Courtney stared at her phone like it had betrayed her.
1,000 likes.
Again.
She had lost count of how many times her posts had hit that number in the past few months.
Each time, her chest had tightened, her stomach had dropped, but nothing had happened.
Nothing.
She looked at Christopher, who was sitting across from her, fingers tapping nervously on the laptop. He avoided her eyes.
"So… what does that mean?" Courtney asked quietly, the question barely making it past her throat. "I hit a thousand likes last week.
And the week before that. And nothing happened." She hesitated, then added, softer, almost afraid of the answer. "Why me?"
Christopher finally looked at her. His dark eyes were heavy, rimmed with exhaustion, like he hadn't slept in days. "I don't know."
"Don't know?" Courtney's voice rose despite herself. "You don't know?" She stood abruptly, pacing the small space. "You've been studying this.
Analyzing patterns.
Creating spreadsheets like this is some kind of exam you can pass if you try hard enough. And you don't know?"
Jenna watched the exchange from the corner of the room, heart pounding.
'This is the part that never shows up in case studies,' she thought. 'The survivor. The exception.'
In every phenomenon she'd studied, there were always outliers... people who broke the rules, who didn't fit the pattern until it was too late. And those were always the most dangerous cases.
Christopher ran a hand through his hair. "Patterns don't always explain intent," he said quietly. "And whatever this is… it doesn't behave like data. It adapts."
Jenna swallowed. 'Adaptation means awareness,' she thought. 'And awareness means choice.' The idea made her skin prickle.
Courtney stopped pacing, her hands clenched into fists. "So I'm just… what? Lucky?"
"No," Jenna said before Christopher could answer. Her voice surprised even herself, steady, but edged with fear. "You're noticeable.
And in paranormal theory, anomalies draw attention. They always do."
Courtney looked at her. "That's not comforting."
"I know," Jenna said softly. 'I wish I were wrong.' "But if something is watching patterns, the one who doesn't break when they're supposed to becomes… interesting."
The room went quiet.
Courtney's chest tightened. 'Interesting to what?'
Christopher exhaled slowly. "You're not safe because nothing happened," he said. "You're unsafe because something chose to wait."
Jenna felt a cold settle in her stomach. 'Waiting is worse than acting,' she thought. 'It means this isn't finished. It's just patient.'
Courtney sank back onto the couch, fear flickering across her face as the truth settled in.
She hadn't been spared.
She had been spared for now.
Christopher leaned back, rubbing his face. "I don't know.
That's exactly it. Tyler hit a thousand likes on his last post and died.
Mia, almost the same. Aaron's numbers spike sometimes, but he avoids virality. And you… Courtney, you've hit the threshold multiple times, and nothing. I don't understand it either."
Courtney's mind spun. "Maybe… maybe it's the type of post. Maybe it's content-specific. Tyler's last post was live. Mia's was a video. Mine… were just vlogs, staged, predictable."
Christopher shook his head. "That doesn't make sense. There's no pattern in content. Tyler's was a prank, Mia's was a beauty tutorial gone wrong, Aaron's almost died once when his live hit a high count. The… the only thing that's consistent is the number itself."
Courtney pressed her lips together, thinking. "So… it's random? Maybe I just got lucky?"
"Luck doesn't usually have a body count." Christopher's voice was low, deadly serious.
There was a long silence. Courtney's eyes drifted to her latest post. 1,002 likes. A small smile flickered across her face, but it didn't reach her eyes.
"I've been thinking," she said slowly, "maybe it's not about the first thousand likes. Maybe… maybe it's the last like. The one that tips the scale.
Maybe I've been hovering, posting at odd hours, spreading engagement over time. That's why nothing's happened… yet."
Christopher's fingers paused on the keyboard. "So you're saying… you've been immune so far because you haven't… triggered it properly?"
Courtney nodded. "Maybe. But how do we know if I ever will? Or if it's already started counting?"
Christopher exhaled sharply. "That's the terrifying part. We don't know. That's why we need to track everything, even yours. Every post, every like, every comment."
Courtney shivered. "So I'm… a test case?"
"You're the anomaly," Christopher said. "And anomalies attract attention."
Courtney's phone pinged again. A notification from her last video: 1,005 likes.
She stared at it. "This is insane. It shouldn't be happening. I've already passed the number…"
Christopher's voice was soft, but firm. "And that's exactly why we need to be careful. Because if the pattern isn't consistent… then the rules aren't clear.
And if the rules aren't clear…" He trailed off, letting the thought hang.
Courtney's stomach sank. "Then what? Then it could hit me at any moment?"
Christopher nodded slowly. "Exactly."
Courtney gripped her phone like it was a ticking bomb, the glow of the screen reflecting in her wide eyes. The numbers kept climbing 1,001… 1,002… each one a little dagger of dread.
Every notification pinged like a warning, each vibration heavier than the last, each alert a reminder of something unseen, something waiting.
She realized, with a cold certainty, that she was already in the middle of the experiment. That the numbers, the engagement, the attention, they weren't just metrics anymore. They were a countdown.
'And the next "like" might be the one that counts,' she thought, heart hammering against her ribs.
Jenna sat a little apart, watching Courtney, her mind racing. 'She's in it now. She can't see it, but it's circling, calculating, waiting.
Every second matters. Every post, every interaction… it's drawing her closer.' Her hands curled into fists at her sides.
'And there's nothing I can do to stop it not yet. Not until we understand it. Not until we can fight it on its own terms.'
The room was quiet except for the faint hum of electronics and the relentless ping of notifications.
But in that silence, Jenna felt it, the invisible pressure of the pattern, deliberate and patient, closing in.
'This isn't just digital anymore,' Jenna thought, a chill creeping up her spine.
'It's alive.
Not in the way people understand life, but in the way things watch, learn, and wait. It's something else, something without a face or a body, yet it knows exactly how to reach us.
It slips through screens and numbers, hides inside attention and curiosity, and feeds on the moment we stop questioning it.'
Her throat tightened. 'We can't see it, can't name it, and that's the worst part. Because whatever it is… it already knows us.
Knows our habits, our fears, our need to be seen.
And it doesn't need to touch us to hurt us.'
'It just needs us to keep looking back.'