Lia Kapoor
Part 1: The DM That Wasn’t Me
The first thing I see when I wake up is my own face telling me not to ignore her. I say “her” because the mirror version of me on my lockscreen feels like a different person: last night’s eyeliner smudged, hair in a tragic bun, caption under my last selfie begging for the sun to rise late. The notification is from Insta. I swipe. My DMs have a new message from… me. My verified-not-verified, 1,247-followers, curated-just-enough-to-look-natural account. The blue circle next to my own name glows like an eye.
I open it expecting a glitch or one of those “hey hun, do you want to make $5k/week” bot scripts. Instead I get three words and a link: Don’t ignore me. That’s it. No punctuation. No emoji. One pale blue URL below like a trapdoor.
I screenshot, because of course I do. That’s Rule One of surviving online weirdness: make a copy. Rule Two is tell someone, but make it sound chill so you don’t get roasted. I send the screenshot to our group chat, Mango Squad—me, Noah (resident sarcasm), Siya (resident kindness), and Ash (resident chaos). My caption: “is this performance art or am i possessed.”
The typing bubbles bloom instantly.
Noah: “are you promoing your own ghost now”
Ash: “omg self-love but make it haunting”
Siya: “change your password rn”
Me: “done. still creepy tho”
Noah: “click the link :)))))”
Siya: “NO. do not.”
Ash: “drop the link or you’re gatekeeping”
I don’t drop the link. I’m not stupid. Also I’m five minutes from missing the bus. I throw on a hoodie that could be legally defined as a cloud and walk out into a New Delhi morning that smells like wet dust and cardamom. Mom yells from the kitchen that I’m forgetting my lunch. I yell back that my stomach is too dramatic for real food. She says something about “influencers” and “air,” and I promise to eat the granola bar in my bag (I won’t).
On the bus, I sit next to Noah, who smells like cedar and too much deodorant. He pretends not to be checking his hair in the window reflection but he absolutely is. “So,” he says, “are you an AI now? Can you calculate my math test survival odds?”
“Zero,” I say, because honesty is a love language. “Also, if I did become an AI, I’d charge a subscription.”
We review the DM again. He zooms in like there’s something to see. “You know what this is?” he says. “Content.”
“It’s a scam.”
“It’s a mystery,” he says, wiggling his eyebrows. “We can be detectives. The Hardy Baes.”
“Never say that again.”
At school, the Wi-Fi is basically mood-dependent, but I keep toggling airplane mode like a stress fidget. The DM sits there, polite and patient, like an unread letter. In chem, I draw a tiny coffin around the URL in my notebook and label it DO NOT OPEN because visualizing boundaries is a thing my therapist taught me. (Yes, I know I am lucky to have a therapist. Yes, I still sometimes lie to her about how much time I spend vertically scrolling strangers’ lives.)
By lunch, Mango Squad is thirty messages deep debating whether the self-DM is a targeted hack or a prank. Ash votes prank. Siya votes hacked. Noah says, “Third option: alternate universe Rhea begging for help,” which is exactly the kind of sentence that makes you roll your eyes and then think about it for the rest of the day.
After school, the sky decides to do that blinding silver thing, and I walk home past vendors roasting peanuts that smell like warm rain. I’m fine. Everything is fine. The internet is full of glitches and weird vibes. I am not the main character. I am a side quest at best. I will drink water and mind my business.
I make it exactly to my bedroom before curiosity slaps me. I open the DM again and tap the profile—it’s definitely my account. Same bio (chai over coffee, playlists > people), same pinned story highlight of the Mango Squad trying to recreate a dance trend in the mall while an auntie judged us like we were failing a moral exam. The message timestamp says 2:13 a.m. I was asleep at 2:13 a.m. According to my screen time report (which is a liar but okay), I put my phone down at 12:44.
Fine. We test. I go to my desktop, open Insta web, change my password again, and log out everywhere. I enable two-factor like a responsible citizen who sometimes buys neon eyeliner at 3 a.m. I message Insta support knowing full well a robot named Lila will send me a FAQ about phishing. Then, because I’m me, I film a 12-second Story where I say, “If you get a weird DM that looks like it’s from me, it wasn’t. If it tells you I joined a crypto cult, I didn’t. If it tells you to hydrate, that one’s legit.” I add a poll: “Hack or Haunting?” Early results: 73% Haunting, 27% Hack. The internet chooses chaos.
I don’t click the link.
At 6:02 p.m., the second weird thing happens. Noah texts me a screenshot of his DMs. The sender is… me. Same three words. But underneath, there’s a second message I didn’t get: a sentence that shakes something loose inside my ribs. It says: “I’m not over the bridge.”
I feel the words like a paper cut where grief lives. Two months ago, Noah and I walked across the pedestrian bridge by the metro after a fight about something stupid. The city below was horn-symphony loud, vendors calling, a blue sky trying too hard. He’d asked if I was mad at him or at myself. I’d said I didn’t know. He’d said, “We can stand here till you do,” and we did, until the sunset turned the river into a massive spilled Fanta. We never told anyone about that conversation. We never posted it. It was ours.
“Okay,” I text, fingers buzzing. “Either you’re messing with me or someone is inside my brain.”
“Wish it was me,” he writes. Then, a second later: “jk that sounded creepy. but you know what i mean.”
A new message arrives, same chat thread, sender still “Me,” timestamped three minutes ago. No preview shows on the lock screen—just “1 new message.” My heartbeat does what it does right before exams: starts speaking fluent drum. I open the app, half expecting confetti and a “gotcha!” Instead I see a voice memo bubble. Length: 00:07.
Noah: “Do I press it.”
Me: “On three.”
Noah: “Why three.”
Me: “Drama.”
We count. We tap. The voice that comes out isn’t mine. Or it is, but distorted, stretched like audio pulled too thin. A whisper wrapped in metal. It says: “Don’t ignore me.” Then a glitch. Then: “You know what they did.”
I yank out my earbuds like the sound might crawl inside me and nest. The silence afterward is wrong—too clean. The kind of silence after a song ends at a party and the room goes “oh.” I text Noah: “did u hear the second line.” He types, erases, types again. Finally: “yeah.”
It’s probably nothing, I tell myself. Spam can be spooky. People make AI covers of politicians singing pop songs; they can make a liar out of my voice for seven seconds. But then the lights in my room flicker like a bad horror short and I actually laugh out loud because okay, universe, calm down. The bulb steadies. My phone vibrates again.
Siya: “Are you home?”
Me: “yeah. why.”
Siya: “Check the notes app we shared for physics. Scroll to the bottom.”
We have a shared note called “Physics Pain.” It’s mostly formulas and ugly drawings and one list titled “Emotional Support Snacks.” I open it. At the very bottom—under Ash’s masterpiece doodle of a sad proton—there’s a new line I didn’t write: Don’t ignore me.
“Okay,” I say to no one. “That’s cute.” My throat is dry enough to file papers. I lock the front door, even though we live on the fourth floor. I check the windows. My mother, in the kitchen, hums along to an old Bollywood song like nothing is wrong in the world.
Noah calls. Voice calls feel more real than texts when you’re sliding off the edge of sense. “What if it’s a prank?” he says. “Like Ash, but he took method acting too seriously.”
“Ash can’t spell ‘ignore’ correctly on the first try,” I say, and then immediately feel bad for roasting him in his absence. “Also, the bridge. How would he know the bridge.”
“So not Ash.” He exhales into the phone like he’s trying to blow fog off a window. “Do you remember Amara?”
The name hits like a pebble you didn’t know you were balanced on. Amara Singh. Quiet. Art club. Big headphones. Liked to sit under the staircase. Last year. There was a… something. A memorial post that got a lot of shares. “Why are you bringing her up?” I ask, careful with my voice like it might crack.
“Because I was messing around with the DM headers,” he says—of course he was—“and the IP points to a weird node that links back to an account that’s not live anymore. Looks like a placeholder that belonged to Amara, or someone using her identity. I could be wrong. I probably am. Tell me I’m wrong.”
I look at the message again. Don’t ignore me. The link like a mouth. The seven-second voice that felt like walking into a basement alone. “You’re wrong,” I say, lying, because honesty can wait.
“Okay,” he says. “So we’re dealing with a prankster, a ghost, or a really bored IT guy.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not,” he says, and his voice cracks, honest. “I don’t think this is random, Rhea.”
I stand up too fast and the room tilts a little. On my desk, my planner is open to a to-do list I actually like: return library book, finish chem lab, stop doomscrolling at midnight. I add a new bullet in messy caps: FIND OUT WHO. Then, because the universe likes a neat cliffhanger, my phone buzzes one more time. A new message from “Me.” No text, just a picture: my locker at school, the blue paint chipped like bitten nails. On the vent, stuck with a yellow heart sticker, is a note I’ve never seen. Three words, in my own handwriting that isn’t mine.
Part 2: Group Chat Meltdown
The thing about seeing your own handwriting in a photo when you didn’t write it is that your brain starts scrolling through excuses like they’re Instagram filters. Maybe someone forged it? Maybe it’s an old note I forgot? Maybe I’m sleep-writing now, and the next thing will be a cringy poem on the whiteboard in Chem.
I send the locker picture to Mango Squad. This time, no captions. Just vibes.
Ash: “ok ur ghost has stationery”
Siya: “Where was this taken?”
Me: “My locker. Today. Apparently. I haven’t been near it since lunch.”
Noah: “I told you this isn’t random.”
Ash: “maybe u wrote it during ur blackout period between scrolling reels & forgetting to breathe”
Me: “thx doctor”
The dots bubble for a long time before Siya’s next message: “Rhea, the handwriting. It’s literally yours.”
Which is the point, obviously, but reading it like that makes it feel like an accusation. Like I’m staging my own horror movie for content.
I don’t reply. Instead, I go to the actual locker. It’s early evening now; most of the hallway is deserted except for the janitor’s trolley smelling like disinfectant and wet mop. My lock clicks open, metal-on-metal, too loud in the echo. I pull the door wide.
No note. No sticker. Just my stack of notebooks and the math test I’m ignoring.
I snap a photo — the nothingness — and send it to the chat.
Me: “whoever’s playing needs to up their magic tricks”
Noah: “Or they knew you’d check & removed it.”
Ash: “This is why i keep snacks in my locker. ghosts fear chips.”
Siya: “This isn’t funny.”
Which is when I realise Siya’s really not joking. Usually she’s the steady one, the “let’s meditate about this” person. Now her messages are clipped, no emojis.
Then another screenshot drops into the group — from Siya’s phone. It’s a DM to her, from me. Three words. Same link. But her second message is different from Noah’s.
It says: I saw you on the bridge too.
I stop breathing for a second because — no. Siya wasn’t there. It was just me and Noah that day. She’s never even mentioned that bridge.
Noah calls immediately, like typing isn’t fast enough anymore.
“Okay,” he says. “We need rules. One: no clicking links. Two: screenshot everything. Three: don’t be alone.”
“I’m already breaking three,” I say, looking around the empty hallway.
“Then get out of there.”
Before I can argue, Ash joins the call, voice loud enough to make me pull the phone back. “Plot twist, guys — I got one too.”
“What’s your second message?” Noah asks.
Ash pauses just long enough to be dramatic. “It says, ‘Check the drafts.’”
We all know what that means. Ash runs our unofficial meme page, Mango Mayhem, which has like 2.3k followers, half from school and half from randoms who found our chaos relatable. The drafts are sacred. They’re where the bad takes, unfinished thirst traps, and half-edited prank videos live.
“Check them,” I say.
He’s already doing it, swearing under his breath. “Okay… uh. This is weird. There’s a new draft from yesterday. None of us made it.”
“What is it?” Siya asks.
“It’s… a video of Amara.”
The name hits again like static in my ear.
“She’s at some kind of party,” Ash continues. “Music’s loud, lights are gross, she’s holding up a phone like she’s recording herself. But the camera turns and — oh. Rhea, you’re in it.”
“I— what?”
“You’re in the background. Laughing with some guy. Wearing that red oversized flannel you love.”
“I don’t remember—” My voice stumbles. “Ash, that’s not possible.”
“It’s literally you,” he says. “You look right at the camera for a second, and then it cuts.”
My brain is flipping through memories like flashcards and coming up blank. I have zero recollection of being at any party with Amara. And yet.
“Send it,” Noah says.
Ash does. The file lands in our chat, thumbnail blurred. My finger hovers. Then I press.
The video opens on flashing purple light and muffled bass. Amara’s face, half-shadow, half-smile. She turns, the camera stumbles, and there I am. Red flannel, hair down, mouth open mid-laugh. For a moment, our eyes meet across the screen like she’s really looking at me. Then — glitch. Cut to black.
I can’t tell if my chest feels heavy because I’m scared or because the girl in the video looks… happy. Like a version of me I don’t remember being.
Siya breaks the silence: “When was this taken?”
The timestamp says exactly one week before Amara’s memorial post last year.
Ash: “Guys… what if she sent this?”
Noah: “From beyond the grave? Seriously?”
Ash: “Or someone using her stuff. Her old account. Her drafts.”
The three dots appear, disappear, appear again. Then Siya types: “We need to find out where that party was. And why Rhea doesn’t remember it.”
I almost say “we don’t” because part of me wants to delete every screenshot, block every ghost, go back to homework and bad TV. But the other part — the bigger part — is already pulling at the thread.
“Tomorrow,” I say. “We meet in the library. No phones on speaker. And we go through everything.”
“Why the library?” Ash asks.
“Because it’s the only place in this school no one goes unless they’re being hunted for overdue books.”
Noah laughs once, short. “Fine. But tonight, keep your notifications on. If anything new drops, we share it.”
We hang up, but the group chat keeps pulsing all evening — memes to break the tension, random theories, Siya sending me breathing exercises I ignore.
At 11:47 p.m., just as I’m about to give up and try sleeping, my phone buzzes with a new DM. Sender: Me. No text this time. Just a single photo.
It’s the pedestrian bridge.
And standing at the far end, lit by the harsh yellow of the streetlamps, is a figure in a red flannel.
Part 3: Dead Account
The bridge photo doesn’t feel like a photo. It feels like a window.
The kind you don’t remember opening, but now the wind’s getting in.
I stare at it long enough for my phone screen to dim. When I tap it awake, the figure at the end of the bridge is still there, frozen mid-breath. The red flannel looks exactly like mine. The face — I can’t see it clearly, but the stance is familiar. Like catching sight of yourself in a shop mirror and thinking, Is that me?
I send it to the group chat with zero context.
Ash: “you’re out for a midnight stroll??”
Me: “nope. haven’t left my room since dinner.”
Siya: “so either someone owns the same flannel or…”
Noah: “…or it’s Amara.”
I almost drop my phone.
Noah calls two seconds later. “Okay, I need to tell you what I found.”
It’s 12:09 a.m., my mom is asleep, the flat is wrapped in that night-silence where even the fridge hum feels too loud. I whisper, “Tell me.”
He clears his throat like he’s about to present at a science fair. “I pulled the message headers again — don’t ask me how, it’s boring — and the DMs aren’t coming from Instagram’s normal routing. They’re bouncing through an old node.”
“English?” I say.
“Like… imagine the internet is a map, right? Every house is an account. But these messages are being sent from an abandoned house that shouldn’t even have electricity.”
“And whose house is it?”
“That’s the thing.” He exhales sharply. “It’s linked to a user ID that belonged to Amara Singh. Not just the same name. Same unique backend ID from the old school server days. The account’s deactivated. Officially, it doesn’t exist.”
“So… what, she’s back?” My voice cracks on the last word.
“I’m not saying ghost,” he says quickly, “but whoever’s doing this has access to something that should’ve been erased.”
A beat of silence. My mind tries to stitch this together with the bridge, the party video, the handwriting. The stitches keep breaking.
“Meet me tomorrow,” he says. “Before library time. We’ll try to see if anything’s still in the account.”
I lie awake after that, the bridge photo still in my DMs like an unblinking eye.
Morning is all sharp light and honking buses. At school, Noah’s waiting by the bike racks with his laptop, which looks like it’s been through war. Stickers peeling, one hinge squeaky. We duck into the back corner of the canteen before it fills with people.
“Okay,” he says, fingers flying. “Old accounts are like empty shells. Sometimes they have leftover data — cached stuff that never got fully deleted. If we can get into the shell, we might see what’s left.”
He works in silence, chewing his lip. I sip my too-sweet chai and try not to imagine Amara’s face.
Finally, his eyes widen. “Got something.”
The screen shows a bare-bones Insta profile. No posts, no followers, no bio. Just a grey silhouette where the DP should be. Username: amara._.singh.
Below it, a single highlight bubble. No title. No cover photo. Just a blank circle.
“Click it,” I say.
He does.
The first story is a blurry video of school hallways — our school — filmed from waist level. The angle makes everyone’s faces look stretched. Voices in the background, muffled, like they’re underwater. The timestamp says one day before Amara’s death.
The next story: a photo of the art room sink, paint-stained, a half-empty water bottle beside it. Overlaid text: they think it’s over.
The third: darkness. Then a sudden flash — the pedestrian bridge at night. The camera jerks, and for a split second, I swear I see my own profile, half-lit, hair whipping in the wind.
I grip the edge of the table. “Pause. Go back.”
We replay it. It’s me. Or it’s someone shaped like me.
Noah’s face is pale under the fluorescent lights. “These weren’t public before. I checked last year. This highlight didn’t exist.”
“Then whoever’s controlling the account added it now.”
He nods slowly. “And they want us to see it.”
By lunchtime, the Mango Squad meet-up in the library feels less like a plan and more like a safety net. The library smells like dust and printer ink. We huddle in the far corner behind the shelves no one touches — encyclopedias from the 90s and outdated chemistry manuals.
I fill Siya and Ash in on what Noah found. Siya listens with her arms crossed, eyes flicking toward the door every few seconds. Ash, for once, doesn’t crack a joke.
“So they’re taunting us,” Ash says. “Cool. Love being haunted and/or hacked.”
“It’s not just taunting,” Noah says. “They’re showing us pieces. They want us to connect them.”
Siya frowns. “Why? What’s the endgame?”
“Attention,” Ash says instantly. “They’re building an audience. Creepy storytelling plus real faces? That’s viral gold.”
The thought makes my skin crawl.
We go over everything: the DMs, the party draft, the bridge, the handwriting, the highlight stories. Patterns start to form, ugly and jagged. The bridge appears in multiple places. The flannel. The link we haven’t clicked.
“Has anyone tried the link?” Ash asks.
“Don’t,” Siya says sharply.
I admit I haven’t. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m scared of malware or scared of what I might see.
Noah’s laptop pings with a notification. His brow furrows. “Uh… the Amara account just went live.”
We all lean in. The grey silhouette DP is gone, replaced by a photo: the pedestrian bridge at sunset.
A new post has appeared. Just one. No caption. The image? Our group, sitting right here in the library corner, taken from somewhere above — maybe the mezzanine.
I look up so fast my neck twinges. The mezzanine rail is empty.
My phone buzzes. DM from Me. No link this time. Just text: Tick tock.
That’s when Siya says something she’s never said before: “We need to tell someone.”
Noah shakes his head. “Tell them what? That we’re being stalked by a dead girl’s ghost account? They’ll think it’s a prank. Or worse, they’ll shut everything down before we figure it out.”
Ash nods reluctantly. “If this is someone at school, we can corner them faster than the admin can.”
I hate that they’re right. I hate even more that I don’t want to walk away from this.
Because under the fear, there’s this pull — like the bridge in the photo is calling me, and I won’t be able to breathe until I know why.
We agree to stick together until we have something concrete. No solo bathroom breaks, no wandering off during free periods. Noah’s going to dig deeper into the server routes tonight. Siya’s going to see if anyone recognises the party location from the video. Ash is on “crowd control,” which apparently means watching the meme page comments for suspicious activity.
Me? I’m supposed to “document everything.” Which is exactly what I’m doing when the next DM drops.
This time it’s a video. Seven seconds. I almost don’t play it, but my thumb betrays me.
The camera is moving fast, like someone running. It’s night. Streetlights flash overhead. Then it turns, and for a split second, I see myself again — red flannel, hair flying, eyes wide. My mouth opens like I’m shouting something.
Then the feed cuts to black.
The last frame freezes just long enough for me to notice the reflection in the glass of a nearby shop window.
It’s not just me in the shot.
Someone else is right behind me.
Part 4: The Locker Code
The first time I watch the new video, I think maybe my brain is glitching. Like, yeah, there’s me in the red flannel, but the shadow right behind me could be a trick of the streetlights.
The second time, I pause and screenshot the last frame. Zoom. Enhance. (By enhance I mean two-finger pinch until the pixels start looking like Minecraft.) The reflection in the shop window doesn’t lie.
It’s not a shadow. It’s a person.
Tall, hoodie up, face blurred — not by the camera, but like someone smeared the pixels on purpose. They’re right behind me, one step away.
I drop the screenshot into the group chat.
Ash: “bro. that’s not funny.”
Siya: “Rhea… where was this filmed?”
Me: “No clue. Looks like near the metro.”
Noah: “The angle’s too close. This wasn’t zoomed in. They were there.”
The “they” sits heavy in my head. Whoever’s running this game isn’t just recycling old footage. They’re moving now. Close enough to follow me through a street I don’t remember walking.
The next day, school feels like a badly lit reality show set. Every locker bang, every whisper, every phone screen lighting up makes me jump.
In Chem, I catch Ash staring at the mezzanine during a free period like he expects a sniper. Siya sits with her back to the wall at lunch, scanning faces. Noah looks like he hasn’t slept.
We’re all waiting for the next move.
It comes between second and third period.
I’m at my locker, swapping books, when I notice something taped to the inside of the door. A small square of paper, folded twice. My stomach does a slow, cold somersault.
I open it.
Three words, all caps, block letters: DON’T IGNORE ME.
Below that, a series of numbers written in thick black marker: 18-24-7.
A locker combination.
Except… it’s not mine.
I take a photo, send it to the group.
Noah replies instantly: “That’s on the far end of the hallway, near the storage closets. 200s section.”
Ash: “plot twist — we’re treasure hunting now.”
Siya: “Or walking into a trap.”
Noah: “Meet there in 10. We go together.”
The hallway to the 200s lockers smells like dust and pencil shavings. It’s quieter here — most people stick to the middle section.
Locker 224 hums in my brain before I even find it. The metal’s dented, paint chipped, like it hasn’t been opened in years. I spin the dial: 18, 24, 7. The lock clicks too easily.
Inside: nothing. At least, nothing obvious. Just a single brown envelope lying flat against the bottom.
I hesitate. Noah reaches past me and picks it up. He glances at the others. “Ready?”
Ash: “Define ready.”
Noah opens it. Four Polaroids slide out into his hand.
The first one is a close-up of the pedestrian bridge.
The second — the party from the video, different angle, Amara mid-laugh.
The third — our group in the library corner from yesterday.
The fourth — me, sleeping in my own bed.
I can’t breathe for a second. The photo is grainy but unmistakable. My hair is messy, my arm curled under my head, the glow from my phone charger in the background.
“Rhea…” Siya’s voice is soft, careful.
“This is impossible,” I say, even though it obviously isn’t.
Noah flips the Polaroids over. On the back of each is a number.
Bridge — 3.
Party — 1.
Library — 4.
Sleeping — 2.
“Coordinates?” Ash suggests.
“A sequence,” Noah says. “Some kind of order.”
Siya looks uneasy. “Order for what?”
We don’t get to answer because my phone buzzes. New DM.
It’s a photo of the brown envelope… still inside the locker.
Caption: TOO SLOW.
The rest of the day is static. I go to class, I take notes, I nod when people talk, but my mind’s locked on those Polaroids. The fact that whoever’s behind this was close enough to my bed to take that photo makes my skin crawl.
After last period, the Mango Squad regroups. We spread the Polaroids on a library table like evidence in a true crime doc.
“Bridge, party, library, sleep,” Noah mutters. “3-1-4-2. Could be a date. Could be a lock. Could be… I don’t know.”
Siya’s scanning the backs. “The numbers could match letters? C-A-D-B?”
Ash suggests it’s a code for the link in the DMs. None of us want to test that theory yet.
When I get home, I lock my bedroom door for the first time in years. Mom knocks once to ask if I’m okay; I lie and say exams.
I keep checking my phone even though I’m terrified of what might appear.
It’s 11:26 p.m. when it pings again.
Video message. Seven seconds.
The camera’s on the bridge. The frame wobbles like the person holding it is walking toward the middle. My red flannel figure appears, back to the camera, looking over the edge.
Then, just before the clip ends, the hooded figure from the reflection steps into frame beside me.
For the first time, the blur on their face shifts — like static clearing for a split second. Enough to show eyes.
And those eyes are looking straight at the camera.
Noah calls me before I can even process. “You saw it?”
“Yes.”
“Look at the timestamp,” he says.
I do. 11:24 p.m. Two minutes ago.
“Rhea,” Noah says, voice low. “If that’s live… they were on the bridge just now.”
We decide we can’t wait anymore. Tomorrow, we’re going to the bridge. In daylight. Together.
And if we see the hooded figure… we follow.
Part 5: The Clout Conspiracy
The bridge in daylight is boring.
Too boring.
The magic — or horror — of it at night disappears under the wash of mid-morning sun. It’s just a concrete walkway over the metro tracks, paint peeling, railings tagged with Sharpie confessions like A + S 4ever and call me.
We stand there — me, Noah, Siya, Ash — in a row, probably looking like we’re posing for a “band that never made it” album cover.
“This is it?” Ash squints at the far end. “Your big haunted hotspot?”
“It’s different at night,” I say, which sounds exactly like something a conspiracy theorist would say.
Noah’s scanning the ground. “Look for cameras. Any new ones.”
Siya’s leaning over the railing, peering down at the tracks. “We’re visible from the road. They could’ve filmed you from a car.”
It makes sense. Too much sense. I want it to be wrong, because if it’s that easy, anyone could’ve been watching me for months.
We split up, checking both ends of the bridge. That’s when Ash calls out, “Uh, guys? You need to see this.”
We jog over. He’s pointing to the underside of the railing, near where the hooded figure stood in the video. Taped there with clear packing tape is a small plastic bag. Inside: a folded note and a tiny USB stick.
We crowd around as Noah carefully opens the bag. He unfolds the note. One sentence, in the same block letters as the locker code:
UPLOAD OR ELSE.
On the back, a QR code.
“Okay, no,” Siya says instantly. “We are not scanning random QR codes taped to cursed bridges.”
Ash grins. “Live a little.”
Noah pockets the USB. “We’ll check it later. On a safe machine.”
Back at school, we hole up in the computer lab during lunch. The lab smells like overheated dust. Noah plugs the USB into a spare desktop that isn’t connected to the main network — his “precautionary sandbox.”
The drive holds one folder: post_this. Inside: twenty short video clips.
We click the first. It’s the party again — Amara in the center, music pounding, people dancing in the background. But this version has captions burned into the footage:
THEY LAUGHED WHEN SHE LEFT.
The next clip is from the library security cam, timestamped two days ago. The caption reads:
STILL HIDING.
The third: a TikTok-style edit of me in the red flannel, spliced with close-ups of my friends, zooming in on our faces like we’re suspects. Caption:
THE ALGORITHM KNOWS.
By the fifth clip, the pattern is clear. The videos aren’t just creepy. They’re designed for maximum engagement — snappy cuts, dramatic captions, music hooks. Whoever’s doing this is making true-crime content out of our lives.
Siya leans back, pale. “They’re building a following. This is the point.”
Ash nods slowly. “Yeah. Every clip’s perfect for Reels. They want it to go viral.”
Noah swipes to the file properties. “These were all created within the last week. Someone’s actively editing.”
The thought makes my stomach turn. It’s not about scaring us for fun. It’s about clout. About turning fear into views.
We argue about what to do next. Siya wants to tell a teacher. Ash wants to post everything ourselves to “control the narrative.” Noah says that’s exactly what they want — to bait us into giving them a bigger platform.
I just keep replaying the party clip in my head.
Because now, watching closely, I notice something I didn’t before. Behind Amara, in the far corner, someone’s holding up their phone, filming. The face is half-lit.
And it’s mine.
“Pause,” I say, pointing. “Zoom there.”
Noah does. The grain sharpens just enough to confirm it: my face, in the same flannel, filming Amara.
Ash whistles low. “So you were filming her and you don’t remember?”
“I wasn’t there,” I snap. “I’ve told you.”
Siya gives me a look that’s equal parts concerned and suspicious. “Then someone’s making it look like you were.”
The last clip on the USB is different. It’s a countdown timer — 72 hours — overlaid on the bridge at night. Text at the bottom:
EVERYTHING DROPS.
When the timer hits zero, something’s going public.
That night, I can’t sleep. I scroll through my feed until my eyes hurt. Then I check the Mango Mayhem page. Ash has been monitoring the comments like we agreed.
There’s a new account liking and commenting on random old posts. Username: thealgorithmknows.
I click it. Private profile. No posts. But the bio says:
3 days. Don’t look away.
The next morning, half the school’s talking about a “creepy new account” that’s DM’ing random people with short videos — the same ones from the USB.
By lunch, it’s trending in our little bubble. People are whispering about Amara again. Teachers pretend not to notice the sudden uptick in phone use during class.
And then, in the middle of the hallway, someone yells, “Hey, Rhea! You’re famous!”
I turn. A guy I barely know shoves his phone in my face. On his screen is the party clip — me in the background, smiling. The caption underneath:
THE GIRL WHO KNOWS.
It’s already got thousands of views.
The Mango Squad meets in the music room, which no one uses except for guitar club.
“This is out of control,” Siya says, pacing. “They’re making you the main character of their story.”
“Worse,” Noah says, “they’re making it look like you were there the night everything happened. And people are buying it.”
Ash tosses a drumstick in the air. “So what’s the move? Play along? Blow it up? Or ghost them?”
I shake my head. “None of that matters. We have to find the original footage. Before they can twist it more.”
Noah nods. “The party location. If we find that, we find the truth.”
That night, I start messaging anyone who might’ve been at that party. Most leave me on read. One person — a girl from the art club — replies:
It was at the old textile mill. Don’t go there. Bad things happened.
Part 6: Viral Revenge
The old textile mill looks like it’s been auditioning for a horror movie since the 80s.
Four storeys of crumbling brick, windows smashed like broken teeth, ivy clawing up the sides. The fence is bent where people have clearly slipped through before.
“This feels safe,” Ash says, which is code for this feels like the opening scene where the comic relief dies first.
“We go in, we look, we leave,” I say. “No split-ups, no TikToks.”
We duck under the fence, stepping into the shadow of the building. Inside, the air smells like mildew and dust, the kind of smell that clings to your hair. Shafts of light cut through holes in the ceiling, catching floating dust motes like slow snow.
Noah checks his phone. “Signal’s garbage in here. Keep close.”
We find the main floor first — an open space littered with old machinery, graffiti on the walls, empty bottles on the floor. It’s quiet except for the occasional drip of water somewhere deeper inside.
“This is definitely the place,” Siya says softly. She’s pointing at the far wall, where a faded banner still hangs: Textile Workers’ Union, 1986. The same banner I remember glimpsing in the background of the party clip.
We start filming — not for clout, but for evidence. Noah takes photos of every corner. Ash tests doors until one creaks open into a side room.
That’s when we find the stage.
It’s not a real stage, more like a raised platform against the wall. Someone’s strung fairy lights across it — half burned-out now — and there’s a cluster of mismatched chairs arranged in front like an audience.
“This is where she was,” I murmur.
In my head, I can see it — Amara standing under those fairy lights, music pounding, people crowding around. Me in the background. Or the version of me they want people to believe in.
Noah crouches to examine something under one of the chairs. It’s a phone. Old model, dusty, screen cracked.
When he powers it on, the lock screen blooms to life: Amara, smiling in the reflection of a train window.
We all go still.
“Is it hers?” Siya whispers.
“Looks like it,” Noah says. “Battery’s almost dead.”
Before he can say more, the phone vibrates in his hand.
New message. Sender: Unknown.
Text: Welcome back to the scene of the crime.
My stomach drops. “They know we’re here.”
Noah shows us the timestamp. Sent literally seconds ago. The phone isn’t connected to Wi-Fi. That means whoever sent it is close enough to ping it directly.
We spin toward the doorway. Empty.
“Let’s go,” Siya says, voice trembling.
But on our way out, something catches my eye — a scrap of paper tucked into the cracks of the stage platform. I pull it free.
It’s a printed screenshot of my Instagram profile. The bio’s been changed. It now reads:
3 days. The Algorithm Knows.
Below that, a caption under my last post: She filmed it all.
By the time we get back outside, my phone is blowing up. Notifications stacking so fast I can’t swipe them away. The algorithmknows account has started tagging me in new posts — short clips from the mill, from the bridge, from the library. But these ones are edited with trending sounds, hashtagged into oblivion.
One clip already has twenty thousand views.
We regroup at Noah’s place — his parents are out, and his room smells like instant noodles and computer heat. He plugs Amara’s phone into a portable charger and waits for it to boot.
When it does, there’s barely anything on it. Most photos and videos are wiped. But in the gallery’s “Recently Deleted” folder, we find one surviving clip.
It’s shaky, filmed from Amara’s point of view at the party. She’s laughing, but it’s nervous, not joyful. The camera swings toward a group in the corner — and there I am again, phone up, filming.
But this time, the shot holds long enough for me to see something else in the reflection of a broken mirror behind me: a hooded figure, standing inches away from me, their hand on my shoulder.
We sit in silence. Even Ash doesn’t joke.
“That’s not editing,” Noah says quietly. “That’s… real.”
Siya’s voice is flat. “Which means you were there.”
I want to deny it again. I want to cling to the blank space in my memory. But the footage is a punch to the chest.
“I don’t remember,” I say. “I swear.”
Noah doesn’t look away. “Then maybe they don’t want you to.”
At 9:14 p.m., another post goes live from algorithmknows. It’s a grid collage: my face, the bridge, the mill, Amara. Overlaid text:
Day 2. She’s next.
The caption is a single link. The same one from the original DM.
We argue for an hour about clicking it. Siya says no — too risky. Ash says yes — “how else do we end this?” Noah says we need a secure browser.
In the end, we set it up on Noah’s old laptop, stripped of any personal logins.
The link loads a countdown page — same 72-hour timer from the USB, now at 38 hours. Below it: a list of usernames.
Every single one belongs to someone in our school.
And mine is at the top.
Part 7: The Deleted Stream
The list of usernames sits on the screen like a roll call for judgment day.
Mine at the top. Then Noah’s, Siya’s, Ash’s… and twenty more. People from class. People I barely talk to. People who’ve been reposting the viral clips like they’re the latest dance trend.
“What is this?” Siya asks, voice thin.
“A hit list,” Ash says. “Except instead of bullets, it’s followers.”
Noah’s already typing. “These usernames… I think they’re connected to the link’s backend. Whoever’s running this, they’re tracking everyone who’s watched the videos.”
“And?” I push.
“And maybe they’re ranking us by relevance,” he says. “Or guilt.”
The word lands heavy. I look at the screen again, my name glowing at the top.
We’re still staring when Amara’s phone — the one we found at the mill — buzzes in Noah’s hoodie pocket.
He pulls it out, frowning. “It’s a notification from an app that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“What?” Siya leans in.
“Streamer,” he says. “It got shut down last year. Too many harassment cases. People used it for live shows, private streams, whatever.”
The notification says: One new saved stream available.
We glance at each other. Then Noah taps it open.
A grainy video fills the cracked screen. The title bar reads: AMA_12 — private broadcast — February 14, 11:03 PM.
The camera’s pointed at Amara’s face. She’s sitting on the mill’s stage under those fairy lights, makeup smudged, voice shaky.
“I don’t know how much longer I can do this,” she says. “They think it’s a joke. They think I’m just—” She cuts herself off, biting her lip.
There’s noise in the background — laughter, the muffled bass of party music. She glances off-camera, then back.
“I tried to leave earlier. They blocked the door.”
A text comment scrolls across the screen from a viewer: stay, you’re fine lol.
Another: don’t be dramatic.
Then: where’s the bridge scene you promised?
Amara’s eyes flicker — hurt, panic, something else. “You’ll get your bridge,” she says quietly.
The camera jerks as someone sits next to her. The frame catches part of their shoulder — red flannel. My stomach drops.
“Smile,” a voice says off-camera. It’s not mine. It’s lower, male, familiar in a way that makes my skin crawl.
Amara forces a smile. The comments scroll faster now: cute, kiss, push her off jk.
Then the screen shakes again — and for a split second, the camera angle tilts enough to catch my face in the reflection of the broken mirror behind the stage.
Me. Standing near the back of the room, phone in hand, frozen. Watching.
The stream cuts to black without warning. Playback error. Noah curses under his breath, tapping the screen. “That’s it. It’s incomplete.”
“It’s enough,” Siya says, pale. “She was trapped there. People were egging it on. And you…” She stops, swallowing whatever she was about to say.
“I didn’t do anything,” I say quickly. Too quickly.
Ash mutters, “Maybe that’s the problem.”
No one talks for a while. The air in Noah’s room feels thick.
Finally, Noah says, “The file’s timestamp puts it twenty minutes before the earliest post about her going missing. If we can get the rest of it—”
“How?” Siya interrupts.
“Streamer stored backups on a separate server,” Noah says. “If the account ID still exists, I can try to request the archive. But it’ll take hours.”
We leave the laptop grinding away at some code Noah swears will help, and sit in tense silence. Notifications keep pinging my phone. People tagging me in the latest algorithmknows post: a slowed-down clip of me on the bridge, captioned in bold white text:
She stood by and watched.
By midnight, Noah’s script pings. Archive file retrieved. It’s huge — hours of footage. We skip through until we find the cut-off point.
The stream picks back up with Amara standing, camera in hand now, walking toward the mill’s side exit. Someone’s blocking it — hood up, face turned away.
“Move,” she says.
No response.
The comments scroll: lmao scripted, push him, bridge bridge bridge.
She turns and heads for the other exit. The camera swings past me — still in that same spot, still frozen.
Then the feed jumps — a blur of night sky and movement. We’re outside now. The pedestrian bridge looms ahead. The camera’s shaking like she’s running. Footsteps pound behind her.
Halfway across, she stops, turning to face whoever’s following. The hooded figure steps into frame. The camera drops slightly, catching only their lower half — and a gloved hand reaching out.
The last thing we hear is Amara’s voice: “Is this enough for you?”
The stream ends there.
Siya’s whisper is almost lost in the hum of the laptop fan. “We know who it is.”
I blink. “What?”
She points to the gloves. “Those are cricket gloves. School team issue. Only a few people have them.”
Noah’s eyes narrow. “And one of them… is in our year.”
I think about the voice on the stream, the shadow in the reflection behind me, the blurred face in the shop window. It clicks, all at once.
And the person my brain lands on is someone I’ve seen every day for years. Someone who’s been reposting the viral clips with laughing emojis.
Someone who knows exactly how to spin a story for maximum attention.
Before we can even say the name, my phone buzzes again. DM from Me.
It’s a screenshot of the stream we just watched — Amara on the bridge, the hooded figure in front of her.
Caption: 38 hours.
Part 8: Breaking Point
Thirty-eight hours.
It sits there in the DM like a dare, like they’re breathing in my ear.
I shove my phone into my hoodie pocket before the others can see my hands shaking. But Noah catches it anyway. “What now?”
“Just the timer again,” I lie. The truth tastes like static on my tongue.
Siya’s pacing the length of the room, chewing the inside of her cheek. “We have less than two days before… whatever this is drops. We have the mill, the bridge, the stream, the list. What are we missing?”
“The why,” Ash says. “Why us, why now, why like this.”
The obvious answer sits in my chest, heavy and cold: because it works. Because people are eating it up. Algorithmknows isn’t just scaring us — it’s feeding the internet’s hunger. Every clip, every post is bait, and the comments are a swarm of likes, shares, hot takes.
Noah opens the user list again. “If the countdown ends with a big ‘expose,’ these people are the audience. But why are we ranked?”
“Most engagement?” Ash guesses. “Top tier in the drama.”
“Or top tier in the crime,” Siya mutters.
That night, I dream about the bridge again.
Except this time, it’s empty.
No hooded figure, no Amara — just me, walking toward the middle. My feet feel like they’re glued to the ground. The closer I get, the louder the sound of… cheering? It’s echoing, tinny, like coming from a phone speaker.
When I wake, my throat is dry and my hands are clenched so tight my nails leave half-moon marks in my palms.
At school, everything feels off. People are watching me longer than they should, conversations stopping when I walk past. At lunch, someone’s projected a algorithmknows post on the cafeteria TV — one of those “student talent” takeovers — like it’s a meme. The clip is a loop of me turning toward the camera at the party. Over it, they’ve layered that sped-up “it girl” audio that’s everywhere right now.
Half the room is laughing. The other half is just staring.
Noah drags me out before I throw my tray at someone.
We meet in the library, even though it feels like a trap now. Noah’s laptop is open to a folder he won’t let us see yet.
“I’ve been running audio analysis on the stream,” he says. “Background voices, ambient noise. There’s something under the music at the party.”
He plays a cleaned-up clip. The bass is gone, leaving muffled chatter — and one voice, clearer now:
“Get her to the bridge.”
It’s male, but low, careful.
“That’s him,” Siya says instantly. “That’s the same tone from the stream.”
I feel my stomach drop. “I know that voice.”
Memory doesn’t return to me like a movie. It’s more like a file unzipping in my brain, half-corrupted, glitching.
I’m in the mill, leaning against the wall. My phone is in my hand, but I’m not filming — I’m watching someone else’s screen. There’s Amara, framed under the fairy lights, a comment flood scrolling. Someone next to me — the voice — says, “You’ll want to see the bridge part.”
I turn. Hood up, gloves on. A smirk I can’t see but somehow know is there.
Then… static.
I grip the edge of the table until my knuckles go white. “It was…” I say the name. It feels wrong in my mouth. Wrong because it’s someone we know, someone who’s been in our orbit since forever.
Ash curses softly. “That explains the cricket gloves.”
“And the edit skills,” Noah adds.
Siya’s eyes are hard. “We need proof. Not just your memory.”
We decide on a plan: we watch his socials, his hangouts, everything for the next 24 hours. If he slips, we catch it. If he tries to move early, we’re there.
It feels like playing detective in a school where the suspect is always in the next hallway.
At 5:37 p.m., it happens.
A new algorithmknows Story goes live — shaky phone footage of the mill, timestamped fifteen minutes ago. Caption: The bridge awaits.
Noah is already grabbing his backpack. “If we get there now—”
“We’re walking into whatever he wants us to walk into,” Siya warns.
Ash grins without humor. “Yeah, and maybe we can shove it back at him.”
We get to the bridge just as the sun is dipping low, turning everything gold and sharp. It’s empty. No figure, no bag, no note.
Until I see it — taped to the railing in the same clear packing tape: a small black key fob.
Noah picks it up, turning it over. “RFID tag. Like for a door scanner.”
“Where does it open?” Siya asks.
A ping hits my phone before we can guess. DM from Me:
You’re running out of time.
Attached is a map screenshot. The drop pin is on the old gym building — the one the school closed last year after the roof leaked.
We shouldn’t go. Every cell in my body knows we shouldn’t go.
We go anyway.
The gym smells like mold and old sweat. Dusty sunlight filters through cracked windows. In the middle of the floor, where the basketball court used to be, there’s a projector set up, pointed at the far wall.
Noah slots the key fob into a small reader next to it. The projector whirs to life.
A countdown fills the wall: 26:14:39. Underneath, a progress bar marked Uploads.
Video thumbnails begin to populate the screen — every clip we’ve seen, every angle, every damning second. At the bottom: one file we’ve never seen.
It’s labeled: Rhea_confession.mov.
I step closer. The thumbnail is me, sitting on the bridge, looking straight at the camera. My mouth is open mid-sentence.
“I’ve never—” I start to say.
The screen glitches.
“Don’t play it,” Siya says sharply.
But I already know — if he’s got a fake confession, that’s the drop. That’s what’s going to blow up in 26 hours.
And if we don’t stop it, the internet’s going to believe every frame.
Part 9: Going Live
The fake confession thumbnail is a time bomb.
If it plays, it’ll bury me under a landslide of comments, think pieces, and “tea” channels that don’t care about truth.
Noah’s already moving toward the projector controls. “We pull the plug. Kill the upload.”
“It’s not that simple,” I say, my eyes locked on the progress bar. It’s sitting at 14%, a steady, smug crawl. “Even if we stop this one, they’ll have backups. This is about control — and right now, they have it.”
Siya folds her arms. “So what? We just… let them post it?”
“No,” I say. My voice surprises me — it’s steadier than I feel. “We go louder. We hijack their audience before the drop.”
Noah blinks. “You mean… go live?”
“Yes. My account, my face, my voice. If they’re going to post a fake confession, I’ll post a real one first — about everything. Amara, the mill, the bridge, the list.”
Ash lets out a low whistle. “That’s risky. You’ll be feeding the exact clout machine they want.”
“Or starving it,” I counter. “If I tell the story before they can twist it, they lose their hook.”
We argue for twenty minutes — about timing, about safety, about whether I’m about to socially nuke myself. But in the end, it’s the only move that feels like action instead of running.
Noah starts setting up the stream on my phone with a VPN and layered logins. “We’ll route it through three servers,” he says. “If they try to cut you off, it’ll stay live.”
Siya’s already scribbling bullet points. “Keep it tight. People have short attention spans.”
Ash just grins. “I’ll moderate comments. Delete the worst, pin the good ones.”
We go live at 8:03 p.m. The number in the corner jumps faster than I expect — 37 viewers, then 102, then 400. Notifications ping in the background.
“Hi,” I start, my voice a little shaky. “If you’ve been watching the algorithmknows videos, you’ve seen my face. You’ve seen edits that make me look like I was part of something… awful.”
I tell them about the DMs. About the party video. About the bridge. About finding Amara’s phone and the stream where she said she couldn’t leave.
“I was there,” I admit, and the chat explodes. “But not the way you think. I froze. I didn’t stop it. And I’ve been carrying that since the night she disappeared.”
Noah gives me a tiny nod — keep going.
“I know who’s running the account,” I say. “I know why they’re doing it. And I know they’re planning to drop something in less than 24 hours that’s designed to ruin me. But here’s the thing — the truth’s already out. You can’t ruin someone who’s stopped hiding.”
The viewer count hits 2,000.
And then the stream glitches.
The screen goes black for half a second before a new feed overlays mine — a shaky phone camera, live. The pedestrian bridge at night.
A hooded figure steps into frame.
The chat goes nuclear.
IS THIS SCRIPTED?
OMFG THE BRIDGE
WHO IS THAT??
The figure walks to the middle of the bridge and stops. Then they turn — and the camera swings to show a second person on the bridge.
It’s me.
Or… someone who looks exactly like me. Red flannel, same hair, same stance.
My throat goes dry. “That’s not me,” I say into the mic, but the comment flood drowns it out.
Noah’s fingers are flying over the keyboard, trying to trace the feed. “They’ve spliced in a live stream from another account. I can’t cut it without killing yours.”
Siya’s gripping the edge of the table. “They planned this. They’re using a double to make it look like you’re there now.”
The hooded figure pulls something from their pocket — a phone — and holds it toward the double. The camera zooms in just enough to catch the screen. It’s playing my live stream.
The double looks straight into the lens and says, “You can’t run from yourself.”
The bridge feed cuts. My face fills the screen again, but the chat is chaos now, half calling it proof, half calling it fake.
I push on. “That wasn’t me. You just saw the kind of editing they can do. That’s the point — they can make anyone look like anything. And they’ve been doing it to me, to Noah, to Siya, to Ash. To Amara.”
The viewer count dips, then spikes again — 3,400 now. People screen-recording, reposting in real time.
Noah mouths, Wrap it up.
I finish with, “The truth matters. And if you’ve ever been part of making someone’s pain into your entertainment — stop. Log off. Let them breathe.”
I end the stream.
The silence after is deafening.
Siya exhales hard. “That could either save you or sink you.”
Ash’s phone pings. “Uh… we’ve got company.”
We look outside Noah’s window. Down on the street, leaning against a streetlight, is the hooded figure. They’re holding up their phone, the screen glowing bright enough for us to see the countdown: 23:02:17.
We kill the lights and crouch away from the window. Noah’s voice is a whisper. “They know where we are.”
Siya’s hand is already on her bag. “We move. Now.”
Ash grins like this is the best part of the game. “Where to?”
“The only place they’ve been scared to post from,” I say. “The mill. If we’re going to end this, we do it where it started.”
Part 10: The Face Behind the Screen
We reach the mill just after midnight.
No cars, no streetlights — just the faint hum of the city far away and the sound of our footsteps on cracked asphalt.
The fence gap we used before yawns like a dare. We slip through, one by one, the smell of mildew hitting instantly. Inside, the fairy lights on the stage flicker faintly — someone’s been here, recently enough to plug them in.
“This is it,” Noah whispers. “Last level.”
Siya’s got her phone out, camera rolling. Ash cracks his knuckles. “Let’s end the boss fight.”
We move toward the stage, and that’s when the projector clicks on by itself.
A white beam slices the dark, landing on the peeling wall.
The countdown’s there — 01:13:29. Underneath, the word LIVE.
A feed appears: the four of us walking into the mill, shot from above. I glance up — there’s a camera bolted to a beam, a red light blinking.
“They’re watching us in real time,” Noah mutters.
The hooded figure steps into the projector light.
They’re closer than they’ve ever been in any clip, taller than I remember from the bridge videos. They stop center stage, pulling something from their pocket — a remote.
A click, and the live feed splits into four panels:
- Me at the party.
- Noah at his computer.
- Siya in the library.
- Ash on the bridge.
All of it taken without us knowing.
“Show your face,” I say, my voice louder than I expect.
They tilt their head, almost amused, then reach up and push the hood back.
It’s Kiran.
Captain of the cricket team. Meme king of our year. The guy everyone likes because he’s funny online.
Siya swears under her breath. Ash’s jaw tightens.
“You,” I say, disbelief sharp in my throat. “Why?”
Kiran shrugs, casual. “Because you all needed a story. Amara’s… disappearance? People forgot. I made them remember. And I made it watchable.”
“You humiliated her,” I snap.
“I gave her audience,” he says, like it’s noble. “She wanted views — I gave her more than she could dream of. But you… you were perfect. Frozen on the sidelines, too scared to act. That’s content gold.”
Noah steps forward. “You’ve been hacking accounts, deepfaking, editing—”
“Storytelling,” Kiran cuts in. “And now? The final drop. You confess, you cry, the views go insane. I get my followers. And Amara gets her ending.”
“She’s dead,” Siya says coldly.
“Because she quit too soon,” Kiran says, like it’s an inconvenience.
The countdown ticks: 01:12:04.
“You can’t post without the file,” Noah says, bluffing.
Kiran smirks. “Already uploaded. The mill Wi-Fi’s crap, but I’ve been feeding it for weeks. Tonight’s just the publish.”
I force myself to breathe. “Then why are we here?”
“Closure,” he says. “And because I wanted to see your face when the world turns on you.”
I glance at Noah. His eyes flick toward the camera on the beam. A plan forms — risky, but it’s all we’ve got.
I keep Kiran talking. “You were there, that night. You blocked the door.”
He smiles like it’s a compliment. “The bridge was my idea. Perfect drama.”
“You touched her shoulder.”
“Good framing,” he says.
“You didn’t even care what happened after,” I say, stepping closer.
“I cared about the numbers,” he says simply. “And now, I care about mine.”
Noah gives the smallest nod. I move fast — yanking the remote out of Kiran’s hand and tossing it toward Ash, who fumbles but catches it.
Kiran lunges, but Noah’s already grabbed a chunk of broken wood from the floor and swings it into the camera beam, shattering the lens.
The projector feed freezes.
“You just killed your stream,” I say. “And your finale.”
Kiran’s face twists. “Doesn’t matter. It’s queued.”
Siya’s been quietly recording the entire exchange. “Actually,” she says, “it matters. Because we’ve got this — you admitting to all of it.”
Kiran freezes for the first time all night.
Ash is already dialing. “Hey, principal? You’re going to want to hear this. And maybe call the police.”
Kiran laughs once, sharp. “You think they’ll care? The internet’s faster than any of you. By the time they get here—”
“They’ll have this,” Siya cuts in, waving her phone. “And every file from your laptop, which I cloned off the school Wi-Fi weeks ago when you kept logging in to post memes. You’re not as clever as you think.”
The projector dies completely. The mill feels bigger without its light, shadows stretching.
Kiran backs toward the side door, but Noah blocks him. “You’re done,” he says.
For a moment, Kiran looks like he might run anyway. Then he just smirks, the kind of smirk that says he still thinks he’s the main character. “You can’t kill the algorithm,” he says, and lets the door slam behind him.
It takes twenty minutes for the police to arrive. We hand over Siya’s recording, Noah’s trace logs, Ash’s call history. They take Amara’s phone too, promising to pull everything off it.
When we leave the mill, the night air feels strange — lighter, but not clean.
The next morning, algorithmknows is gone. Account deleted. The fake confession never drops.
But the videos are still out there, reposted by strangers, stripped of context.
In the hallway, people still look at me too long. Some smile like they believe me. Some smile like they don’t.
Noah says it’ll fade. Siya says it won’t, but I’ll get stronger. Ash says we should make our own page and drown the internet in better stories.
I walk home past the bridge. In daylight, it’s just concrete and railings again. But when I stop in the middle and look down, I swear I can almost hear the hum of a live stream, faint and far away.
I take a deep breath.
And I keep walking.
THE END
