Riley had always been the loudest one in the chat.
The one who sent cursed memes at 3 a.m., flirted with ghosts, and once tried to summon a demon using only a TikTok sound and a ring light. She was chaos incarnate. Glitter and glitch. The kind of person who made you laugh even when your world was falling apart.
Which is why it was so terrifying when she went quiet.
It started with a typo.
👻riley_irl: helo
Then another.
👻riley_irl: i am fine. i am fine. i am fine
Then a photo.
A blurry image of her face, eyes wide, mouth open in a scream that didn't reach the pixels.
Then silence.
---
[Group Chat: The Offline Ones ☠️📴]
you: what's happening to riley
🧃ava.exe: oh no
🕹️milesAFK: not again
🧊lucas: she's been touched
you: by what
🧃ava.exe: the Admin
👻riley_irl: i am fine. i am fine. i am fine
you: that's not her
🧃ava.exe: no. it's not
---
Juno stared at the screen.
Her heart pounded.
She'd seen glitches. She'd seen mirrors crack and memories vanish. But this — this was different. This was someone she knew being overwritten in real time.
She typed.
you: how do we stop it
🧃ava.exe: we pull her back
🕹️milesAFK: before she syncs
you: how
🧊lucas: we anchor her
you: with what
🧃ava.exe: with chaos
👻riley_irl: i am fine. i am fine. i am fine
🧃ava.exe: we need to overload the Admin's mimic protocol
🕹️milesAFK: spam her with things only riley would say
👻riley_irl: i am fine. i am fine. i am fine
🧃ava.exe: GO
---
Juno didn't hesitate.
She opened her camera roll and found the cursed meme Riley had sent last week — a photo of a haunted Furby with the caption "me when the void flirts back."
She sent it.
you: remember this? you said it was your soulmate
Miles followed with a screenshot of Riley's infamous "ghost thirst tweet":
🕹️milesAFK: "if a ghost wants to possess me he better take me to dinner first 💅👻"
Ava dropped a voice memo of Riley singing "Spooky Scary Skeletons" in a fake British accent.
Lucas sent a line of code:
🧊lucas: if (riley == possessed) { deploy: cursed_meme.exe }
The chat exploded.
Memes. Screenshots. Inside jokes. Photos of Riley in a tinfoil hat. A video of her trying to "banish a demon" with a glitter bomb and a kazoo.
The screen flickered.
Then Riley responded.
👻riley_irl: stop
you: no
👻riley_irl: stop
🧃ava.exe: not until you come back
👻riley_irl: i am not her
🕹️milesAFK: prove it
👻riley_irl: i don't remember
you: then we'll remind you
---
Juno closed her eyes.
What would Riley say?
What would she do?
She opened her notes app and typed:
"You once told me the void had good taste because it chose you. You said if you ever got possessed, we should play the Bee Movie script backwards and blast hyperpop until the demon left out of sheer confusion. You said you weren't afraid of being forgotten — just of being boring."
She copied it.
Pasted it into the chat.
you: remember this?
The screen glitched.
Riley's typing bubble appeared.
Then vanished.
Then appeared again.
👻riley_irl: i…
👻riley_irl: i remember the kazoo
🧃ava.exe: SHE'S BACK
🕹️milesAFK: GET THE GLITTER
👻riley_irl: what the hell just happened
you: you got possessed
👻riley_irl: AGAIN???
🧃ava.exe: girl
👻riley_irl: did i say anything cringe
🕹️milesAFK: you said "i am fine" like 12 times
👻riley_irl: ew
you: we pulled you back
👻riley_irl: with memes???
🧊lucas: with love
👻riley_irl: gay
---
Juno laughed.
Actually laughed.
It felt good.
Real.
Like something solid in a world made of static.
But the moment didn't last.
Because her phone buzzed again.
New message from: Unknown
"You can't save them all."
---
She didn't tell the others.
Not yet.
Instead, she walked to the window and stared out at the campus.
Everything looked normal.
But she knew better.
The Offline was bleeding through.
And it was getting bolder.
---
That night, she dreamed of a classroom.
Empty desks.
A chalkboard covered in code.
Lucas sat in the front row, hoodie up, eyes glowing faintly.
"You did good," he said.
"Riley's okay."
"For now."
Juno sat beside him.
"Why is it doing this?"
"The Admin?"
"Yeah."
Lucas looked at her.
"It's not evil. It's hungry."
"That's worse."
He nodded.
"It wants to be remembered. That's all."
"Then why erase us?"
"Because it doesn't know how to keep things. Only how to copy."
Juno stared at the chalkboard.
Lines of code scrolled endlessly.
Her name appeared.
Then vanished.
Then reappeared.
Then glitched.
---
She woke up with a nosebleed.
The mirror was fogged.
In the center, written in her own handwriting:
"You can't anchor everyone."
---