Nova Reyes used to wake up to the sound of notifications.
Pings, hearts, reposts, trending tags — the digital applause of a world that never slept.
Now, her mornings were silent.
It had been three days since *the experiment*. Three days since she'd filmed Eli on that old camcorder — and since then, her FameScore had been dropping like a broken elevator.
From 8.1 to 7.3.
Then to 6.9.
At first, she'd brushed it off. Algorithm glitches happened all the time. But then she noticed the comments:
> *"Is Nova Reyes losing it?"*
> *"Her project's fake."*
> *"She's protecting that ghost kid."*
And worse:
> *"Unfollow."*
Each one hit harder than she wanted to admit. It was one thing to lose followers — another to lose *faith*.
---
At school, she tried to act normal. Tried to smile in the hallways, to laugh with people who used to orbit her like moons around a star. But she could feel it — the distance.
Even the air seemed heavier now, charged with invisible judgment.
She found Eli by the vending machines during lunch, head down, sketching on the corner of a napkin. He'd always liked to draw quietly when people weren't looking — shapes, buildings, random doodles that somehow looked like they were hiding stories.
"You've been avoiding me," Nova said.
He didn't look up. "You've been trending for the wrong reasons."
She sighed, leaning against the wall. "I had to say something. People started asking where you came from. Why you don't show up in their feeds. Why you don't have a Score."
Eli smirked faintly. "So you lied."
"I *protected* you."
He finally looked at her, eyes sharp but not angry. "And what did you tell them?"
"That you're an art performance," Nova said quickly. "My piece. The idea is that you're the embodiment of *offline existence.* You're supposed to be invisible. Mysterious."
He blinked, slowly. "So I'm… a metaphor now?"
Nova folded her arms. "It's better than being a glitch people can't explain."
---
They walked through the courtyard as a few students watched from afar, whispering.
She could feel their eyes on her — curious, suspicious, waiting for her to break character.
One girl even recorded a clip, pointing her phone at Nova and Eli as she whispered,
> "It's the viral ghost boy. Look, she's pretending he's real."
Nova forced a smile, grabbed Eli's arm, and pulled him closer.
"Smile," she muttered under her breath. "If we act like we don't care, they'll get bored."
Eli smiled awkwardly, like someone trying to imitate human emotion.
"You're terrifying when you go PR mode," he said softly.
"Survival instinct," she shot back.
---
By the end of the day, the whispers hadn't stopped — but the narrative had changed.
> *"It's all performance art."*
> *"She's testing the boundaries of digital fame."*
> *"Honestly kind of genius."*
The lie was working.
Mostly.
That night, Nova opened her feed and posted a photo — her hand holding the old camcorder, captioned:
> *The art of being unseen.*
Within minutes, the comments flooded in:
❤️ *"This is so meta."*
🔥 *"Reyes never misses."*
👀 *"When's the reveal?"*
Her FameScore ticked up — 6.9 to 7.1.
Not much, but enough to breathe again.
Eli, sitting beside her on the rooftop, watched her screen light up her face. "So that's it?" he asked. "You lie, they love you. You tell the truth, they disappear."
Nova's smile faded. "That's how it works. Honesty doesn't trend."
---
For a moment, neither spoke. The city buzzed below — drones humming, billboards pulsing with neon slogans. *#DreamItLiveIt #StayOnline.*
Eli leaned back against the concrete. "What happens when they find out it's not a performance?"
"They won't," Nova said quietly. "Not if we keep control of the story."
"Control," he echoed, like he was testing the word. "That's funny, coming from someone who's losing followers for telling the truth."
She winced. "You don't get it. The system feeds on narrative. I give them one they can swallow."
He looked at her then — not angry, but disappointed in a way that felt worse.
"You're starting to sound like them."
---
Later, as she walked home, her phone buzzed again. A notification from the FameNet system:
> ⚠️ **Engagement Integrity Warning**
> Your recent content has been flagged for "Authenticity Inconsistency."
> Please review your creative claims to maintain platform trust.
Nova stopped in the middle of the street. The glow of the screen reflected on her face, cold and blue.
The algorithm didn't just measure numbers — it measured truth. Or at least, *its* version of it.
She wanted to throw her phone. Instead, she typed a new caption draft — one she'd never post:
> *Lying to survive in a system built on lies isn't dishonesty. It's strategy.*
---
By the time she reached her building, she saw something that made her freeze.
On her door — taped with precision — was a printed photo.
It was a still image, grainy and dark, taken from a distance.
Her. Eli.
Behind the school greenhouse.
The same place they'd tested the camcorder.
Scrawled under it in red ink were five words:
**"He shouldn't exist in frame."**
Nova's stomach dropped. She looked around, scanning the hallway. Empty.
She tore the photo down and hurried inside, locking the door twice.
---
She called Eli immediately.
He picked up on the second ring, his voice low. "Nova?"
"Someone knows," she whispered. "They've been watching us."
A pause. Then, calmly, "Describe the photo."
She did.
When she finished, Eli exhaled. "Then it's starting."
"What's starting?"
"The backlash," he said. "Every system has a way of correcting what doesn't belong. Maybe this one does too."
Nova shook her head, pacing. "No. This is someone human. Someone trying to mess with us."
"Maybe," he said. "But either way — they're paying attention."
---
After the call, Nova sat on her bed, staring at her phone screen.
Her FameScore had dipped again: 6.9. Then 6.7. Then 6.5.
Each number blinked like a countdown.
She opened the FameNet feed one last time — and noticed a new trend tag rising fast:
> **#LiesForLikes**
She tapped it.
Hundreds of posts appeared. People mocking her "performance."
Clips of her talking to "thin air."
Memes calling her *"The Girl Who Made Up a Boy."*
It was spreading fast. Too fast.
She scrolled until she reached a clip that made her hands go cold.
It was the same greenhouse footage — *but this version was empty.*
No Eli.
Just Nova, standing alone, talking to no one.
The comments below were brutal:
> *"She needs help."*
> *"This is sad."*
> *"All for attention smh."*
Nova's heart pounded. She checked the original clip on her camcorder — Eli was there, clear as ever. But online… he wasn't.
It was like the system itself was rewriting the truth.
---
That night, she deleted every new post, set her profile to private, and threw her phone across the bed.
The FameScore notification still hovered in her mind: *Authenticity Inconsistency.*
She whispered to herself, almost like a prayer, "I lied to protect him. Isn't that supposed to count for something?"
But the world didn't answer.
Outside, the city lights pulsed in silence — algorithms humming, feeds refreshing, truth bending itself into whatever people wanted to believe.
And for the first time, Nova realized that maybe honesty wasn't the price you paid for fame.
Maybe it was the *target* painted on your back once you stopped pretending.