4516 Days

Kaito Sasaki had a streak of exactly 4516 days of Duolingo lessons under his belt, a streak so legendary that sometimes he thought it would outlive him. It had become more than a habit - it was a fundamental part of his existence, like breathing, eating, or checking his phone the moment he woke up to scroll through Instagram reels.

And yet, on day 4517, he forgot.

It wasn't his fault. Really, it wasn't.

Okay, maybe it was a little his fault.

See, he had stayed up late watching a new anime, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End. He kept telling himself,  Just one more episode. But that episode turned into the whole season, and the season had turned into a catastrophic 3 AM realization: he had forgotten to do his Duolingo lesson.

By the time he opened the app, it was too late. Instead of the cheerful green owl congratulating him for keeping his streak alive, he was met with a heart-breaking notification:

4516 day streak lost!

Kaito’s soul left his body. He stared at the message, unblinking, as his hands trembled. This had to be some kind of mistake. He had reminders set. He had backup reminders for his reminders. He spent over twelve years on this stupid little language-learning app. It was his legacy. And now, all of it was gone because of one binge-watching session?

There has to be away to fix this. Kaito frantically tapped through the app, hoping there was some kind of emergency backup, an “Are You Sure You Want to Lose Twelve Years of Progress?” button, but the cold, cruel reality was that he had lost everything.

Then, his phone buzzed again. A new notification, this time from Instagram.
'Check out the latest post from Duolingo,' it said.
It is with heavy hearts that we inform you that Duo, formerly known as The Duolingo Owl, is dead.

Kaito blinked. What

The message continued: 

Tbh, he probably died waiting for you to do your lesson, but what do we know.

Kaito stared at the screen in stunned silence. His brain attempted to process what he had just read, but every logical part of him rejected it outright. This couldn’t be about him, right? Like, some elaborate joke? After all, he was holding the record for the longest streak on Duolingo, but they couldn’t have possibly had the time to mock him already. The comments section was already flooded with reactions, mostly treating it as some kind of bizarre marketing stunt. People were making memes, posting “RIP Duo” edits, and joking about how the owl's merciless reign on humanity has finally come to an end.

Kaito slowly set his phone down and fell asleep.

Then, after a few hours, he woke up to his mother calling from the kitchen. “Kaito! Come eat before your fish is getting cold!”

Kaito frowned. “Uh… what?”

“That’s not how grammar is working. You are need hurry!”

A chill ran down his spine. “Mom? Are you okay?”

She sighed loudly. “No, is fine, only words being weird. Just come fastly, food is still eatable.”

That was not normal.

Kaito cautiously stepped out of his room, his heart pounding. His mom was setting the table like nothing was wrong, but her words had turned into the linguistic equivalent of having a conversation relying on Google Translate. Was this some kind of prank? Was he still dreaming?

He grabbed his phone again and opened his messages. He typed to his best friend: Hey, something weird is happening. Are you noticing anything strange? 

But as he sent the message, it changed.

Hay, some thing weird be happing. Are u noticing odd?

His breath hitched. He unsended the message and tried again.

Hae sum thin gross be going? R U NO T NO?

He threw his phone onto the couch like it had personally offended him. What the hell was happening?!

Kaito turned to his mom in panic. “Did you see that? My text just—”

“Yes, yes,” she waved him off. “You phone is sick.”

No. No, no, no. This was not normal. This wasn’t just bad grammar. This was language itself breaking down.

His mom seemed way too calm about this. Maybe she just wasn’t noticing how bad it was. Kaito grabbed the remote and switched to the news channel, hoping to find some logical explanation.

Instead, the news anchor was speaking in absolute gibberish.

“Something no make sense. Words are bad!”

The text at the bottom of the screen was even worse:
BREAKIN NEUUUS: WRDS DED??

This wasn’t just his mom. It wasn’t just his phone. The entire world was losing language.

And somehow, this was only the beginning.

His heart pounded in his chest as he reached for his laptop, hoping that maybe, just maybe, this was some sort of temporary glitch. Maybe if he refreshed a few websites, everything would go back to normal.

The browser loaded—slowly, painfully—but when it did, every website looked wrong. Headlines were misspelled, entire articles looked like they had been thrown into a blender, and social media was a nightmare. Hashtags looked like they had been autocorrected into oblivion.

Even the emergency alert system at the top of the page had been affected.

Atenion citzens: Plaese reman cahn! Evrething is un cotroll. Dunt panik!

Kaito’s stomach dropped. Oh, we are so doomed.

His fingers twitched over the keyboard, but he had no idea what to even search for. He tried looking up “language breaking down,” but Google’s autocomplete turned it into “Language broke under?!!”

He slammed the laptop shut.

If this was some kind of prank, it was way too elaborate. If this was a joke, everyone was in on it.

What if this was real? No, it couldn’t be real.

Right?