Sid's face went pale. His grip on the phone tightened, a shiver running through his whole body. Then he throwed it across the room. It bounced off a pillow and hit the wall.
"NOPE. Nope nope nope nope."
He threw the blanket off and sat upright again, pressing his hands to his face. His heart thudded against his ribs.
"This is too much. I can't breathe. I'm actually gonna turn into a meme. Like a real one. A Horny for the Horde meme. And that hashtag? F**k! Do they even know what that means?"
His face flushed red as the thought hit him.
"IT MEANS I HAVE A SEXUAL ATTRACTION TO A DEAD BODY!"
His phone buzzed again.
And again.
And again.
Ping. Ping. Pingpingpingpingping.
"Okay, no, no! I never even said that. I didn't say, Why is she hot? That's edited. That's not even my voice in full context. These editors are getting dangerous, clipping my stream and twisting it just to make me say that shit."
Growling, Sid stood, crossed the room, and snatched the phone back up. The edit was still running as he tapped the hashtag.
"Oh, this better not be what I think it is."
The hashtag opened, and Sid instantly regretted it. More edits, each worse than the last. One had him and the zombie bride standing at the altar in that ruined cathedral, zombies filling the pews and cheering as witnesses. And the worst part…
As the priest said: "You may kiss the bride."
His thumb hovered, his breathing uneven as the video played. The edit slowed down, every frame drawn out in agonizing detail. His real face had been cut out and pasted over the groom's body, stiff and unnatural, yet convincing enough to make his stomach twist.
Across from him, the zombie bride tilted her head beneath her ragged veil, swaying closer. Their faces inched toward each other, the background blurring into a soft-focus glow, twisted into a parody of a romance cutscene.
Sid's chest tightened. His pulse hammered in his throat, his body betraying him with every beat. It was as if he were truly there, standing in front of her, close enough to feel the cold breath from her half-rotten mouth.
For one suspended second, he didn't breathe. His heart pounded faster and faster, as though it wanted him to let the kiss happen.
At that moment, he snapped back. He shook his head hard, like he could throw the thought away.
"No! I'm not into that. I'm not. I don't care how good the edit is, it's disgusting!"
The subtitles on screen appeared in bold glowing letters:
"Sid wants the bride."
The post had already gathered millions of views, with thousands of likes and comments climbing past ten thousand. Some were tearing him apart in flames, while others were shamelessly shipping him with the zombie bride.
[Comment]: "Bro's career is DONE."
[Comment]: "Why do I kinda ship it tho???"
[Comment]: "LMAO #SidTheNecrophilia is trending!!"
Sid scrolled down, dreading what came next. It was worse. Big names were already reacting.
A famous Utuber burst out laughing so hard he fell out of his chair, tears streaming down his face. Another leaned smugly toward her camera, a sly grin spreading across her lips.
"Sid Wilder. The legend. The man who can kill anything… except a zombie bride. Guess we know why."
He slammed the back arrow, exiting the videos under the cursed hashtag.
"Unbelievable. Even the big creators?"
As he returned to his home page, the chaos only grew worse. His notifications were exploding. Mentions flooding in so fast his phone froze between swipes. DM requests stacked into the thousands.
Brands messaged him too. Some asking if he wanted to "lean into the meme" and sponsor zombie-themed merchandises. Others canceling deals quietly, their polite messages reading like death sentences:
"We've decided to go in a different direction for our campaign."
Sid threw himself back onto his bed, dragging a pillow over his face. His muffled voice cracked through the fabric.
"I need a break. I can't keep up with this… Being famous isn't worth this much bullshit!"
He held the pillow there until his chest ached, then pulled it away and stared at the ceiling.
"Why does everything go wrong when I'm at the peak of my career? Is this really how it ends? Will this stupid mess kill my whole streaming life?"
His eyes began to water.
"Everyone thinks being popular is the easy way to get rich. Sure, it can make your life good in an instant but it can be taken away just as fast. One wrong clip, one stupid edit, and your entire life's work gets buried under a hashtag. You don't even get the chance to fight back, because the internet already decided for you."
Sid groaned into the ceiling, his chest rising and falling as if every word pressed heavier on him.
"Even when I'm alone, I feel like people are watching me. Like I don't even own myself anymore."
He dragged his hands down his face, gripping his jaw tight.
"I hate this world. I hate everybody in it. If that accident never happened… I wouldn't have ended up here. I wouldn't have chosen this career. No streaming, no pretending, no begging strangers to throw money at me like I'm some circus act. No acting like a puppet just to keep them entertained."
His throat tightened. He lay there in silence, the glow of the phone screen reflecting in his eyes.
"This isn't living. This is… this is prison with an audience."
Sid lay still for a long moment, chest rising and falling with uneven breaths. Then, with a sharp exhale, he reached for his phone again.
His thumb shook as he swiped through the chaos of notifications, mentions, and flashing alerts. Every buzz made his skin crawl.
"No… screw this."
He backed out of his main profile. He scrolled down, deeper into the settings. Quickly tapped Log Out. The screen blinked back to the login page. For the first time in years, he typed in the old username.
SIDWILDRUNS