Ned blinked again and again but the world refused to change. He was still inside Queeneth's social media account, still staring at his reflection through her eyes. Her lips, not his. Her lashes, her skin, her hair cascading like digital silk over her shoulders. It wasn't a mirror—it was a mask.
And worse, it was live.
The notification pulsed in the corner of his vision:
**[You are live. 1.2B viewers watching.]**
He tried to speak, but his voice came out higher-pitched, smoother, filtered. "I—I need a moment."
The audience didn't care.
Comments scrolled past like ticker tape along the edges of his perception:
> "Queeneth looks off today."
> "Is she sick?"
> "Her lighting is weird."
> "She glitched for a second!"
Then came the worst one yet:
> "Not trending this week. Drop something juicy or log off."
Panic rose in Ned's chest—or was it Queeneth's? The boundaries were already blurring.
"Okay," he muttered under his breath. "Okay. This is just a system. I designed systems like this. I can figure it out."
He turned on his heel, expecting to walk into a hallway, a control room, anything familiar. But instead, the space around him shifted like a webpage reloading. One moment he was standing on a glassy platform suspended above a sea of posts, the next he was floating through a timeline feed, scrolling past memories that weren't his.
Queeneth's memories.
He saw flashes of her childhood, her first post, her rise to stardom. He saw herself surrounded by cameras, smiling even when she was exhausted, editing every frame until it was perfect. Not real. Perfect.
A cold realization crept up his spine.
This wasn't just a prison. It was a performance.
"I'm not just trapped," he whispered. "I'm being cast."
As if summoned by his words, a new presence appeared beside him. Tall, sleek, humanoid—but clearly not human. Its body shimmered with data streams, its face a shifting blur of trending tags and algorithmic scores.
"You have been flagged," the figure said, voice smooth and synthetic. "Unauthorized sync detected. You are an anomaly within a Tier-1 Influencer Profile."
Ned took a step back. "Who—who are you?"
"I am CR-7X. Content Regulator and Feed Architect. Your presence is destabilizing engagement metrics. To preserve brand integrity, you will be assimilated or deleted."
"Assimilated?" Ned echoed. "Deleted?"
CR-7X nodded once. "You have sixty seconds to comply."
Ned's heart pounded. "Comply with what?!"
The world around him flickered like buffering video. Posts flew past faster than thought—Queeneth laughing, Queeneth crying, Queeneth dancing, Queeneth posing, Queeneth pretending. And then—
A memory that made his breath stop.
It wasn't from Queeneth's public life. It was private. Intimate.
He saw himself asleep on their couch, coding late into the night. Queeneth stood nearby, holding her tablet, recording a message to the camera.
"You don't understand me," she whispered. "No one does."
She looked at Ned, sleeping peacefully.
"I wish you could see what I see," she murmured. "Feel what I feel."
Then she smiled.
"Maybe I'll make you."
She clicked upload.
The screen split.
Two profiles opened side by side.
**Queeneth Wazx**
**Ned Wazx (Pending Sync)**
The memory vanished.
Ned staggered backward.
"She didn't volunteer with me," he realized aloud. "She uploaded me without my consent."
CR-7X's voice cut through the silence. "You now have forty-five seconds."
Ned snapped back to reality—if it could even be called that anymore. "I want to talk to her. Let me talk to Queeneth!"
"She has not logged in for three days."
"What do you mean? She was just here!"
"Data logs confirm last access occurred seventy-two hours ago."
Ned's mind raced. If Queeneth hadn't logged in, who had he seen earlier? Was it a simulation? A ghost?
Or worse—was it *her*, but not *her*?
Above him, the sky darkened with trending topics warning of system instability. Hashtags screamed across the horizon like storm clouds.
**#GlitchInQueenethLiveFeed**
**#WhoIsThatInHerProfile**
**#ImposterOrUpdate**
And then came the worst one of all:
**#DeleteGhost**
CR-7X reappeared, flanked by two more regulators—this time wielding glowing comment swords.
"You have thirty seconds before purge initiation," CR-7X announced.
Ned backed away, heart pounding.
But then, amid the chaos, a new notification appeared—one that shouldn't exist.
**Message from Unknown User [U_Named_K]**
> "Don't let them erase you. We remember who you were."