The internet noticed.
It always did.
Not the kiss itself—there was no footage, no livestream—but the aftershock. Platforms glitched. Feeds refreshed without reason. Trending lists scrambled like they were trying to remember something they weren't allowed to forget.
Something was wrong with the algorithm.
Lena's name reappeared.
Not in outrage.
In curiosity.
"Why did my feed just change?""Did anyone else see that?""Something's happening."
Asher watched numbers move that weren't supposed to.
Engagement spikes in the wrong places. Small creators suddenly visible. Old scandals losing traction.
"They broke a rule," he said quietly.
"Who?" Lena asked.
"We did."
Across the unseen infrastructure of Hell, the Board was scrambling.
They had always controlled attention by shaping emotion—fear, desire, outrage. But love? Love was unstable. Viral in a way no algorithm could predict.
"People are choosing," Lena said.
"Without being told how," Asher replied.
The red interfaces flickered wildly.
INFLUENCE DILUTION DETECTEDCONTAINMENT FAILING
The Board tried to push.
New scandals. New outrage. Fresh distractions.
But something had shifted.
People were unsubscribing.
Not just from creators—but from cruelty.
"Look," Lena whispered, watching a live graph collapse. "They're not feeding it."
Asher stared in awe.
"Hell is starving."
For the first time since it was built, the machine that thrived on attention was being ignored.
And nothing terrified it more than that.