The Girl Who Wished for More Followers

Once, in a world so wired even the trees had usernames, there lived a girl named Cass.

Cass was ordinary in the way that made her ache: medium face, medium life, medium dreams. But inside her pulsed a desperate, glittering hunger - more. More eyes, more hearts, more tiny red notifications blooming like poppies on her screen.

She tried everything: makeup tutorials, prank videos, tearful confessions, staged generosity, even a brief foray into micro-dog breeding. But still, the numbers trickled instead of surged.

Then, one night, an ad slid into her feed.

🌑 Want to be SEEN? Trade your shadow for the spotlight. Apply now @MirrorHaus. 🌑

Cass clicked.

At the agency’s tower of glass and chrome, with no reflection, a woman in a sleek suit greeted her with a smile that never reached her eyes.

“It’s simple,” the woman said, tracing a finger along Cass’s faint outline on the floor. “We take your shadow, the last part of you that’s still yours. In exchange, you get eternal virality. Instant audience. You’ll trend forever.”

Cass barely hesitated.

The contract shimmered, written in terms & conditions nobody ever read. When the pen touched the line, Cass felt a faint rippling at her heels. Her shadow lifted like smoke, folded itself neatly, and vanished into the agency’s pocket.

The change was immediate.

Her face exploded across screens: live streams, duets, reaction clips, holograms in malls, AR filters on children’s faces. She danced in Times Square projections. She wept into ocean billboards. She smiled through cereal commercials, late-night talk shows, diplomatic addresses. The planet couldn’t look away.

She didn’t have to post anymore because she was the post. Cameras followed her from every angle. She became not a person but a feed.

At first, Cass was drunk on it. The adoration, the comments, the endless flood of attention. She no longer waited for likes; they arrived before she even breathed.

But soon, the edges frayed.

She couldn’t sleep as the stream saw her. She couldn’t cry because the stream replayed it. She couldn’t hide because she had no shadow to slip behind, no corner to vanish into. There was no off button.

Years passed. Tech advanced. Population boomed. Cass remained, unchanged and unchanging, eternally viral.

And then, one day, during a sponsored “relatable snack break,” she popped an almond into her mouth and choked.

For one long, bright second, the entire Earth watched: her wide eyes, her grasping hands, the slow, stumbling fall.

The feed flared. Comments poured in:

💔 nooo queen

😭 omg rip

🔥 iconic exit

🐿️ #AlmondChallenge trending

She trended for exactly three minutes.

And then the world scrolled on.

Cass’s body was whisked away by technicians. Her face became a memorial sticker. Somewhere in MirrorHaus’s servers, her shadow, thin, weary, pixelated from overuse curled quietly into a corner, the last part of her anyone might have loved.