MINDFLOW A MENTAL HEALTH COMPANY USING VOICE STRESS ANALYSIS
by Robert Nerbovig
Table of Contents
1 The Spark of an Idea
2 Unintended Consequences
3 A Fragile Beginning
4 The First Step Forward
5 A New Opportunity
6 The Road Ahead
7 Refocusing
8 Rebuilding the Foundation
9 The Pressures of Growth
10 Unraveling the Problem
11 A New Partnership
12 The Relaunch
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Chapter 1
The Spark of an Idea
Jacob Thomas was never really the type of guy who liked to sit idle. He had an ever-present curiosity about everything, from the way things worked in the world to the mystical nuances of magic that only he, and a select few, knew were real. As a senior at Willowbrook High School, he was already balancing two identities: the top-tier student who could solve any algebraic equation and the budding wizard whose power was still raw and unrefined, but dangerous.
His magic didn’t always work the way he wanted it to, but he had a knack for tech. He loved coding, and tinkering with gadgets, and had recently started diving deep into app development. It wasn’t too much of a stretch to think that the combination of his magical abilities and his tech-savvy nature could lead to something extraordinary. The idea of creating something truly groundbreaking kept him up at night, his mind buzzing with possibilities.
It was during one of these late-night coding sessions that Jacob had an epiphany. He was sitting in his bedroom, staring at the glowing screen of his MacBook, surrounded by empty soda cans and textbooks. His girlfriend, Lisa, had been acting strange lately. Her late-night phone calls, her evasive answers, and her tendency to get defensive whenever the topic of trust came up had been eating away at him. As a wizard, Jacob could sense when something was off, but there was no real proof. Magic, he knew, wasn’t always the answer—sometimes, science could provide clarity.
That's when it hit him. He remembered an old spell his mentor, Master Calloway, had taught him during his first year at the Academy of Mystical Arts. It wasn’t much of a spell, really. More like a heightened awareness spell that allowed the caster to detect subtle changes in the tone of voice. Jacob thought about how he could expand on that concept, merging his magical intuition with technology.
What if there was an app that could analyze voice stress and determine if someone was lying? What if technology could augment magic, in a way that could pinpoint deception with cold precision? A voice stress analyzer, but with a twist: powered by both advanced algorithms and a dash of wizardry.
And so, "STAlk" was born.
The name was a play on words, “STAlk” sounded like "stalk," a term people often used when they tried to find out information in a way that was, well, maybe not entirely ethical. But for Jacob, it symbolized the fine line between curiosity and intrusion. He could use it to figure out if people were telling the truth, but the question was: should he?
A week after the app was conceptualized, Jacob had it up and running on his phone. He was testing it, tweaking the code and constantly refining it, but there was one big question he had to answer: would it work on Lisa?
It was a Friday night when he decided to test it for real. He was sitting in his room, Lisa texting him about coming over later, when he decided to install "STAlk" on his phone for the first time. His thumb hovered over the app’s icon, his mind a swirl of doubt. Was this ethical? Was he really about to track her every word?
But the temptation was too strong. He tapped the icon and opened the app.
"Welcome to STAlk," the screen read. “Press ‘Start’ to begin analyzing the voice on the other end.”
His phone rang. It was Lisa.
"Hey, babe," she said, her voice soft and warm through the speaker. "You home?"
Jacob smiled, a hint of guilt gnawing at his stomach. "Yeah, just hanging out. You?"
"I’m just finishing up some stuff at work. I’ll be there in about an hour."
Jacob tapped the "Start" button. His phone vibrated as the app began analyzing her voice. A series of graphs and charts appeared on the screen. The data swirled, transforming into something that almost looked like magic.
Voice Stress: Low. Deception Probability: 15%.
"Really?" Jacob muttered under his breath, staring at the screen. It wasn’t a high chance of deception, but it was something. Lisa’s tone hadn’t sounded strange—she’d seemed perfectly normal. But the app didn’t lie. Did it?
His thoughts were interrupted when Lisa called again. "Hey, I’m almost there," she said. “I’ll text you when I pull up.”
Jacob’s pulse raced as he hung up, staring at the app’s result. He had to know more, but a gnawing feeling told him he was beginning to cross a line.
Jacob was at home the next day, fiddling with his family’s smart TV. It was a Saturday afternoon, and his parents were out running errands, leaving him to his devices. He figured this would be the perfect opportunity to test STAlk further. The TV had voice recognition capabilities, so why not integrate his app with it? If it worked, he could detect deception in public speeches, interviews, or even news broadcasts. It was, in a way, a window into the world’s lies.
He opened the app on his phone again, linking it to the TV using Bluetooth. The screen displayed an alert: "Connected."
Jacob turned on the TV and flipped through the channels until he landed on a political debate. Two candidates were standing at podiums, arguing fiercely about the state of the economy. It was the kind of broadcast where every word could carry immense weight.
“Let’s see what you’ve got,” Jacob whispered, hitting "Start" on the app.
The voices of the candidates filled the room. As the app analyzed the soundwaves, Jacob watched the graphs and data points on his phone.
Candidate A: Voice Stress: High. Deception Probability: 85%.
Jacob’s eyes widened. He hadn’t been expecting that. Candidate A was speaking with passion, and conviction even. But the app was telling him something different. The data didn’t lie. The candidate was likely lying, or at least hiding something.
He glanced over at the screen where Candidate B was now speaking. He pressed "Start" again.
Candidate B: Voice Stress: Low. Deception Probability: 12%.
The contrast was stark. Candidate B seemed much more calm, collected, and genuine, according to the app. Jacob leaned back, letting out a deep breath.
This could change everything.
By the following week, Jacob was getting more and more curious about the results he was seeing. He had used STAlk on his friends’ conversations, at school, even during casual family dinners. The app was remarkably accurate, and its accuracy seemed to only improve with each update. People around him were growing suspicious of his sudden obsession with voice analysis, but Jacob didn’t care.
He found himself using STAlk in more situations than he ever imagined, analyzing news broadcasts, politicians, even casual interactions at the grocery store. But it wasn’t just the app’s effectiveness that worried him. He started noticing patterns. People he trusted weren’t as honest as he thought they were. Friends were lying about their plans. Politicians were deceiving the public. Even Lisa, the one person he thought he could trust completely, didn’t come out clean when subjected to the app.
One evening, Jacob and Lisa were sitting on the couch, watching a movie. Lisa had her head resting on his shoulder, but Jacob was distracted. He could feel the pull of STAlk, the temptation to run her voice through the app once more. But for the first time, he hesitated. Something told him that the truth might not be as easy to uncover as the app suggested.
“Jacob,” Lisa said, breaking his concentration. “You’ve been really quiet lately. What’s on your mind?”
Jacob cleared his throat, pushing the phone into his pocket. “Nothing, just... tired, I guess.”
But the app nagged at him. In his mind, he could still hear the calculated data from her previous texts and calls. He could still see the wavering line of her voice, the slight uptick in stress whenever she spoke about certain subjects.
“I’ve just been thinking,” he said, his voice uncharacteristically serious. “Do you ever feel like... maybe you’re hiding something?”
Lisa looked at him, frowning. “What? What are you talking about?”
Jacob felt the familiar sting of doubt, but he pushed it aside. He didn’t want to push her into a corner, but the app was like a drug. It had revealed the hidden truths in so many conversations, and he couldn’t stop himself from wondering about Lisa’s honesty.
“Never mind,” he said, his voice quiet. “Just... forget it.”
Lisa looked at him, eyes narrowing with suspicion. “No, tell me. What are you really trying to say, Jacob?”
And that’s when it happened—the conflict Jacob had been avoiding finally exploded.
Lisa’s eyes were blazing now, the tension between them thickening like smoke in the air. Jacob had opened the door to something he wasn’t ready to face.
“I’m not hiding anything from you,” she said, her voice shaking. “But I feel like you’ve been hiding something from me.”
Jacob’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean?”
“I mean this app, Jacob,” Lisa spat, standing up and pacing. “This STAlk thing. You’ve been analyzing me, haven’t you? You’ve been listening to everything I say and dissecting it like... like I’m some kind of puzzle.”
Jacob opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Lisa was right. He had crossed a line.
“Have you been using it on other people too?” she demanded, her voice rising. “You’ve been spying on everyone. On your friends, on your family, on me. This isn’t just about trust anymore. It’s about control.”
Jacob stared at her, the weight of her words sinking in.
“I didn’t mean to,” he whispered. “I just—I just wanted to know the truth.”
“And now you’ve got it,” she said bitterly, tears welling up in her eyes. “But at what cost, Jacob? At what cost?”
As Lisa turned and stormed out of the room, Jacob felt the crushing weight of what he had done. The app, which had seemed like a harmless experiment, had spiraled out of control. It was no longer just a tool for truth—it had become a weapon.
And now, with Lisa gone and his world suddenly turned upside down, Jacob faced the realization that maybe he had opened a door that should have remained closed.
The silence in the house was suffocating. Jacob sat on the couch, staring at the TV screen that remained muted. His phone buzzed a few times with texts from friends, but he ignored them. He couldn’t focus on anything. His mind was too clouded with guilt over what had just happened. Lisa, the person he trusted the most, the person he thought he’d share everything with—she was gone. She had stormed out of his house in tears, furious, hurt, and betrayed. And in the aftermath, Jacob realized that maybe the app wasn’t the problem. It was how he used it—and how much he had allowed it to consume him.
He didn’t even care to look at STAlk anymore. The app he had poured hours of effort into, which had seemed like the answer to every question, now felt like a trap. It wasn’t just an analysis tool anymore. It had become an obsession, an invasion of privacy.
Jacob’s mind replayed Lisa’s words over and over again. “You’ve been spying on me.” “This is about control.” She was right. He’d crossed a line he couldn’t uncross. He didn’t know how to fix it, how to get her to understand, how to make things right.
As he sat there, his phone lit up with a new message from his best friend, Dylan.
“Dude, you good? I heard some stuff happened with you and Lisa. Everyone’s talking about it.”
Jacob frowned, running his hand through his hair. Dylan had always been there for him, especially when things got messy. But he hadn’t spoken to anyone about what happened, hadn’t shared details. It seemed the whole school already knew. Word traveled fast.
He sighed and typed back a quick reply.
“Not really. I messed up. Big time.”
It wasn’t long before his phone buzzed again.
“Yeah, well, if you want to talk, I’m here, bro. You need to get your head straight before this gets worse. Call me.”
Jacob stared at the text. He could hear the unspoken concern in Dylan’s words. He needed help. He knew it.
He clicked on the FaceTime icon, waiting for Dylan to answer. The connection buzzed for a moment before Dylan’s face popped up on the screen, his expression half-amused, half-serious.
“Yo, man,” Dylan said. “I saw what happened with you and Lisa. The gossip train’s rolling at full speed. What did you do?”
Jacob swallowed, rubbing his face with his hands. “I used the app on her. STAlk. To see if she was lying to me.”
Dylan blinked, clearly surprised. “You—what? Jacob, dude, that’s messed up.”
“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” Jacob said quickly, “I was just... I was worried. She was acting distant, and I thought maybe—”
“No, man,” Dylan interrupted. “I get it. You’re worried about her, but there are lines you don’t cross. Using some app to invade her privacy? That’s crossing a major line.”
Jacob’s stomach twisted in guilt. “I know. I’m an idiot. She... she left. She’s pissed at me. And I don’t know how to fix it.”
“You need to apologize,” Dylan said, his voice softer now. “Not just to her, but to yourself too. You’ve been using this thing like it’s some kind of magic wand, trying to control everything around you. But people don’t work like that, man. It’s not all about finding the truth. It’s about trust. And right now, you’ve broken hers.”
Jacob nodded, his eyes burning with the weight of what Dylan was saying. He had been so focused on the truth, on exposing lies, that he had neglected the very thing that mattered most in a relationship, trust. He had used STAlk as a tool to control, to find out what people were hiding, and now the consequences were too great to ignore.
“I’ll try to fix it,” Jacob said finally, his voice hoarse. “But how? I don’t know how to make it right.”
Dylan gave him a small, understanding smile. “I wish I had a magic solution for you, man. But sometimes, you just have to put the work in and prove that you’re trustworthy. That you’re sorry. And don’t hide behind the app anymore. It’s time to put it away.”
Jacob looked down at his phone, at the STAlk icon that seemed to mock him from the screen. He had already removed it from his phone once, only to reinstall it out of curiosity. But now, with Dylan’s words ringing in his ears, he realized it wasn’t just the app that was the problem—it was how he had let it control his actions.
“I’m going to delete it,” Jacob said, with a sense of finality. “It’s not who I want to be.”
Dylan nodded. “Good choice. You’ll figure it out, man. Just give it time.”
After the call ended, Jacob sat there for a moment, deep in thought. The weight of the last few days was crushing. He had used STAlk to unravel mysteries, but it had only led him down a path of mistrust, hurt feelings, and broken connections. What had started as a way to uncover the truth had turned into a tool of manipulation. It wasn’t just the app—it was his approach to everything. He had been seeking control, certainty, and proof, but he had forgotten that the most important things in life weren’t always quantifiable.
Jacob stood up and walked to his desk. He grabbed his phone and tapped on the STAlk icon one last time. As he pressed the delete button, a strange sense of relief washed over him. He wasn’t going to be controlled by it anymore. He wasn’t going to let it dictate his relationships or his life. It was time to face the consequences of his actions, and it was time to rebuild the trust he had shattered.
The next day, Jacob tried to go about his day normally, but it was hard. Everywhere he went, the weight of his mistake seemed to follow him.
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