And the screen went red.
Not the app. His entire vision. The system screen had expanded to fill everything, pulsing with a warning crimson.
**[HEART RATE: ELEVATED]**
**[CORTISOL SPIKE DETECTED]**
**[EMOTIONAL COMPROMISE IN PROGRESS]**
**[I can see what you're thinking. You want to engage. You want to comment. You want them to understand. You want to defend yourself. You want to explain that you're not pathetic, not a loser, not furniture.]**
**[THIS IS WHY YOU ARE WEAK.]**
The words hung in the red haze.
**[You still care what they think. You still need their approval. You still believe that if you can just find the right words, the right explanation, they'll see you differently.]**
**[They won't.]**
**[You are entertainment to them. A story they'll forget by Monday. The more you engage, the more content you create for their amusement.]**
**[Delete it now or I disappear and you can read comments about how pathetic you are forever. Your choice. Four seconds.]**
A countdown appeared: **[4... 3...]**
Alex's thumb hovered over the comment box. Every instinct screamed at him to type something, anything. To not let them have the last word. To exist in their awareness for one more moment.
**[2...]**
He remembered Vanessa's laugh. The genuine surprise in it. Like the idea of him being a romantic prospect was so absurd it caught her off guard.
**[1...]**
He backed out of the story.
Navigated to settings with shaking hands.
Found the option buried three menus deep: "Delete Account."
Instagram asked: *"Are you sure? Your account will be permanently deleted and cannot be recovered."*
Two buttons: "Cancel" or "Delete."
Alex's finger hovered over Cancel. Four years of photos. Memories. Proof he'd existed. That he'd done things. Been places. Had friends who smiled in group photos and—
*Had they been friends? Or had he just been in the background of their lives too?*
He pressed Delete.
The screen asked him to confirm.
He confirmed.
Instagram asked him to enter his password one final time.
He did.
A loading circle appeared. Spun. Spun.
Then: *"Your account has been deleted."*
The app icon faded from his home screen.
The red haze disappeared. Normal vision returned. The apartment looked the same—messy, depressing, sad.
But something felt different.
The system screen reappeared, blue and calm.
**[First deletion complete. Six remain.]**
**[Next: Twitter]**
Alex opened Twitter. 892 followers. He'd never met 890 of them. They followed thousands of accounts. He was a number in their feed, scrolled past in milliseconds.
He'd tweeted 3,247 times.
Scrolled back through his timeline. Bad jokes that got three likes. Retweets of other people's thoughts. Quote tweets adding nothing of value. Political takes he didn't fully understand. Attempts at humor that landed flat.
3,247 tweets.
How many hours had he spent crafting those? Refreshing to see if anyone liked them? Feeling a small dopamine hit when someone did?
He navigated to settings. Found "Deactivate Account." Clicked through the warnings.
Gone.
**[Next: Facebook]**
Facebook loaded slower—too many years of data. His profile picture was from high school, two years out of date. Friend count: 734. He recognized maybe 30 of them.
The feed was a graveyard. Birthday notifications for people he hadn't spoken to in years. Political arguments between relatives. Ads that knew too much about him.
He scrolled through his photos.
Stopped on one.
Him and Marcus. Sophomore year of high school. Both of them skinny, awkward, genuine smiles. They'd stayed up all night playing video games and walked to a diner at 3 AM, delirious and happy. Someone—Marcus's mom maybe—had taken this photo the next morning.
They looked like friends. Real ones.
Alex stared at the photo. At Marcus's arm around his shoulder. At his own smile—completely unguarded, authentic in a way he couldn't remember being recently.
When had that changed?
His throat tightened. This was grief. Not for who Marcus was now, but for who they'd been. For the friend he'd lost somewhere along the way, replaced by someone who'd laugh at his humiliation for social points.
The system said nothing. Let him sit with it.
Alex closed the photo. Navigated to settings. Deactivated the account.
Gone.
**[Next: Snapchat]**
Snapchat was harder. He had streaks. Meaningless, arbitrary numbers he'd maintained religiously. 247-day streak with Marcus. 89 days with a girl from his econ class he'd never actually spoken to in person. 156 days with someone whose name he couldn't remember.
All those days. All that effort. Sending pointless photos just to keep a number going.
For what?
He deleted the app without even opening it.
**[Next: TikTok]**
TikTok: 23 followers. He'd posted four videos, each getting fewer than 50 views. Spent hours watching other people—people with talent, with personality, with something interesting to say.
He'd dreamed of going viral. Of mattering.
Instead he'd just... watched.
Delete.
**[Next: LinkedIn]**
LinkedIn felt different. Professional. Like deleting it meant admitting he'd never amount to anything in business. His profile said "Business Student" with no experience listed, no skills endorsed, no connections that mattered.
It was a monument to potential never actualized.
Delete.
**[Next: Reddit]**
His Reddit account was anonymous. He could keep it. Nobody knew it was him.
The system screen pulsed once.
**[You'll know.]**
Delete.
**[SOCIAL MEDIA PURGE: COMPLETE]**
The system shifted, new text appearing.
**[SECONDARY MISSION: CONTACT PURGE]**
**[Your phone contains 247 contacts. How many of these people would notice if you disappeared? How many would care? How many are anchors pulling you toward your old self?]**
**[You know the answer.]**
**[Delete all except family and emergency services.]**
Alex opened his contacts. The list stretched on. Names he recognized. Names he didn't. Numbers saved from classes, from parties, from "we should hang out sometime" conversations that never materialized.
Marcus Kim was at the top of recent calls.
His thumb hovered over the name. Maybe he should give him a chance to explain. Maybe Marcus had been drunk. Maybe he didn't mean it. Maybe their friendship deserved—
The system interrupted.
**[He laughed while you were humiliated.]**
**[He revealed your insecurities to entertain strangers.]**
**[He chose social approval over your dignity.]**
**[He is not your friend. He is dead weight.]**
**[Delete him or prove you've learned nothing.]**
Alex's jaw clenched. He selected Marcus's contact.
Scrolled to the bottom.
"Delete Contact."
"Are you sure?"
His thumb hovered. Years of friendship. Memories. Inside jokes. Late nights. Genuine moments.
All poisoned now by that laugh.
Delete.
Then Vanessa. Easy. She'd never been in his phone as anything but a fantasy anyway.
Then Damon. Tyler. Jessica. Everyone from the party.
Then "friends" who never reached out first. Who he always had to text. Who left him on read but posted constantly.
Then girls from dating apps. Matches that went nowhere. Conversations that died. Numbers he'd saved hoping they'd text first.
Then people from high school he'd kept out of guilt.
Then classmates he'd never studied with.
Then names he didn't recognize. When had he even saved these? Why?
His thumb moved faster now. Delete. Delete. Delete.
The list shrunk.
100 contacts. 50. 25. 10.
He stopped at four.
Mom. Dad. 911. Pizza Hut.
The pizza place felt pathetic, but at least it was honest.
**[CONTACT PURGE: COMPLETE]**
**[You are now a ghost.]**
**[No social media. No friends. No validation loop. No distraction from yourself.]**
**[How does it feel?]**
Alex sat in the silence of his apartment. His phone screen showed four contacts and a handful of basic apps. Messages. Phone. Settings. Clock.
No notifications.
No buzzing.
No red badges demanding attention.
The silence was physical. Oppressive. The refrigerator hummed in the kitchen. Rain continued pattering against the window. His own breathing seemed too loud.
It was 4:47 AM.
He'd been awake for over twenty-four hours.
And in the quiet, with nothing to distract him, panic crept in.
*What have I done?*
*What if someone needs me?*
*What if I miss something important?*
*What if Marcus tries to apologize and I don't see it?*
*What if Vanessa feels bad and reaches out?*
*What if everyone's talking about me and I don't know?*
*What if—*
The system screen appeared, calm blue cutting through the spiral.
**[BREATHE.]**
The word appeared slowly, deliberately.
**[This is withdrawal. Your brain is addicted to dopamine from notifications. Every buzz was a hit. Every like was a reward. You trained your brain to need external validation the way an addict needs their substance.]**
**[This will pass. But it will get worse before it gets better.]**
**[Over the next 72 hours, you will experience: anxiety, phantom phone vibrations, compulsive checking of empty feeds, fear of missing out, existential dread, and crushing loneliness.]**
**[Sit with the discomfort. This is the first real thing you've felt in years.]**
**[Everything else was distraction. This is truth.]**
Alex's hands were shaking. He pressed them against his thighs. The apartment felt too small suddenly. Too quiet. Too much just him and his thoughts with no escape route.
His mind flooded with everything he'd been avoiding by scrolling.
The humiliation. Vanessa's laugh. Marcus's betrayal. Years of being invisible. His dad's disappointed silences during phone calls. His mom's worried "Are you eating enough?" His mediocre grades. His lack of direction. His soft body. His weak handshake. His inability to maintain eye contact. His—
Tears came.
Not the angry tears from the bridge. Not the desperate tears from the party. These were different. Deeper. The kind that came from a place that had been locked away so long he'd forgotten it existed.
He let them fall.