Blood Tyes

The morning light spilling into Chloe Sterling's flat in Chelmsford was perfect. She artfully arranged the avocado on the sourdough toast, adjusted a single slice of chilli, and took the photo. And then another twenty, from slightly different angles. Finally, satisfied, she selected the best one, slid the saturation up a touch, and crafted the caption.

"Starting the day right! ✨ A little bit of goodness to fuel a busy Tuesday. Remember to be kind to yourselves, lovelies! #HealthyLiving #EssexLife #GoodVibes"

She posted it and watched the first wave of likes roll in. Her entire life was a performance, and she was the sold-out star of her own show. As she was typing a reply to a comment, her smart speaker on the kitchen counter emitted a single, discordant piano note, then fell silent. Chloe frowned. "Sodding thing," she muttered, blaming the dodgy Wi-Fi.

That was the first crack in her perfect, curated world.

A few days later, the cracks began to spiderweb. An email pinged on her phone: Password Changed for your ASOS account. She hadn't used it in months. Must be a phishing scam, she told herself, deleting it. That evening, as she was watching television, the smart lights in her living room, usually set to a warm, cosy glow, flickered to a harsh, clinical blue for three seconds before reverting. She felt a shiver of unease, the feeling of a system glitching just beneath the surface of her life.

The real erosion began on Friday. A message from her best mate, Sarah, popped up on her screen.

"Not funny, Chlo. Why did you untag yourself from all my holiday pics?"

Chloe's blood went cold. She navigated to Sarah's profile. The photos from their trip to Ibiza were there, but her name was gone from every single one. Heart pounding, she was about to type a frantic reply when she refreshed the page. The tags were back, as if they had never been gone. She felt a dizzying sense of vertigo.

The next day, her mum called. "I got your email, love. Is everything alright? You sounded so… down."

"What email, Mum? I haven't emailed you."

"Don't be silly," her mum said, a worried edge to her voice. "The one this morning. About feeling overwhelmed. I was just worried about you."

Chloe stood in the middle of her living room, phone pressed to her ear, a silent scream building in her chest. She checked her sent folder. Nothing. There was nothing there.

She was being haunted. A ghost had slipped into the architecture of her life and was moving the furniture around. That night, convinced she was on the edge of a breakdown, she decided on a total digital detox. She switched off her laptop, powered down her mobile, and unplugged the smart speaker. For the first time in years, her flat was completely silent. She was safe. She was offline.

But it was too late. The ghost was already inside.

A floorboard creaked in the hallway. Chloe froze, every muscle tensed. It wasn't the building settling. It was a footstep. She turned, her eyes wide with terror, to see a figure standing in the doorway of her living room. Not a monster, not a hulking brute. Just a person of average height and build, dressed in plain, dark clothes, their face infuriatingly unremarkable. They were the human equivalent of a blank Word document.

She opened her mouth to scream, but the figure moved with an impossible quickness. She felt a sharp, cold prick in her neck. Her legs buckled. As her vision tunnelled to black, her last coherent thought wasn't of death, but of utter, helpless confusion. Who are you?

Chloe Sterling's consciousness ceased.

Her body was hidden away neatly in the bottom of a wardrobe. A few hours later, the mobile phone on the kitchen counter lit up. A message from Sarah.

"You still on for drinks tomorrow night? xx"

After a moment, the screen illuminated. Thumbs—not Chloe's—danced across the keyboard. A reply was crafted, flawless in its mimicry.

"OMG yes babe! Can't wait! Need a good gossip! xxx"

For the next twenty-four hours, Chloe Sterling lived on. An Instagram story of her breakfast from two days ago was posted with the caption "Lazy Sunday." A "Happy Birthday" message appeared on her cousin's Facebook wall. A bank transfer was made to pay her rent.

Then, the final stage began. In a quiet, methodical sequence, her life was dismantled. Social media profiles were permanently deactivated. Cloud storage accounts were wiped. Photo albums vanished into the ether.

One by one, the digital lights of Chloe Sterling's existence were switched off, until all that was left was a void. Her Instagram page, once a vibrant tapestry of a perfect life, now held only three, stark words.

User Not Found.