My dreams are haunted by the costume. Many of them are plagued with my kid being hurt or about to be harmed by it. Each of these dreams makes me scream.
"HAVE YOU EVER WANTED TO SCREAM?" Gender: ? Height: ? Abilities: Can cause hallucinations, nightmares, and psychotic behavior. Goal: It wants you to scream. It wants you to rip your hair out. It wants you to live in fear.
