Rumors spread faster than data packets.
By Monday morning, the entire school was buzzing about the "Invisible Boy." Half the students thought it was a marketing stunt, the other half were convinced Eli was some kind of government test subject.
Nova didn't start the rumor, but she didn't exactly stop it either.
Every time someone brought it up—"Hey, did you hear about the guy who doesn't show up in selfies?"—she just shrugged. If she said too much, people would think she cared. And caring was the quickest way to lose followers.
But deep down, she couldn't stop thinking about it. About him.
Eli Nwoko.
The boy who didn't exist online.
---
At first, she tried to find him on *FameLink*.
No results.
No hidden profiles, no archived tags, no shadow mentions.
It was like typing his name into a search bar connected to a black hole.
Even the system's error message looked confused:
> **No matches found. Did you mean: 'Eli Novak,' 'Elijah N.', or 'Error_####'?**
Nova scrolled, refreshed, scrolled again.
Nothing.
Finally, she sighed and tossed her phone on her bed. "Okay, creepy," she muttered.
Her cat, Pixel, blinked from the dresser.
"Don't look at me like that," she said. "Everyone's online. *Everyone.*"
She checked her own profile to reassure herself—ten new brand tags, two collaboration requests, and a trending clip from her "morning clarity" vlog. Perfectly normal. Perfectly visible.
And yet her visibility stats still hadn't bounced back since Friday.
---
Tuesday, she found Eli sitting in the library—because of course that's where someone like him would be. No drones, no cameras, just silence and dust motes in the sunlight.
Nova hesitated before walking over.
"Still invisible?" she asked, setting down her bag.
Eli glanced up from his notebook, mildly amused. "Guess so. Haven't checked."
She rolled her eyes. "You don't have to check. You *know.* The whole school's talking about you."
He raised an eyebrow. "Funny. No one's talked to me."
That shut her up.
He went back to sketching—another one of those weirdly detailed drawings. She leaned closer and saw what it was: a crowd of people with glowing screens for faces.
"Is that us?" she asked.
"Maybe," he said. "Depends how you look at it."
"You sound like a quote post," she said, half laughing.
"I get that a lot."
He didn't smile, but his tone wasn't unkind.
Nova sat down across from him. "So, I tried searching your name. Nothing came up."
"Yeah," he said. "Told you."
"No, like *nothing*. Even people with private profiles still leave digital footprints—comments, likes, ghost caches. You're just... gone."
Eli leaned back. "Maybe the system decided I wasn't worth remembering."
"That's messed up," she said, frowning. "You realize that, right?"
He shrugged. "Not if you get used to it."
She stared at him. "How can you be used to not existing?"
Eli met her eyes, calm and serious. "Everyone's trying so hard to exist online, they forget to exist *anywhere else.*"
For a moment, Nova didn't have a comeback.
---
When she left the library, her phone pinged.
> **⚠️ Visibility Alert: Interaction with unlisted entity detected. FameScore impact: -0.4%.**
She froze.
The app wasn't supposed to *warn* people—it just quietly adjusted the algorithm in the background. But now it was straight-up telling her: stay away from him.
For the first time, Nova felt something she hadn't felt in years.
Not fear. Not even curiosity.
Rebellion.
She smirked. "Fine, let's see what happens."
---
By Wednesday, the system's reaction got worse.
Her posts started glitching. The likes would appear and vanish. Comments froze mid-thread.
Even her reflection filters—her favorite ones that gave her that perfect glow—stopped working right.
It was like the system didn't *want* her to be seen.
And every time she checked Eli's direction in the halls, her wristlink dimmed slightly, like his presence interfered with her digital shine.
Still, she kept finding reasons to bump into him.
Study hall. Cafeteria. The art room, where he stayed after school cleaning brushes that didn't belong to him.
Sometimes they talked. Sometimes they didn't.
But every time, Nova noticed something new: he seemed *peaceful.* Like being invisible was some kind of freedom.
She hated that it fascinated her.
---
The turning point came Friday morning.
Mr. Harkins, their guidance counselor, called them both into his office.
He was an older man, the kind who wore glasses that actually fogged when he got nervous. His FameScore sat at a respectable 3.2—teachers rarely went higher.
"Sit down, both of you," he said, tapping his screen nervously.
Nova exchanged a glance with Eli.
Harkins cleared his throat. "There's been… an irregularity detected in the school's engagement system. Nova, your FameScore has been flagged for proximity interference. And Eli…" he hesitated, squinting at the empty data field on his tablet, "your record appears to be… blank."
"Blank?" Nova repeated. "Like, wiped?"
"No," the counselor said slowly. "Like it never existed."
Eli leaned back in his chair, unimpressed. "Sounds about right."
Nova's head was spinning. "How can someone *not* exist in the system? That's not supposed to happen."
Mr. Harkins sighed. "It's not supposed to, no. But you two should probably limit your contact until we—"
"No," Nova interrupted. "You can't just act like this is normal. He's—he's being erased!"
Eli looked at her, surprised.
Harkins frowned. "Miss Reyes, no one is being erased. The algorithm simply—"
But before he could finish, the wall screen glitched violently.
For a split second, every light in the office flickered, replaced by a black screen with red text:
> **"You are not supposed to see this."**
The message vanished as quickly as it appeared.
The counselor paled. "System update," he muttered. "Please, both of you, leave your wristlinks with me for diagnostics."
Eli stood. "You're not touching mine."
Nova followed. "Mine either."
They walked out together, the air thick with static.
---
Outside, Nova stopped by the stairwell. "That was creepy."
"Yeah," Eli said. "That happens sometimes."
She turned to him, half laughing in disbelief. "You're telling me random tech exorcisms are *normal* for you?"
He smiled faintly. "You'd be surprised what the system hides."
"Then tell me," she said. "What *is* it hiding?"
He hesitated, eyes on the horizon where the digital skyline shimmered like glass. "You really want to know?"
"Yes."
Eli sighed, slipping his sketchbook into his backpack. "Then meet me after school. The rooftop."
She frowned. "Why the rooftop?"
"It's the only place the cameras can't see."
He walked away, leaving her pulse racing.
---
That evening, Nova climbed the rusted service ladder behind the gym, her heart pounding.
The rooftop was empty except for Eli, sitting near the edge, the city glowing below. He was sketching again—only this time, the drawing wasn't of people.
It was of code.
Lines and symbols woven together into a pattern that looked alive.
"What is that?" she asked softly.
"The system," he said without looking up. "Or at least, what's left of what I can see."
"You can *see* the system?"
Eli looked at her, his eyes reflecting the blue city light. "Everyone can. They just don't realize it's looking back."
Nova shivered. "You're seriously creeping me out right now."
He laughed quietly. "That's fair."
For a while, they just sat there, listening to the hum of the city and the faint drone whine above the clouds.
Finally, she said, "Why me? Why did it start glitching when I filmed you?"
Eli hesitated. "Because the system doesn't like it when people notice me."
"Why?"
He closed the sketchbook. "Because once someone *sees* me… they start seeing everything else it hides."
Nova looked down at the glowing streets below. Ads and feeds and profiles danced in an endless stream of light—millions of people shouting to be seen.
And for the first time, she wondered what silence felt like.
---
The next morning, she woke to chaos.
Her FameScore had dropped to **6.9** overnight.
Comment sections exploded with questions:
> **@mirror_me:** nova u ok??
> **@trendynick:** your posts disappeared wtf
> **@adbrand:** contract paused pending verification
Half her portfolio was *gone*.
The algorithm wasn't just warning her anymore.
It was starting to erase her too.
---