The browser shimmered into focus, and there it was: a familiar red play button staring at me from the middle of a thumbnail.
"YouTube," I muttered. "I should've known."
Before I could blink twice, the hand slammed me down.
Click.
The video roared to life.
A fluffy golden retriever puppy appeared on-screen, stumbling around with a sock in its mouth. The comments below gushed with hearts and emojis.
I softened despite myself. "Okay… that's actually adorable."
But then the nightmare began.
Skip Ad?
No.
Of course not.
The human just sat there, letting the thirty-second ad play in full.
I screamed in agony as a voice boomed across the screen: "Try our NEW premium shampoo, now with 4X aloe!" A giant bottle danced awkwardly while ukulele music chirped in the background.
"Please! For the love of sanity, just skip it!" I begged, thrashing against the hand.
But the human didn't move. Not a single pixel.
When the video finally resumed, I sighed with relief—only for the human to scroll down into the comments section.
"Oh no," I whispered. "Not here. Not the toxic swamp."
The top comment read: "This dog is cuter than my ex lol."
The second: "First!!!"
The third: a wall of emojis so long it stretched down the page.
I covered my eyes. "My brain cells… they're dying…"
Then the human clicked another video.
This time, a cat fell into a bathtub. Cute, right? Except the title screamed, "TRY NOT TO LAUGH CHALLENGE!!!" in bold capital letters with sixteen exclamation points.
I groaned. "Oh no. It's bait. Pure, uncut bait."
Before I could escape, autoplay yanked me into another video. And another. And another.
A hamster eating carrots.
A raccoon stealing food.
A goat screaming at a child.
At first, it was fun. Even I laughed. But the videos kept coming. Faster. Louder. Stranger. The thumbnails got more cursed. Titles devolved into chaos:
"TOP 10 CATS THAT COULD DESTROY THE ECONOMY (YOU WON'T BELIEVE #7)."
"MAN EATS 100 CHICKEN NUGGETS WHILE CRYING."
"REAL GHOST CAUGHT ON CAMERA???"
My glowing body twitched uncontrollably. "This… this is endless! A labyrinth with no exit! The autoplay spiral!"
I tried to resist, but the hand dragged me deeper, chasing recommended videos like a moth to a flame. Somewhere along the way, the cute videos blurred into enraging ones—shouting thumbnails, prank channels, conspiracy rants.
I was trapped. A prisoner of the Tube.
And just when I thought it couldn't get worse—
Click.
The human opened the comments again.
I howled. "Noooooo!"