Nova had never felt so small.
The city around her pulsed with static, glitching holograms flickering across building walls like broken thoughts. Everyone's FameScores were shuffling violently, digits sliding up and down in real time as if the entire system had lost control of itself. People screamed, others laughed, some just stared at their vanishing numbers as if watching their identities drain out of them.
But Nova didn't even have a number anymore.
**Her FameScore was zero.**
A blank. An empty space. A void where her life used to be.
It should have felt like dying — she'd always imagined losing her score meant the end of her relevance, her beauty, her worth. But now, standing in the chaos, what scared her wasn't the lost fame.
It was *Eli*.
Where was he? Was he safe? The algorithm had already proven it could target him. What else could it do?
She pushed through the panicking crowd, ignoring the glowing headlines hovering in the air:
**SYSTEM UNSTABLE**
**SCORES RECYCLING**
**REPORT ANY ANOMALIES**
Inside her chest, her heart kept asking one thing: *Would Eli disappear for real?* Not digitally. Not symbolically. But literally — lost the same way the Counselor had been erased.
When she finally spotted him — leaning against a cracked pillar in the plaza he had spoken in earlier — relief hit her so hard her knees almost buckled.
He saw her before she could speak.
"Nova." His voice was quiet, but steady, as if he'd been expecting her. "Your score…"
"Gone," she said breathlessly. "It crashed. Or the system killed it."
He nodded, eyes soft. "I'm sorry."
For some reason, that made her chest ache. "Don't be. I'm the one who—"
But the words tangled in her throat.
How do you confess to someone you used, manipulated, and lied to?
How do you tell the truth to someone the world keeps trying to erase?
Eli stepped closer. "Are you okay?"
"No," she whispered. "And it's not just the score."
She was shaking, but not from fear. From honesty — something she wasn't used to doing unshielded.
"Eli… I need to tell you the truth about how this started."
He frowned gently. "You don't have to—"
"I do."
The words dug their way out of her like splinters.
"When I met you… when I first noticed you… it wasn't curiosity. It wasn't kindness. It wasn't fate." She forced herself to hold his gaze, though it hurt. "I used you."
He blinked, not surprised — but not cold either. Just listening. Always listening.
"I used you because you were different," she said. "Because you had no FameScore. Because… because I thought being around someone like you would make me look interesting. Unique. Like the kind of influencer who 'discovers' hidden gems instead of just chasing trends."
Her voice cracked. "I was losing relevance, Eli. My numbers were slipping. My sponsors were complaining. My agent said I needed a new angle. And then I saw you — this boy the system refused to acknowledge. A perfect mystery. A perfect asset."
He looked away for a moment, jaw tight — not with anger, but with a quiet sadness.
She continued anyway. If she stopped now, she'd never finish.
"So, yeah. I approached you because it made me feel special to be around someone nobody else could see. I liked the attention I got from pretending I saw the world differently. I made you my aesthetic."
Her eyes blurred, and she hated it — she had cried so rarely in her life that the sensation felt foreign. Like a glitch in her own emotional programming.
"But then… somewhere in the middle of faking it, something real happened. You were real." She swallowed hard. "You didn't treat me like a brand. You didn't care about my rankings. You didn't even know half the things people say about me."
He raised an eyebrow. "Should I have Googled you?"
She laughed — a broken, shaky sound. "Maybe. But the point is… you treated me like a person, not a persona. And I didn't realize how much I needed that."
The city around them sparked with static bursts, lights dimming and returning in stuttering waves. People's shouts echoed down the streets, but Eli's attention stayed on her.
"I started out using you," she said quietly, "but I stayed because… you made me feel real. Really real. Like someone worth knowing instead of someone worth following."
Eli's eyes softened, the tension in his shoulders easing a little. "Nova…"
But she wasn't finished.
"I get it if you hate me. I get it if you want nothing to do with me now. But before the system collapses or deletes you or whatever it's planning—" Her breath hitched. "I needed to tell you the truth."
Silence stretched between them — not empty, but full. Heavy. Electric.
Eli didn't speak at first. Instead, he looked around at the chaos — people mourning lost numbers, desperate to recover digital validation. Holograms twitching. Notifications buzzing with errors. The entire city spiraling.
Then he looked back at her.
"You think I didn't know?" he said quietly.
Her breath froze. "What?"
"I knew from the start that you didn't just 'randomly notice me.' People don't notice people like me. The system makes sure of it." He smiled, small and bittersweet. "But you kept talking to me. You kept showing up. Even when your followers didn't like it. Even when your sponsors didn't."
He stepped closer, voice low and warm. "Everyone starts relationships for the wrong reasons sometimes. What matters is where you end up."
Nova stared at him, the weight of his understanding nearly crushing her. "You… forgive me?"
"I don't think forgiveness is the point right now." He touched her arm lightly — grounding her, steadying her. "The point is what we do next."
The city shuddered as a wave of glitching light rippled across the plaza. A giant holographic notice flickered into view above them:
**EMERGENCY SYSTEM REBOOT INITIATED**
**ALL SCORES SUBJECT TO AUTOMATIC REVIEW**
**COMPLIANCE REQUIRED**
People gasped. Some collapsed. Some prayed. The sky lit up like a broken screen.
Nova grabbed Eli's hand without thinking. "They're going to delete you, Eli. For real this time. You're the only anomaly they can't control."
He squeezed her hand gently. "I know."
That terrified her more than anything else tonight.
"You're not scared?" she whispered.
"I am," he admitted. "But I'm more scared of doing nothing."
She shook her head. "No. No, you're not doing anything alone. If the system wants to erase you, it'll have to take me too."
His eyes widened. "Nova, you don't have to—"
"I do." Her voice was fierce, for once not performative. Not rehearsed. Just raw. "For once in my life, I'm not choosing fame. I'm choosing you."
Another glitch wave rippled through the plaza, throwing sparks into the air as the holograms distorted. People screamed as their scores blinked in and out.
Nova leaned in, forehead resting against his. "I don't know how to fix any of this. I don't know how to stop the algorithm. But I know this — I'm not leaving."
A tear slipped down his cheek, surprising both of them.
He whispered, "You make *me* feel real too, Nova."
Her chest clenched. "Even now?"
"Especially now."
The world around them flickered, buildings dimming as if the entire city was holding its breath. Nova could feel everything collapsing — the system, the scores, the illusion of perfection she had lived under for so long.
But for the first time in her life, she didn't care.
She wasn't looking at screens.
She wasn't watching numbers.
She wasn't calculating impressions or optimizing her image.
She was looking at **him** — the boy the system couldn't quantify, couldn't control, couldn't erase.
The boy she had used.
The boy she had hurt.
The boy she had fallen for anyway.
"Whatever happens next," Eli said softly, "we face it together."
And when he said *we*, something warm and dangerous and beautiful broke open inside her.
The lights went out across the entire city.
But in the darkness, for the first time ever, Nova felt seen.
---